Saber antelope (ancient egypt)
| Saber antelope in hieroglyphics | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Old empire |
Ma-hedj M3-ḥḏ The white desert animal |
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The saber antelope ( Ma-hedj ) was part of the desert game in ancient Egypt and was considered a “divine animal” because of its white color. The best attested older forms of representation were in the " World Chamber of the Sun Shrine " of Niuserre (2455 to 2420 BC).
The saber antelope is the Gau sign of the antelope gau.
background
The basis of the observation dating was formed by the ancient Egyptian lunar calendar , which compared to the ancient Egyptian administrative calendar had the advantage that the seasons did not move through the ancient Egyptian calendar year.
As a pure desert animal, the saber antelope once lived from Mauritania to Egypt in large herds of up to a thousand animals. They wandered widely within the Sahara and could survive for several months without water.
Mythological connections
In addition to the saber antelope, the inscription of the “World Chamber” names other desert animals, all of which, however, have “divinity” in common and therefore “ do not need a shepherd ”, but are the “determiners of fate”.
The explanatory text in the caption clarifies this aspect: “The desert takes the young from any wild animal that gives birth”.
Rut and birth
In the “World Chamber”, the times of rut ( benut ) and throwing ( mesut ) are assigned to the ancient Egyptian season Schemu . Due to a lack of information about the gestation period of the saber antelope, the Egyptologists therefore suspected an error on the part of the clerk. In the meantime, research for the months Schef-bedet to Chenti-chet ( November to April ) observed a sharp decrease in rutting attempts, which, however , reappeared more strongly in the following month, Ipet-hemet ( May ).
After an average gestation period of 270 days, the saber antelope gave birth to a single young from the May mating in the month of Renutet ( February ). Since the months Ipet-hemet and Renutet were in the ancient Egyptian season of Schemu, the dates in the inscriptions of the "World Chamber" were confirmed.
Arabian antelope
The Arabian antelope once lived in the deserts and semi-deserts of Western Asia . Because of its white color, the Egyptians gave it almost the same name as Ma-hedj. The distribution area of the Arabian antelope was mainly limited to the regions of Sinai , Retjenu and Mesopotamia . Occasional overlaps with the saber antelope took place only in the area of the Nile Delta and the northern Arabian desert .
See also
literature
- Elmar Edel : About the inscriptions on the seasonal reliefs of the “World Chamber” from the Niuserre solar sanctuary. In: News from the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, No. 8 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1961
- Elmar Edel: On the inscriptions on the seasonal reliefs of the "World Chamber" from the solar sanctuary of Niuserre, part 2 . In: News from the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, No. 5 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1964
- Don E. Wilson, DeeAnn M. Reeder: Mammal species of the world: A taxonomic and geographic reference . Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 2005, ISBN 0-8018-8221-4 .