DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49270#0299
212
O. Bates
Herodotus explicitly informs us that fish, whether from the Nile or from the sea,
were strictly tabooed to the Egyptian priests43 — a prohibition which Pythagoras was
reputed to have endorsed.44 Even when — either with a view of ensuring a good “fish
harvest”, or their own well-being, for the ensuing twelvemonth — all Egyptians were
constrained, on the ninth day of the new year, to eat fried fish before their house doors,
the priests did not partake of the forbidden food, but burned their fish.45 In this careful
abstention I believe we see the later aspect of a taboo once universal among the class
from which the priests were largely drawn: one more instance, in other words, of the
survival among a priesthood of a prohibition which has become a “dead letter” for the
laity. That even the noblest among the latter, long before the days of Plutarch or of
Herodotus, had lost their aversion to fish, is not to be doubted. That the Delta princes
were fish eaters has already been remarked; the large donations to the temples of fish,
fresh or cured, mentioned by the Papyrus Harris was for the use of all the laity attend-
ing the festivals;46 and when we find models of fish buried in XIX Dynasty foundation
deposits47 along with models of fowl, of haunches of beef, etc., the fact that fish are thus
included with the other food surrogates points to their having become by that time an
almost universal article of diet.
However slightly the abstention of the nobility of the Old Kingdom, and of the priest-
hood in later times, may have affected the economic aspects of Egyptian fishing as a
whole, it is safe to say that in the Graeco-Roman period, and even before, popular religion
appreciably restricted the consumption of certain fish in particular localities.
In the classical period several fish were venerated in Egypt —- notably those three
which were anciently known as the oxyrhynchus, the phagrus, and the lepidotus. The
them in connection with the O. K. prejudice under discussion. I do not do so since the signs in question appear to
be merely phonetic determinatives; cf. P. Montet, ‘Les poissons employes dans 1’ecriture hieroglyphique’ (Bull, de
1’Inst. franq. d’archeol. orient., vol. 11, fasc. 1) p. 48. It would, as a local survival of the old prejudice, perhaps be more
legitimate to cite a ceremony annually performed at Edfu. The Edfu festival calendar contains the following pas-
sage — “fish are thrown on the ground and all the priests hack and hew them with knives, saying: ‘Cut ye wounds
on your bodies, kill ye one another; Re triumphs over his enemies, Horus of Edfu triumphs over all evil ones.’”
The meaning of this ceremony, as the text assures us, is to compass the destruction of the enemies of the gods and
of the king; A. Erman, A handbook of Egyptian religion, trans. A. S. Griffith, London, 1907, p. 216. As far as I
can judge, the magico-medical use of fish, of which the Hearst Papyrus and the Ebers Papyrus afford a number of
examples, seems to bear neither in one direction nor the other with regard to this question.
43 Herodotus, II, 37; cf. Clemens Alexandrinus, ed. J.-P. Migne, Paris, 1857, vol. 2, col. 447, Stromat., VII,
p. 305 Sylb. Herodotus states that only two fish were actually venerated in Egypt, viz., the lepidotus and the eel;
Ibid., II, 72.
44 Plutarch, ed. D. Wyttenbach, Oxford, 1795-1830, vol. 3, pt. 2, p. 1007, Symposium, VIII, Quaest. 8, ii.
45 Plutarch, De Iside et Osiricle, § 7. Cf. Herodotus, loc. cit.
46 W. M. F. Petrie, ‘Egyptian festivals and Nile shrines’ (Brit. Sch. of Arch, in Egypt; Histor. studies; Lon-
don, 1911) p. 2; 3.
47 Idem, Six temples at Thebes, London, 1897, pl. 16, fig. 15, fish from foundation deposit of Tausert;
cf. Ibid., pl. 18, foundation deposit of Siptah.
O. Bates
Herodotus explicitly informs us that fish, whether from the Nile or from the sea,
were strictly tabooed to the Egyptian priests43 — a prohibition which Pythagoras was
reputed to have endorsed.44 Even when — either with a view of ensuring a good “fish
harvest”, or their own well-being, for the ensuing twelvemonth — all Egyptians were
constrained, on the ninth day of the new year, to eat fried fish before their house doors,
the priests did not partake of the forbidden food, but burned their fish.45 In this careful
abstention I believe we see the later aspect of a taboo once universal among the class
from which the priests were largely drawn: one more instance, in other words, of the
survival among a priesthood of a prohibition which has become a “dead letter” for the
laity. That even the noblest among the latter, long before the days of Plutarch or of
Herodotus, had lost their aversion to fish, is not to be doubted. That the Delta princes
were fish eaters has already been remarked; the large donations to the temples of fish,
fresh or cured, mentioned by the Papyrus Harris was for the use of all the laity attend-
ing the festivals;46 and when we find models of fish buried in XIX Dynasty foundation
deposits47 along with models of fowl, of haunches of beef, etc., the fact that fish are thus
included with the other food surrogates points to their having become by that time an
almost universal article of diet.
However slightly the abstention of the nobility of the Old Kingdom, and of the priest-
hood in later times, may have affected the economic aspects of Egyptian fishing as a
whole, it is safe to say that in the Graeco-Roman period, and even before, popular religion
appreciably restricted the consumption of certain fish in particular localities.
In the classical period several fish were venerated in Egypt —- notably those three
which were anciently known as the oxyrhynchus, the phagrus, and the lepidotus. The
them in connection with the O. K. prejudice under discussion. I do not do so since the signs in question appear to
be merely phonetic determinatives; cf. P. Montet, ‘Les poissons employes dans 1’ecriture hieroglyphique’ (Bull, de
1’Inst. franq. d’archeol. orient., vol. 11, fasc. 1) p. 48. It would, as a local survival of the old prejudice, perhaps be more
legitimate to cite a ceremony annually performed at Edfu. The Edfu festival calendar contains the following pas-
sage — “fish are thrown on the ground and all the priests hack and hew them with knives, saying: ‘Cut ye wounds
on your bodies, kill ye one another; Re triumphs over his enemies, Horus of Edfu triumphs over all evil ones.’”
The meaning of this ceremony, as the text assures us, is to compass the destruction of the enemies of the gods and
of the king; A. Erman, A handbook of Egyptian religion, trans. A. S. Griffith, London, 1907, p. 216. As far as I
can judge, the magico-medical use of fish, of which the Hearst Papyrus and the Ebers Papyrus afford a number of
examples, seems to bear neither in one direction nor the other with regard to this question.
43 Herodotus, II, 37; cf. Clemens Alexandrinus, ed. J.-P. Migne, Paris, 1857, vol. 2, col. 447, Stromat., VII,
p. 305 Sylb. Herodotus states that only two fish were actually venerated in Egypt, viz., the lepidotus and the eel;
Ibid., II, 72.
44 Plutarch, ed. D. Wyttenbach, Oxford, 1795-1830, vol. 3, pt. 2, p. 1007, Symposium, VIII, Quaest. 8, ii.
45 Plutarch, De Iside et Osiricle, § 7. Cf. Herodotus, loc. cit.
46 W. M. F. Petrie, ‘Egyptian festivals and Nile shrines’ (Brit. Sch. of Arch, in Egypt; Histor. studies; Lon-
don, 1911) p. 2; 3.
47 Idem, Six temples at Thebes, London, 1897, pl. 16, fig. 15, fish from foundation deposit of Tausert;
cf. Ibid., pl. 18, foundation deposit of Siptah.