CHAPTER XXV 



ABSTENTION FROM FISH 



The statement, " the Nile contains all sorts and kinds of fish," ^ 

 must in an age of scientific enumeration be taken with several 

 grains of salt. The total for the whole country, riverine and 

 marsh, reaches but seventy-one species, of which only two, 

 Mormurops anguillaris and Haplochilus schcellen, are peculiar 

 to Egypt. 2 A score or so find representation in ancient times ; 

 but identification is far from easy, and is in some cases, e.g. 

 the Mullets, only possible generically. 



In scenes of the return of Hatshepsu's expedition from the 

 land of Punt the drawings of the fishes are so characteristic 

 that Prof. Doenitz has been enabled to determine their species, 

 and identify them as belonging to the Red Sea. The powers 

 of observation in the artists accompanying the ships demon- 

 strate careful training. But I cannot, since the eyes of the 

 Solea are similar, endorse the eulogism bestowed in the case 

 of a sole, unless it were a freak, " one eye is drawn larger 

 than the other, showing a fine observation of Nature ! " ^ 



The priests, the King, and the commonalty in some cases 

 eschewed fish. 



Priestly abstention was by no means uncommon, as 

 some of the temples of Poseidon * demonstrate. In Egypt 

 the observance was strict, at Askalon the reverse, Plutarch, ^ 



^ Diodorus Siculus, I. 36. 



* Cf. G. A. Boulenger, Fishes of the Nile (London, 1907), and Pierre Montet, 

 Les Poissons employes dans I'Ecrihire Hieroglyphique. Bulletin de I'lnstitut 

 Fran^ais d'Archeolcgie Orientale. Tome XL, 1913. 



' Egypt, Pt. IL p. 226. Baedeker, Leipsic, 1892. 



* Antea, p. 201. 



* De Iside el Osiride, c. 8. 



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