Tracing the Origins of the Ancient Egyptian Cattle Cult
By Michael Brass
A Delta Man in Yebu, ed. Eyma, A.K. and Bennett, C.J. (Universal-Publishers, 2003)
Introduction: Studies of ancient Egyptian religion have examined texts for evidence of cattle worship, but the picture given by the texts is incomplete. Mortuary patterns, ceremonial buildings, grave goods, ceramics and other remains also contain evidence of cattle worship and underline its importance to early Egypt. The recently discovered cattle tumuli at Nabta Playa in the Western Desert are identified here as a potential source of evidence on the origins of cattle worship in the ancient Egyptian belief system.
Throughout the past 250,000 years, North-East Africa has known alternating periods of dry (arid) and moist (pluvial) climatic conditions. During the rainy periods, the eastern Sahara was covered with grassy plains inhabited by wild herd animals, including wild cattle, Bos primigenius. Whenever the climate changed to arid, only pools and oases remained and the archaeological and faunal visibility of both humans and herds becomes very scarce.
Click here to read this article from The Antiquity of Man
