Vulture

The Vulture in Ancient Egypt


 * Egyptian Name:**

//Neret//

or
 * Hieroglyphics:**

The Egyptian Vulture, the Bearded Vulture, the Lappet-faced Vulture, and the Griffon Vulture were all well-known to the ancient Egyptians - the Griffon was the largest bird of prey that the Egyptians knew. The vulture was credited with foresight – it was recorded that vultures followed men into battle, as if knowing that they would be slain. Because of its immense size and its ability to soar high up in the sky, the vulture was thought to be close to the gods - sometimes the sky itself was thought of as a great vulture.

Ancient Egyptian belief held that there were no male vultures (vultures often have no significant markings differing between the female and the male of the species.) They believed that the bird was conceived with the wind, or that it “willed itself into being.” In fact, early Christian fathers cited the example of the vulture mothers to defend the doctrine of virgin birth.

The Egyptians considered the vulture to be an excellent mother, and its wide wingspan was seen as all-encompassing and providing a protective cover to its infants. The hieroglyphic //mki// – “to protect” - is the picture of a vulture sheltering her young with her wings. Myths about the vulture said that when her young are hungry and the land barren, she makes the supreme sacrifice by tearing her own flesh and plucking at her breast, feeding her fledglings on drops of her own blood.

Known as the “Pharaoh’s Hen,” the vulture was strongly associated with royal women, and statues of queens were shown being embraced from behind by a great vulture, similar to how in statuary pharaohs were embraced by a falcon. The hieroglyphic //pss// – “to spread oneself over someone in protection” - is the image of an outstretched wing. Queens wore the golden Vulture Headdress to symbolize their role as the great mothers of Egypt.The vulture hieroglyphic was used in words such as “mother,” “prosperous,” “grandmother,” and “ruler.” The image of the vulture in jewelry was restricted to the king's mother and the king's wife.

To the ancient Egyptians, the vulture personified resurrection in the underworld; a predatory bird who takes into its body dead flesh and spins out new life when she lays her eggs. Literally, the word “sarcophagus” means “sacred eating.” In Neolithic times it was a common practice to expose dead bodies to carrion birds, so that the birds would carry the deceased up to the heavenly realm.

On the Stela of Vultures from Catal Huyuk, 7th century B.C.E., dead bodies are carried off by vultures to be reborn. A passage from the Book of Ani says that the first gate of the Duat was guarded by vulture s, whose “tearing beaks” could admit the dead to the place whence they rose again.

Nekhbet, the patron of Upper Egypt, was represented as a white vulture, always seen on the front of the pharaoh’s crown. The priestesses of Nekhbet were called //muu// (mothers), and wore robes of vulture feathers when escorting a dead man to his tomb. Vulture plumes were used in funeral rites, four fixed to each corner of the coffin. Coffins have been found painted with a feather (//shuty//) pattern which covers much of the lid, in the form of two great vulture wings wrapped around the body from the shoulders to the feet.

The protective goddess Mut was also pictured as a vulture. Gold, ivory, copper, wood, bone, faience, and glass vulture amulets, often grasping the protective Shen Ring in their claws, were worn by royalty and buried with the dead. Mummified vultures have been found at Thebes.

The Birds of Prey of Ancient Egypt