rough-and-ready fashion, Mariette used gunpowder to open the lid.
Auguste Mariette devoted the rest of his life to Egyptology and became the countryâs first âconservator of monuments.â Among other things, he developed the plot for Verdiâs opera Aida
,
first performed in Cairo, and supervised the scenery with its Ancient Egyptian themes.
Nevertheless, at the same time, tomb paintings depict workers butchering animals and herding them on noble estates. Cattle worked and were slaughtered in thoroughly pragmatic ways. It was inevitable that beef would become an important food source in a society where the state paid noble and commoner alike in rations and kind, not with currency. The Pyramids of Giza, erected at vast expense by the pharaoh Khufu and his successors after 2550 BCE , required veritable armies of laborers, who had to be housed and fed. One pyramid builderâs settlement is estimated to have required more than eighteen hundred kilograms (thirty-six hundred pounds) of meat dailyâfrom cattle, sheep, and goats. 4 Only about half the protein for the ten thousand workers who lived in the settlement for the pharaoh Menkaureâs pyramid came from fish, beans, and other nonmeat sources. One estimate has it that about 11 cattle and 37 sheep or goats were butchered daily. To maintain this slaughter level would have required herds of 21,900 cattle and 54,750 goats and sheep. To graze these animals would have required about 400 square kilometers (154 square miles) of pasture, probably in the fertile Nile Delta. Farm animals were an integral part of the Ancient Egyptian economy, used for draft, as rations, and for their milk and other by-products. Scribes counted herds and flocks, whose members were as much commodities as dried fish and grain.
Palace Monopolies and Bull Leaping
In Greece, domestic cattle arrived from Anatolia: beasts with long, lyre-shaped horns, much prized as drinking vessels. Herds were small; there was plenty of land to go around; oxen were important for hauling plows. This was low-intensity cattle herding, based mainly on mountain pastures where abundant forage could be found. By 1700 BCE , however, cattle had assumed great importance in the Minoan civilization of Crete, where they played an important role in both economic and symbolic life. Minoan civilization revolved around a network of palaces, the most elaborate being Knossos, near the modern city of Heraklion, a sprawling complex of courtyards, shrines, workshops, storehouses, and residential quarters inhabited by between thirteen thousand and seventeen thousand people. 5
Knossos prospered on wool and textiles, so much so that its flocks may have numbered as many as a hundred thousand sheep, grazing on 200,000 hectares (494,000 acres) or more of pasture. Clay tablets inscribed with Linear B script tell us much about the Minoan economy. The tablets tell us that cowherds gave individual beasts names such as
aiwolos
, ânimble,â or
kelainos
, âblack.â Almost invariably, palace tablets inventory cattle when they were sent out from Knossos. Some
we-ka-ta
, âworking oxen,â left Knossos for dependent settlements and other palaces, sent in pairs for work at the plow. But most beasts departed alone, high-value goods perhaps destined for sacrifice. Such a present had great value, not only in ritual terms, but also as a source of meat, hide, and other by-products. It may be no coincidence that copper ingots were shaped like ox hides when traded, perhaps a symbolic indication of the beastsâ value.
Almost all Minoan cattle herding appears to have been under tight palace control, a monopoly that formed part of an elaborate network of connections with other palaces and communities. The wealth implied by cattle allowed rulers to assert political authority by means of providing sacrificial beasts that were ancient symbols of power and by demonstrating a regal largesse that cemented domination over
Auguste Mariette devoted the rest of his life to Egyptology and became the countryâs first âconservator of monuments.â Among other things, he developed the plot for Verdiâs opera Aida
,
first performed in Cairo, and supervised the scenery with its Ancient Egyptian themes.
Nevertheless, at the same time, tomb paintings depict workers butchering animals and herding them on noble estates. Cattle worked and were slaughtered in thoroughly pragmatic ways. It was inevitable that beef would become an important food source in a society where the state paid noble and commoner alike in rations and kind, not with currency. The Pyramids of Giza, erected at vast expense by the pharaoh Khufu and his successors after 2550 BCE , required veritable armies of laborers, who had to be housed and fed. One pyramid builderâs settlement is estimated to have required more than eighteen hundred kilograms (thirty-six hundred pounds) of meat dailyâfrom cattle, sheep, and goats. 4 Only about half the protein for the ten thousand workers who lived in the settlement for the pharaoh Menkaureâs pyramid came from fish, beans, and other nonmeat sources. One estimate has it that about 11 cattle and 37 sheep or goats were butchered daily. To maintain this slaughter level would have required herds of 21,900 cattle and 54,750 goats and sheep. To graze these animals would have required about 400 square kilometers (154 square miles) of pasture, probably in the fertile Nile Delta. Farm animals were an integral part of the Ancient Egyptian economy, used for draft, as rations, and for their milk and other by-products. Scribes counted herds and flocks, whose members were as much commodities as dried fish and grain.
Palace Monopolies and Bull Leaping
In Greece, domestic cattle arrived from Anatolia: beasts with long, lyre-shaped horns, much prized as drinking vessels. Herds were small; there was plenty of land to go around; oxen were important for hauling plows. This was low-intensity cattle herding, based mainly on mountain pastures where abundant forage could be found. By 1700 BCE , however, cattle had assumed great importance in the Minoan civilization of Crete, where they played an important role in both economic and symbolic life. Minoan civilization revolved around a network of palaces, the most elaborate being Knossos, near the modern city of Heraklion, a sprawling complex of courtyards, shrines, workshops, storehouses, and residential quarters inhabited by between thirteen thousand and seventeen thousand people. 5
Knossos prospered on wool and textiles, so much so that its flocks may have numbered as many as a hundred thousand sheep, grazing on 200,000 hectares (494,000 acres) or more of pasture. Clay tablets inscribed with Linear B script tell us much about the Minoan economy. The tablets tell us that cowherds gave individual beasts names such as
aiwolos
, ânimble,â or
kelainos
, âblack.â Almost invariably, palace tablets inventory cattle when they were sent out from Knossos. Some
we-ka-ta
, âworking oxen,â left Knossos for dependent settlements and other palaces, sent in pairs for work at the plow. But most beasts departed alone, high-value goods perhaps destined for sacrifice. Such a present had great value, not only in ritual terms, but also as a source of meat, hide, and other by-products. It may be no coincidence that copper ingots were shaped like ox hides when traded, perhaps a symbolic indication of the beastsâ value.
Almost all Minoan cattle herding appears to have been under tight palace control, a monopoly that formed part of an elaborate network of connections with other palaces and communities. The wealth implied by cattle allowed rulers to assert political authority by means of providing sacrificial beasts that were ancient symbols of power and by demonstrating a regal largesse that cemented domination over
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