Hippopotamus

Riverine mammal that flourished in Egypt until well into Dynastic times. The date of its disappearance in Egypt is debatable, but it was certainly still present during the New Kingdom (1550-1069 nc). lake the crocodile, the male hippopotamus was regarded as a nuisance and a doer of evil, because it often trampled and devoured crops; a New Kingdom school text makes this clear: ‘Do you not recall the fate of the farmer w'hen the har esl is registered? 'I'he worm has taken half the grain, the hippopotamus has devoured the rest...’ It was probably for this reason that hippopotamus hunts were organized as early as the prehistoric period. Many of the mastaba tombs of the Old Kingdom, such as that of the 5th-Dynasty official I'v at Saqqara (no. 60), included depictions of the spearing of hippopotami.

Faience statuette of a hippopolanins, I2th-I3th Dynasties, It. 9.2 cm. (!¦:. )

Such hunts might have given rise to a roval ceremonv in which the king's ritual killing ofa liippopotamus was svmbolic of the overthrow of evil, as in the myth of jiorls and si'.Tii. In this mvlh, llorus was often portraved in the act of harpooning Seth as a hippopotamus (although in other contexts Seth was depicted as a crocodile, an ass or a typhonian animal). This scene was fretjuentlv repeated on the walls of temples, most notably that of llorus at KDFL, as well as in tomb scenes and in the form of royal funerary statuettes such as those showing Tutankhamiin with his harpoon and coils of rope.

However, the female hippopotamus had a beneficent aspect, in the form of T. wvr. RrT (‘the great [female] one’), the pregnant hippopotamus-goddess who was among the most popular of the household gods, and particularlv associated with women in childhirth. In Pl. ttarch's version of the myth of IIoi'us and Seth, Tawerct was the consort of Seth, who deserted him for Homs.

During the Middle Kingdom (2055-1650 BC), large numbers of blue faience figurines of hippopotami were created, probably for funerary use, although their popularit}’ with art collectors is such that few have been obtained from archaeological excavation, therefore their provenances are poorly known. It is usuallv assumed, however, that these statuettes, whose bodies are frequently decorated with depictions of vegetation, were associated with fertilit}' and the regenerative effect of the Nile.

T. S. vvF.-Sotn'RUKRGii, On Egypiian represenUiti(»is ofhippopntaiiuis hunting as a religions motive (Uppsala, 1953).

II. Kkks, ‘Das “Fest der Weis. sen” und die Stadt. S-;;=’.Z-/5 83 (1958). 127-9.

A. Bi'iiiRtAN.', Das hiilpferd in ilcr J osldlungsmell dcr Alien Agypten i (I'Vankfurt, 1989).