Volume 7 (2024)

First page of the paper.

The Hippopotamus and the Maned River Horse: Descriptions of an Egyptian Wetland Mammal in Ancient Hellenic and Roman Texts

de Klerk, Pim; Joosten, Hans

Abstract:

The hippopotamus is one of the most prominent wetland animals of the ancient Nile, where it roamed along the river. Whereas there is a large and accurate ancient Egyptian cultural record, the descriptions of hippo-potamuses in Hellenistic and Roman texts are all somewhat inaccurate, implying that caution is needed when interpreting ancient texts for palaeoenvironmental reconstructions. In this paper various Hellenistic and Ro-man descriptions of hippopotamuses are presented and compared with the actual biology of the animal and with the ancient Egyptian cultural records.

Citation:

de Klerk, P., Joosten, H. 2024. «The Hippopotamus and the Maned River Horse: Descriptions of an Egyptian Wetland Mammal in Ancient Hellenic and Roman Texts », JHIE 7: 119–132

DOI:

10.5281/zenodo.15301552

Language: en

Submitted on 2024-10-10; accepted on 2024-12-12

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