Talk:Nekhbet

Vulture species

Wilkinson says Nekhbet is depicted as a Sociable Vulture, Vultur auricularis. I looked around online, and it seems likely that this is a really out-of-date name for the lappet-faced vulture, Torgos tracheliotos. The nineteenth-century descriptions of Vultur auricularis seem to match the lappet-faced, as do the French and German common names and the modern range (Wilkinson says Vultur auricularis is still common in Upper Egypt, and our article says the lappet-faced still lives in southeastern Egypt, which is the upper Nile Valley). But I'm not absolutely sure about the identification. I deleted some dubious stuff from the article just now, including the claim that Nekhbet is a Griffon Vulture, but I decided to just say "a vulture" rather than the lappet-faced vulture. More information would be appreciated. A. Parrot (talk) 21:10, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi, the claim that Nekhbet is a Griffon Vulture was by me. I don't have a source, it was just my reasoning. The way Nekhbet is most often depicted (long neck, humped back), I find it obvious that her image isn't patterned after the Egyptian Vulture. That leaves us with lappet-faced vulture and griffon vulture. Colored pictures show Nekhbet with white head and neck, so Wilkinson's identification of the species seems strange to me. Clearly a griffon vulture :). But seriously, I think we need an ornithologist to identify the species rather than an Egyptologist. Peter Mundy's Vultures of Africa might be a good start. I'm afraid I don't have access to it though. I'm content with just "a vulture" for now.--WANAX (talk) 00:37, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

I just found a source, Between Heaven and Earth: Birds in Ancient Egypt. Not ornithological, but it's published by the mighty University of Chicago Oriental Institute, so its Egyptological credentials are excellent. It says (p. 138) that Nekhbet was "probably a griffon vulture". It may not make sense to identify a species with more certainty than that, because I don't think animals in divine iconography were necessarily very specific. If one looks closely at the features of Egyptian jackal gods, for example, they look like some sort of dog-jackal hybrid. And the book on birds says (p. 174), when discussing the Horus falcon, "Features from several varieties of large falcons were seemingly selected and gathered so as to form a composite design, later adopted by generations of scribes and artists. The possible candidates that served as models to the Egyptian artists are the hobby (Falco subbuteo), lanner (F. biarmicus), peregrine (F. peregrinus), and Eleanora’s (F. eleonorae) falcons", though a footnote to that sentence points out that one of the contributors to the book believes Horus was specifically a lanner. A. Parrot (talk) 00:06, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Oh, and further—the contributor who argues in favor of the lanner (Arielle P. Kozloff) also makes a case for the lappet-faced vulture. She says (pp. 61–62):

Alan H. Gardiner identified the hieroglyph signifying mw.t as a representation of the griffon vulture (Gyps fulvus), and possibly in some or several instances it is exactly that. During the late Eighteenth Dynasty, however, the vulture in question was a bird of a different feather, namely the lappet-faced vulture (Torgos tracheliotos), also known as the Nubian vulture (fig. 5.4). The lappet-faced vulture is the bird painted on the ceiling of Amenhotep III’s bedroom at Malkata (fig. 5.5). This is an enormous, dark bird with a white under-wing stripe at its leading edge, white leggings, and mottled brown and white feathering on the breast. Its head and neck are bare with loose, lappeted skin (Tarboton et al. 1990, pp. 28–29, 196; Williams and Arlott 1980, p. 41, pl. 5). During mating season the skin turns bright red, but otherwise it has more of a grayish hue, and the bird often appears to wear a gray skullcap at the back of its head, like the vultures on Amenhotep’s ceiling. The loose skin at the back of the head and down the neck is shown in detailed folds on the vulture pectoral from the treasure of Amenhotep III’s grandson, Tutankhamun (fig. 5.6). The distinct, dark blue beak tip of Tutankhamun’s vulture is characteristic of the lappet-faced vulture. By contrast with the lappet-faced, the griffon vulture’s head and neck are covered with fluffy white down and have a smooth appearance with no layering…"

Should I cite that in the article? A. Parrot (talk) 00:15, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Good find! Go ahead and cite it, I would say.--WANAX (talk) 09:19, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Photo

Depiction Jakobsarber (talk) 22:28, 27 July 2022 (UTC)