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Cattle egrets and Bustards in Greek Art

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2015

Sylvia Benton
Sylvia Benton
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Oxford
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Extract

There is a bird perched on the neck of a bull on a Late Bronze Age krater from Enkomi in the British Museum (plate I 1). It has long legs and a long neck, and it is much larger than any of the crow tribe, so often seen on cattle. Its long pointed bill is fixed on a point in the bull's neck probably removing a tick or something of the sort. The operation is painful and the bull tosses his head. On the other side of the vase the bird has lost his footing but still keeps the grip of his bill on the neck of the bull (plate I 2). That daggerlike bill is longer than the one on the other side of the vase. We must therefore suppose that the bill in the earlier scene has been inserted into the bull's neck to a considerable depth. No wonder the bull is plunging about to dislodge the operator.

A bird with long neck, long legs, and long beak can only be a marsh bird, and as it is hunting for insects on the neck of a bull, it can only be a Cattle Egret (plate I 4.), though its body bears some resemblance to the bodies of birds which are probably meant for geese or swans; its beak is more formidable. Presumably this insect-hunting bird is not a deity revealing him or herself; but perhaps Cypriots are more secular than Mycenaeans.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 81 , November 1961 , pp. 44 - 55
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1961

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References

1 BM C416. CVA i pl. 10. 7.

2 The cattle egret is called the Tikkie Bird in Africa: it is more usual for birds to explore the backs of beasts.

See the photographs of a flock, and a bird in Spain in plate I 3, 4. I am indebted to Mr E. Hoskings for permission to use these photographs, and for that in plate III 2. For other photographs and permission to use them I have to thank the authorities of the British Museum, the Ashmolean Museum, the Pitt-Rivers Museum, the Cyprus Museum, the Agora and the German Institute in Athens. The drawings in plates II 6, IV 6 are from Birds in Cyprus, by kind permission of Mr and Mrs Bannerman and the London Zoological Society; that in plate IV 5 from A Field Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe (R. Peterson and others). I have to thank Prof. Ashmole and Mr Philip Ashmole for reading this paper.

3 E.g. C412, CVA London i pl. 10. 10. Note the short legs, the dark necks, and short beaks.

4 Cf. C372, CVA London i pl. 9. 4. See also plate IV 1.

5 See Nilsson, M. P., Geschichte der Griechischen Religion 2291Google Scholar; Webster, T. B. L., From Mycenae to Homer 42.Google Scholar

6 AJA lx 145, pl. 56, figs. 3 and 4.

7 Bannerman, D. A. and Bannerman, W. M., Birds of Cyprus 241.Google Scholar

8 SirHill, George's suggestion (History of Cyprus i 12)Google Scholar: Oiniadai built near the mouth of the Acheloos is now one to two miles inland.

9 Some Cypriot birds do, however, fly with their wings folded: plate III 5, 6. I shall make much use of Karageorghis' articles.

10 AJA lx pl. 56, figs. 1, 2, the Pierides krater no. 42.

11 BM C402, CVA i pl. 10. 4: reverse, Immerwahr, , AJA lx pl. 52.Google Scholar

12 Stubbings, F. A., BSA xlvi 170Google Scholar Group I. 1. I agree with Mrs Immerwahr that the bird and bull vases cannot be separated, but probably animal and fly vases have to be included too. BM C403, C408; Enkomi, T18, 6; T18, 46; Sjöquist, Problems, fig. 21.

13 Cyprus Museum, A1544. Photo kindly sent me by Mr Karageorghis.

14 BM C409, CVA i pl. 9. 10; good detail, AJA lx pl. 54, fig. 14.

15 Portrait of a Wilderness 99.

16 AJA lx pl. 55, fig. 15, BM C583. The birds on this oinochoe would seem to be forerunners of the birds on later dippers; plate II 2, 3. These birds dig their beaks into the ground.

17 BM C583, BSA xlvi pl. 19 d; and BM C409, AJA lx pl. 54.

18 Schliemann, , Mycenae and Tiryns pl. 8.Google Scholar

19 The Mycenaean Pottery, fig. 31. 39. It may be part of a flower, BSA xxv pl. 14c. Furumark, fig. 30 nos. 14 and 16 are also reconstructions.

20 BM Cat. of Vases i 2, C422, CVA i pl. 8. i: from Enkomi.

21 Oxford 1911.345. See also a heron, plate II 2 (BM C831).

22 Pitt-Rivers Museum, no. 2803, 715 blue. See Essays in Aegean Archaeology presented to Sir Arthur Evans, 72 and pl. 14. I cannot agree that a trefoil lip is in itself zoomorphic.

23 BM Cat. Sicily 168.

24 Lloyd SNG ii 469; see Evans, Num. Chron. 1912, 36 ff.Google Scholar I owe all these references to Dr C. Kraay. The φρυ is alternative to the bird, and should have the same meaning.

25 Birds 763. See also Φρύξ as the name of a slave (Wasps 433) coupled with Midas.

26 Birds 1244. This itself is a parody of Pheres in the Alkestis, Eur. Alc. 675.

27 This suggestion assumes an ancient authority for Ovid's story Met. viii 630 ff. Late inscriptions CIG 2811, 2812, mention games in honour of Philemon at Aphrodisia.

28 Martial, ix 54. 7, fringillorum querelas, mentioned along with sparrows and starlings.

29 (Hoffmann), A. Walde, Lateinisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch 543.Google Scholar I owe this and the following reference to Mr J. Chadwick.

30 Buck and Petersen, Reverse Index of Greek Nouns and Adjectives. For bird names, ending in -ιλος cf. Metathesis between the first two is not difficult and Aristotle has been guilty. Let us follow the sounder Aristophanes: Plover, Wren, Thrush.

31 Cattle Egrets are about five times the size of finches and so more suitable companions for bulls. Professor Ashmole points out to me, however, that many symbols on coins are not to scale. The Greeks rarely represented tiny birds.

32 C. Seltman, Masterpieces of Greek Coinage 69. I do not follow Seltman in believing that φ always means φρυγίλος, op. cit. 70.

33 Earlier bulls on coins of Sybaris are quietly turning their heads, not of course to bite their backs as some would have it. (BM Cat. 286 no. 31.) Head HN has ‘head reverted’.

34 Historia Numorum 2 85.

35 JHS lii 217.

36 Ibid., 210.

37 Γέρας τοῦ Ἀ. Κεραμοπούλλου 197 ff. My thanks to A. Andrewes for this reference.

38 vi 61. 6; vii 33. 5, 6, 35. 1. Close argument returns the same conclusion as common sense.

39 Plato, Ion 540 C.

40 See SNG Cambridge 580, cf. BM Cat. Italy 237, 14: two thrushes. The Catalogue calls these birds crows but surely not from a town whose coins are often inscribed ΛΑΙΝΩΝ. It seems likely that Aristotle (HA 617a: ix. 19) attributed the name λαιός to the Stone-thrush and κύανος (617a: ix. 21) to the Blue Stone-thrush. Both are found in Macedonia. Farther south, however, the Blue Stone-thrush is resident and much commoner, and the Stone-thrush is not reported from South Italy, but the Blue Stone-thrush does occur there. No doubt the two species were confused and the distribution may have changed, but the more voluble Blue Stone-thrush is more likely to call attention to himself and become a coin type.

41 Furtwängler, , Antike Gemmen pl. 14.Google Scholar 6.

42 Perhaps a Little Egret: Higgins, R. A., BM Terracottas i no. 1209, pl. 165.Google Scholar

43 Reiser, O., Materialen zu einen Ornis Balcanica iii 431.Google Scholar

44 Karageorghis, V., AJA lxii 384Google Scholar, pl. 98. 1; Tomb 17 no. 1.

45 Ibid., pl. 101. 2. To Karageorghis this is Herakles picking apples in the garden of the Hesperides. Dr Bourne suggested that the karob was probably native to Cyprus and this vase supports him. Both the Little and the Houbara Bustard are also recorded from Cyprus on migration.

46 Ibid. pl. 101. See also Schaeffer, C. F. A., BSA xxxvii 212.Google Scholar

47 The swan has obviously been dabbling in weeds, as swans do, and one has stuck to his head: cf. the lozenge-shaped flower near his wings and see similar flowers on BM C411, CVA i pl. 9. 3: cf. also a wriggly line by a swan's bill, BM C372, Murray, , Excavations in Cyprus, 48 fig. 73Google Scholar, from Enkomi; CVA i pl. 9. 4.

48 Cœur-de-Lion is said to have introduced swans from Cyprus to Britain, which probably means that they were commoner then than now: both Whooper and Mute Swans still visit Cyprus in winter and both species are probably represented on Bronze Age vases.

49 Swedish Cyprus Expedition i, Enkomi, pl. 120, tomb 17. 1. Schaeffer, Enkomi-Alasia 121Google Scholar, fig. 52. I cannot accept that the scales could be an altar. The archer appears to carry a bow, and an arrow, and a throwing stick is somehow fastened to his neck. For the archer cf. Fasti Arch. vii 1572, fig. 44.

50 AJA lxii 385 n. 31.

51 Enkomi-Alasia 121.

52 The Motor Map shows two main streams. Schaeffer, speaks of ‘numerous streams of the Pediados’, Missions en Chypre 83.Google Scholar

53 Houbara Bustards are recorded as coming regularly to water in Arabia. Great Bustards may have done so at Enkomi. Chapman says that Great Bustards are killed at the water-holes.

54 Mr P. Ashmole tells me that the male is much larger than the female.

55 Sjöquist, , Problems of the Late Cypriot Bronze Age, fig. 21. 1, Enkomi Tomb 18.Google Scholar

56 Mr Mylonas' Gorgon amphora is an instance of a bird linking one end of a scene to the other: a white-tailed eagle is flying from under one handle past Perseus and the pursuing sisters, to feed on the corpse of the Gorgon under the other: pls. 1–4. 10.

57 AJA xlix 544 ff., figs. 8–10. I protest against the treatment of birds: ‘Minoan peculiarity’ (p. 540). Mrs Immerwahr and Professor Furumark should come to the duck-pond in the Oxford Parks to see the projecting primaries of floating mallard. There may be a swan there too, not, however, a partridge. No good can come of inventing an ornithological typology that ignores species.

58 Op. cit., fig. 8.

59 Swedish Cyprus Expedition, Enkomi Tomb 11. 33, pl. 121; Sjöquist, Problems of the Cyprus Bronze Age fig. 25. The creature has a dorsal fin on one of Sjöquist's drawings but S. has suppressed a fine row of teeth. Furumark (op. cit., fig. 48, no. 20. 7) has given us the teeth, but he has substituted a griffin curl for a front flipper. If it had a smaller eye it would be a creditable grampus, and who would risk taking a close-up of a grampus? Why does the excavator find this creature is ‘half-bird’?

60 Catalogue C365, CVA i pl. 7. 12.

61 A tracing was kindly sent me by Mr Higgins.

62 Catalogue pl. 2, C332; CVA i pl. 9. 12, from Maroni.

63 Catalogue, C400, CVA i pl. 9. 8: wrongly drawn in Furumark, op. cit., fig. 30. 19. This author has also produced unjustified restorations of birds in his nos. 14 and 16 in this figure.

64 Mountfort records that two Great Bustards were run over when fighting on a road: Wilderness, pl. 3b.

65 BM C858–9.

66 Catalogue C577, from Enkomi.

67 Anab. i 5; see below.

68 Furumark (The Mycenaean Pottery, fig. 31. no. 46) seems to have drawn the edge of the sherd as a crest and the edge of a thin beak (from MV pl. 39): better forgotten.

69 BM C390 CVA i pl. 8. 11.

70 Karageorghis revives this old theory for a bird sitting on the back of a ceremonial chair (AJA lxii, pl. 99, fig. 3). He calls it a dove but it is more like a duck. Not a good place for a duck one would think, but see what a Boiotian goddess supports on her wrist (plate V 2). I suppose this bird on the chair is not a Little Bustard?

71 Swedish Cyprus Expedition iv 65, pl. 33. 1b, 34.

72 Ibid., 65.

73 On Attic white-ground lekythoi, especially made for the grave. See JHS xxv 74, 75. Death spirits in partly bird-like form do carry off souls, and real birds may have been thought to assist in the process, but there is no evidence for this function on these dippers.

74 Ath. 398 C: in a list of birds for the table, at Hebe's wedding feast.

75 Birds 882: in a list of heroic birds.

76 The Great Bustard used to nest in Thessaly. Makatsch, 425.

77 Paus. x 34. 1.

78 Leake, M., Travels in Northern Greece ii 419.Google Scholar

79 Wilderness 73.

80 Alkman (Bergk) 146 B. From a scholiast on Il. xvii 40.

81 Ath. 398 C. As the reason for the mistake is obvious, it is surely better to forget Alexander of Myndios.

82 Makatsch, 425, says the Little Bustard is common now in the northern Balkans.

83 Glossary, s.v. Τέτραξ.

84 Ath. 398 ad fin.

85 Eus. 1278, 50.

86 Pliny, NH x 29.Google Scholar Pliny says the Great Bustard is uneatable, its bones smell so bad. Mountfort says they do smell but not too badly.

87 Leake notes that he saw no Bustards in Attica, Northern Greece ii 419.

88 HA 631 b 10 ix. 49.

89 Ael. NA v 5. Hercher's emendation.

90 Aristotle, , HA 619b, x 33.Google Scholar

91 BCH lxxvii pl. 29, near foot; Waldstein, , Argive Heraeum ii pl. 56. 20.Google Scholar

92 BCH lxxvii 259 fig. 50.

93 Antike und byzantinische Kleinkunst, Auktion Helbing 1913, pl. 6, no. 83; Hampe, Sagenbilder pl. 18. 4.Google Scholar

94 Hampe, op. cit.; Young, Hesperia, Suppl. ii 128Google Scholar, on B64.

94a Agora P4948; Young, figs. 92, 93.

95 Hampe, op. cit., 21, no. V. 1, pls. 17, 18, Athens NM 5893. Leake notes ‘immense numbers of Bustards in the plains of Boiotia’, op. cit., 419. See above, n. 78. Also AJA lxiv pl. 1, 2 with Leake's ‘Wild Turkeys’ at Patras.

96 Peterson, , Mountfort, and Hollom, , A Field Guide to Birds of Britain and the Mediterranean, plate IV 5.Google Scholar

97 BSA xxxiv 146, 187, pls. 43, 44 on the hydria BM B 58. Cf. Fairbanks, Boston Catalogue pl. 61. 55Google Scholar, said by Lane not to be Laconian: also Lane, fig. 27. Manner of the Hunt Painter.

98 Wilderness, pl. 3.

99 Shefton, BSA xlix pl. 55Google Scholar, Hunt Painter no. 13; Florence 3879.

100 Cup in British Museum, B 1. Lane, op. cit., pl. 45b. Shefton, Manner of Arkesilas Painter 21. Any Bustard on a horse's neck would be out of place.

101 Cook, R. M., BSA xxxiv 64Google Scholar, pl. 4c, C 1 (amphora in the British Museum, B 117), CVA xiii pls. 2, 7. Note that Athenaios mentions a Tetrax in Mysia in Asia Minor. See above, p. 51. Some of the Protocorinthian harlequin cocks have a borrowed curl. (MA xxii pl. 42. 2; PV pl. 9. 4). This may be borrowed from contemporary griffins, or they may have adopted it from the Houbara Bustard.

102 BM 67. 5–6. 45, CVA xiii pl. 7. 2; Boehlau, , Aus Ionischen und Italischen Nekropolen 55 no. 4Google Scholar, fig. 24, from Kameiros. R. M. Cook tells us that the beak should be open (BSA xxxiv 20, L 4).

103 Ibid., 64.

104 Cook, R. M., BSA xlvii 152Google Scholar fig. 8. It is tempting to compare these birds with the birds in a belated geometric style on a plate found at Vroulia (see next note).

105 BM; A753) from Kameiros, . JdI vi 269.Google Scholar These are certainly not barnyard fowls: there seem to be no cocks or hens in Rhodian style. I cannot identify the birds on a plate from Vroulia: Kinch, , Vroulia pl. 35.Google Scholar Note the necks, as plate II 6.

106 Copenhagen, CVA ii pl. 76. 4.Google Scholar The author calls it a Guinea-fowl but it has not got the characteristic tiny head with a wart on the top. Contrast the Attic b.f. kotyle in Tarquinia; see n. 110.

107 BM 64. 10–7. 21; Schiering, W.Werkstätten Orientalisierender Keramik auf Rhodos pl. 7. 2.Google Scholar

108 Spurs are evidently a mistake here.

109 Brommer, F.AA 1942 66Google Scholar, figs. 1, 2; Boston 20. 18; Bieber The History of the Greek and Roman Theatre fig. 78; fifth-century b.f. by one of the White Heron Group painters. Cf. Haspels, , ABL 144.Google Scholar

110 ABL App. xiv no. 26; Boston 99. 523. Excellent illustration in Archaeology vi 180. It is possible that a kotyle in Tarquinia belonging to the Heron Group (Romanelli, Tarquinia 117Google Scholar, fig. 67), showing Monumental Guinea-fowl, has some connexion with comedy. I cannot trace Morin-Jean's bird (p. 130), said to be in Munich. Mrs Ure found the Tarquinia vase for me.

111 Micali, , Mon. Ined. pl. 47.Google Scholar 7 (Sir John Beazley's reference); B562, CVA i pl. 28. 14, there said to be perhaps a quail. There is no reason to suppose that it is intended to represent a stuffed bird. Cf. Akr. Vases ii pl. 44. 1576: a swan on a lid.

112 CVA i pl. 19. 3 (23. 356). Woman on a r.f. lekythos, perhaps in the manner of the Painter of London E342; ARV 463.