My lovely co-host Sarah sent me a link to a cool National Geographic story about animals in prehistoric Egypt, in the city of Hierakonpolis. (I didn’t know anything about Hierakonpolis before I started researching it this morning. That’s the thing I love best about doing the history podcast and blog: learning new stuff. Plus, then you get to talk about things like koro in the elevator and have people from the radio station in the penthouse stare at you.)

The City of the Hawk came before all the things I learned about during that middle-school King Tut phase — it’s a Predynastic site, and what archaeologists have found there gave us our understanding of how the ancient world of Egypt came to be. If the name Hierakonpolis sounds familiar, it might be because of the Narmer Palette, which is known as the first political document in history. (It’s a flat plate that may or may not depict the unification of Egypt — pick a side and fight with an Egyptologist about it.)

At first, scientists thought they’d just found a giant burial site, but the more they excavated, the more they realized what an important site Hierakonpolis was — they discovered metal statues, decorated tombs, temples, pottery and weapons.

They also found (and this is where the National Geographic story comes in) the bones of animals — lots of them. I imagine it was somewhat unexpected to come across the 3,500-year-old bones of a baboon, a cow and calf, dogs, cats, a hippo and an elephant.

But the cool thing about the story is that the animals weren’t just about sacrifice, although some were killed when a ruler died — they were seen as creatures of wonder and power. The elephant was even buried with a covering of fine linens. There’s evidence that the animals were kept in captivity, fed and given medical attention. One palette from the time is carved purely with depictions of animals, not a human being to be seen. You won’t see that in the time of the pharaohs.

Have an Egypt-related story you’d like to hear in a podcast? Let us know in the comments. We’ve got a really good one on Cleopatra’s kids coming up! (And check out the Hierakonpolis Interactive Dig if you want to learn more about the city.)

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