Sheep with deformed horns are among the more mysterious animal remains discovered at an ancient Egyptian burial site dating back to around 3700 BC. They also represent the oldest physical evidence of humans modifying the horns of livestock.
鈥淭he sheep were deliberately made 鈥榮pecial鈥� by castration,鈥� says at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences. 鈥淚n addition, their horns were directed upward, and in one case, the horns were removed.鈥�
Van Neer and his colleagues examined six sheep skulls found at the cemetery in the city of Hierakonpolis, which was a major political and population centre before kings ruled over a unified Egypt.
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They found three of the skulls have horns that point upward in parallel, rather than the typical horizontal spiral. The horns of the fourth skull are less upright, but are closer together at the base than usual. A fifth sheep skull had its horns removed entirely, and a sixth one had horns extending horizontally in the natural way.
Impressions on the modified skulls and horns suggest that ancient Egyptians used ropes to bind the sheep鈥檚 horns and bring them closer together as they grew. Holes in the skulls also suggest that animal keepers intentionally fractured the base of the horns before attaching the bindings to direct horn growth vertically.
The 鈥渞ather precise and symmetrical treatment of the horns鈥� indicates that the Egyptians 鈥渨ere not new to this practice鈥�, says at Charles University in the Czech Republic. The modified horns would have also made the 鈥渁lready huge rams look even bigger鈥�, she says.
The sheep lived to a relatively old age before being sacrificed for burial in graves surrounding the tombs of presumed elite people at Hierakonpolis, along with other domesticated animals and even wild animals such as baboons and elephants. The sheep skulls predate other physical evidence of livestock with modified horns, such as cattle skulls found at an ancient site in modern-day Sudan, by around 1000 years.
But it is unclear whether the sheep were meant as oddities for display or were modified to look like another animal, such as an antelope. The researchers hope to find more ancient skulls with deformed horns from livestock such as sheep and cattle, which could help reveal the purpose behind the practice.
Journal of Archaeological Science
