Close Encounters of the Feathered Kind: Orpheus and the Birds

Abstract

Birds were observed in divinatory rituals in antiquity. This was the most significant process that regularly involved looking closely at birds. At the same time, birds were intimately connected to human perceptions of the natural world and, through their capacity to ascend skywards, with the supernatural world. By studying two neighbouring areas connected by the myth of Orpheus and divinatory birds, we can begin to appreciate the role of birds (and bird-like beings) in the culture of Macedonia and Thrace. Birds played a central role in prophecy (ornithomancy). Literary, archaeological and zooarchaeological data from the 6th to 4th centuries BCE provide the means of uniting different types of evidence. The literary and archaeological evidence provides a broad perspective for understanding the still-limited zooarchaeological data. Birds of prey were among the key divinatory creatures regularly observed, while cranes and a variety of lacustrine and meadow birds were among those most regularly observed and hunted. Winged creatures (human–animal hybrids) form some of the most important creations of the human imagination in southern Europe, with distinctive local variants in Macedonia and Thrace.