Abstract
Hedgehogs held a special place in ancient Egyptian life like many other desert- and marsh-dwelling animals. Their natural defensive qualities were admired by ancient Egyptians and their bodily parts, notably their hardened spines, were used as ingredients in medico-magical prescriptions. In tomb reliefs of the late 3rd Millennium BCE, hedgehogs are represented being carried alive by offering bearers or as background participants in desert hunting scenes. In later periods of Egyptian history, rattles, small unguent vessels, and scaraboid amulets were made in their shape, all of which are presumed to have had apotropaic purposes. A particular votive object of the Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2181 BCE) is a palm-sized modelled boat with a prow in the shape of a hedgehog head, which has been discovered at sites throughout Egypt. A similar representation of this motif is the so-called ‘Henet’-boat (from the word ḥnt[j]) with a hedgehog head at the prow facing inwards, which is found in late Old Kingdom art. This article reassesses the role of hedgehogs as protective or apotropaic entities and their association with boats, considering how ancient Egyptians understood their ecology and their predation of snakes, scorpions, and similar stinging creatures. An updated list is provided of known representations of hedgehog-head boats, including petroglyphs and as yet unpublished examples from tombs at Giza and Saqqara. The meaning of the ancient Egyptian word ḥnt(j) is also rexamined in relation to the representation of riverine and marsh-water boats in Old Kingdom tombs.
Highlights
The most comprehensive study of hedgehogs in ancient Egypt to date is by Droste zu Hülshoff (1980), and all major studies of ancient Egyptian fauna include summaries of representations of hedgehogs in ancient Egyptian art and material culture (e.g., Osborn and Osbornová 1998, pp. 19–23; Vernus and Yoyotte 2005, pp. 145–46; Old Kingdom: Evans 2010a, pp. 124–25, 162)
The present article focuses on a small subgroup of the extant corpus—namely, boats with a hedgehog-head prow occurring among votive objects (Section 4.1) and in funerary art (Section 4.2)—and considers their meaning specific to the late 3rd Millennium BCE, as these representational forms are not known to be attested later in Egyptian history
This article builds upon remarks concerning boats with a hedgehoghead prow (Igelkopfbug) by e.g., Altenmüller (2000, 2005, 2007), Bárta (2001, pp. 140–41), and Tavares and Malak concerning an example of a fragmentary model hedgehog-head boat found at Giza in 2014
Summary
The most comprehensive study of hedgehogs in ancient Egypt to date is by Droste zu Hülshoff (1980), and all major studies of ancient Egyptian fauna include summaries of representations of hedgehogs in ancient Egyptian art and material culture (e.g., Osborn and Osbornová 1998, pp. 19–23; Vernus and Yoyotte 2005, pp. 145–46; Old Kingdom: Evans 2010a, pp. 124–25, 162). The present article focuses on a small subgroup of the extant corpus—namely, boats with a hedgehog-head prow occurring among votive objects (Section 4.1) and in funerary art (Section 4.2)—and considers their meaning specific to the late 3rd Millennium BCE, as these representational forms are not known to be attested later in Egyptian history. I contribute new data to the survey of hedgehog-head boats in Old Kingdom tombs (Tables 1 and 2), including a small number from unpublished tombs at Giza recorded in the Digital Giza.
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