Poulíography and “Poultrymen”: Chickens in North Africa

Abstract

North African poultry were acclaimed by Roman authors and sought after throughout the Mediterranean. In describing the types of hen, Varro lists three varieties: villaticae, rusticae and africanae. Martial and Ovid both refer to Libyan chickens as exemplars of their species. However, these plaudits are only one facet of a rich and varied cultural history of the chicken in North Africa. This chapter synthesises and reviews the zooarchaeological, visual and textual evidence for chickens and their relationships with humans in North Africa. It catalogues chicken finds and identifies the translocation of chickens across Mediterranean North Africa, beginning in the mid-first millennium BC, before spreading into the Saharan oases of Fazzān by the first century AD and as far as West Africa by the mid-first millennium AD. Across this time span, its societal role changed. Initially, it may be seen as an exotic import, perhaps a symbolic bird that was often associated with funerary contexts. By the Roman period, it was more abundant and increasingly considered a common denizen of oasis farms such as those recorded in the Kellis Agricultural Account Book (P. Kell. IV) which also includes a poultry-keeping profession, the ornithioi. Finally, faunal assemblages indicated that the chicken became a key food source for the urban populace of Late Antiquity.