A couple of African Sacred Ibises recently landed at QBO’s downtown boutique. These hand-made bird statuettes were produced in the 1960s and 1970s for people visiting Egyptian sites such as the Pyramids and the famous Nile river, where ibises were once abundant. The real adult birds have bald heads and necks so the statuettes’ heads, necks, legs and feet are bare cast metal, while the ‘feathered’ bodies are molded from papier mâché. The more colorful is hand-painted in the same style as millennia of Egyptian art, while the other is gilded, with inset red stone or glass eyes. A nearly identical gold-covered Sacred Ibis statuette was found among the treasures recovered from the tomb of teenage Egyptian Pharaoh, Tutankhamun.
Sacred Ibises are marsh dwellers, feeding on bugs, worms, crabs, snails, fish, frogs, lizards, and snakes and are not above eating carrion. They are native to much of Africa and Iran. They migrate yearly, meaning the same individuals are also ‘native’ to regions of Kuwait and Iraq and some have been documented as far away as Russia and Kazakhstan. Two other species of Sacred Ibis are closely enough related to interbreed with the African Sacred Ibis – the Black-Headed Ibis, (also called the Oriental White Ibis or Indian White Ibis), which is native in Southeast Asia ranging from India to Japan, and the White Sacred Ibis, native to Australia.
And, the African Sacred Ibis has spread farther. They were imported to many European Zoos in the 1970s, where, because of a fashion for letting ibis flocks roam the grounds freely, many individuals eventually made a break for it. Unsurprisingly, there are now feral Sacred Ibis flocks well-established in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, the Canary Islands, Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Here in the U.S. wild breeding Sacred Ibis flocks flourish in Florida. All of this success has an edge of tragic irony, because the one place that lacks the African Sacred Ibis is Egypt, where they were once thriving, plentiful, and revered as holy.
The Ibis is associated with the Egyptian god Thoth, who manifests both as a baboon crowned with a crescent moon, and as a graceful Ibis-headed man. Linked with lunar cycles, Thoth’s curving ibis beak may represent a crescent moon. In real life, an ibis bird might be seen as Thoth’s servant, his companion or as the god himself. Egyptians, both wealthy and humble, who wanted Thoth’s intervention, could pay to have a bird mummified in a ceremony and deposited at a temple as an eternal tribute. The ancient necropolis at Tuna al-Gebel held over 15,000 mummified birds, including ibises. So in the 1920s when King Tut’s tomb was found and the boy-king was exhumed, among the many precious objects was that statuette of a golden Ibis.
Thoth represents truth, knowledge, study, learning, mathematics and is the inventor of writing (hieroglyphics). He is protector of writers and is often portrayed writing with a stele on a clay tablet. In the Book of the Dead he is one of the gods presiding over the ‘weighing of the heart’, taking notes during the moment that the soul of the deceased is being judged worthy of immortality… or not. You can understand his importance to the recently bereaved. But, Greek philosopher Plato is not impressed. In his fictitious dialogue ‘Phaedrus’, he has Thoth, inventor of writing, tell a Pharaoh that writing is the perfect substitute for memory. The Pharaoh claps back that it’s fine for reminding, but not remembering – that writing looks like wisdom but isn’t. Plato (the writer!) believes writing fosters laziness and absent-mindedness. And on that note…
Tuesday Treasures was started by our staff member, Jeanne Lusignan. Each week she will be featuring items that have been found at our estate sales. If you would like to submit a treasure for Jeanne to feature in a future installment of “Tuesday’s Treasures”, please follow the button below and send us an email! Please attach a few photos of your treasure in a beautiful setting as well as any details you have about your item such as manufacturer, use, age, region of origin. If you don’t know about the piece, that’s okay! We still might be able to research it for you! Don’t forget to tell us what makes this item such a treasure to you!