Melanie
Well-known member
Highlights
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Ancient graphical representations can provide insights into ancient contemporaneous fauna.
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Identification of taxa by objective approaches may reduce bias and uncertainty.
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The ‘Tobias criteria’ quantitatively delimits avian species.
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Taxa evaluated from the ancient Egyptian ‘Meidum Geese’ vary from plausible to implausible.
Abstract
Animals depicted by ancient artisans have the potential to provide insights into taxa encountered by past cultures. While qualitative approaches are commonly used to identify animals to species level, the use of more objective approaches has the potential to reduce bias and uncertainty. Here, I used the ‘Tobias criteria’, a quantitative method for delimitating avian species in a novel way to examine the ‘Meidum Geese’ from the Chapel of Itet with their purported candidate taxa. I compared the visual appearance of the colouration and body markings in this painting with greylag geese (Anser anser), bean geese (A. fabalis), greater white-fronted geese (A. albifrons), and red-breasted geese (Branta ruficollis). I found of the three different graphically represented geese types, one form resembles greylag geese (but did not exclude bean geese), a second form is like greater white-fronted geese, but the third goose type did not plausibly match with red-breasted geese. Considering that other faunal representations from the Chapel of Itet show accurate modern species-level portrayals, it is unclear if the third ‘Meidum Geese’ type depicts a novel phenotype of an extinct taxon, a misrepresentation of an extant but locally extinct taxon, or is a fabrication that has incorporated several goose features.
Assessing 'Meidum Geese' species identification with the ‘Tobias criteria’
Animals depicted by ancient artisans have the potential to provide insights into taxa encountered by past cultures. While qualitative approaches are c…
