African Sacred Ibis - Sacred Ibis in Myth and Legend

Sacred Ibis in Myth and Legend

Venerated and often mummified by Ancient Egyptians as a symbol of the god Thoth, the Ibis was according to Herodotus and Pliny the Elder also invoked against incursions of winged serpents. Herodotus' account follows as thus:

"There is a region moreover in Arabia, situated nearly over against the city of Buto, to which place I came to inquire about the winged serpents: and when I came thither I saw bones of serpents and spines in quantity so great that it is impossible to make report of the number, and there were heaps of spines, some heaps large and others less large and others smaller still than these, and these heaps were many in number.

The region in which the spines are scattered upon the ground is of the nature of an entrance from a narrow mountain pass to a great plain, which plain adjoins the plain of Egypt;

and the story goes that at the beginning of spring winged serpents from Arabia fly towards Egypt, and the birds called ibises meet them at the entrance of this country and do not suffer the serpents to go by but kill them. On account of this deed it is (say the Arabians) that the ibis has come to be greatly honored by the Egyptians, and the Egyptians also agree that it is for this reason that they honor these birds."

In more mythical stories, it was also said that the flies that brought pestilence died immediately upon propitiatory sacrifices of this bird.

This bird became nowadays the symbol of the Israeli Special Forces unit known as Unit 212 or Maglan in Hebrew: מגלן.