Ancient Egyptian Cattle - Sources and Origins

Sources and Origins

The earliest evidence for them is from the Fayum region, dating back to the 8th millennium BC. In the past the type was given its own species name, Bos aegyptiacus, but it is now regarded as part of the same scientific taxon as other domestic cattle: either Bos taurus or Bos primigenius subspecies taurus.

Ancient Egyptian cattle did not have a hump. They either had large widespread horns, which arched first inward and then outward, or shorter horns which had the same structure. According to Egyptian art, they were coloured either black, brown, brown and white, white spotted, black and white, or white.

It is uncertain as to where Egyptian cattle originated, as some claim that they were acquired from the Levant or Mesopotamia while others claim that it was domesticated independently from a North African subspecies of the Aurochs, Bos primigenius mauretanicus. There is evidence for both sides as cattle had been domesticated in the Levant by the 8th millennium BC but excavations of early Holocene western Sahara show that indigenous cattle existed previous to the 8th millennium.