28/10/2024
A comfortably seated fisherman in a papyrus skiff has just captured a splendid fish with a hook and line in the Nile Delta marshlands. His lunch, consisting of two loaves of bread and a jar of beer, sits in front of him. This is a scene carved into the limestone block walls of the Saqqara mastaba tomb of 5th Dynasty official Ty. It is dated to circa 2400 BCE.
The fish caught here is a type of mudfish, often referred to as North African catfish. Its binomial nomenclature is Clarias gariepinus (see photo of a real one in the first comment). It is considered a valuable fish in modern Egypt. One of the fondest childhood memories of this writer is catching this fish during visits to Lower Egypt!
"Other than grain, the poorer classes depended mainly on fish, supplemented by wild fowl for their protein, both of which cost only the time required to catch them. Fish abounded in both the Nile and in Egypt's one true lake, located in an area called the Fayum today... Only a small percentage of saltwater fish were consumed; the majority came from fresh water.
Once a year, as the Nile's floodwaters receded from the land, fish became trapped in the mud and could be gathered by hand in great numbers, but for the rest of the year Egyptians employed a variety of fishing methods..."
― Brier, Bob and Hoyt Hobbs, Daily Life of the Ancient Egyptians, 2nd Edition, Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut, USA, 2008.
Photo: Sandro Vannini
