Uses of Domesticated Donkeys: Evidence from Old Kingdom Tombs Scenes*

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine the iconography of donkeys in Old Kingdom scenes executed in private tombs and how the ancient Egyptians utilized them in their farming community. Three categories of donkey usages can be specified: (1) Donkeys carrying loads; (2) Donkeys threshing grain; and (3) Donkeys carrying officials. The paper ends with a discussion see:king to evaluate the relationship between people and donkeys.

Why the Donkey Did Not Go South: Disease as a Constraint on the Spread of Equus asinus into Southern Africa

“…Deliberate interments with elite associations dated to the First Dynasty or shortly thereafter come from Abydos in Upper Egypt (Rossel et al 2008) and three sites near Memphis, just south of Cairo: Abusir (Boessneck et al 1992), Helwan (Flores 2003) and Tarkhan (Burleigh et al 1991). There is then considerable epigraphic and iconographic evidence for the employment of donkeys in agricultural activities and as pack animals in the Old Kingdom and all subsequent periods of Pharaonic history (e.g., Closse 1998;El-Menshawy 2009). Donkeys were also used to facilitate Egyptian expeditions into the Western Desert, reaching up to at least 600 km west of the Nile as early as 2600 BC (Kuper 2006;Förster 2013) and were introduced into the Near East from around 3000 BC (Grigson 2006).…”