During a 1920s excavation of a 3,300-year-old palace in Egypt, archaeologists discovered a chamber called the Green Room that featured intricate paintings of birds in a papyrus marsh. Recently, two British researchers conducted a study based on a 1924 copy of the panels, and found that the artwork depicted multiple bird species with remarkable accuracy, including the pied kingfisher and the rock pigeon. Interestingly, the inclusion of rock pigeons in the marsh paintings was unusual and may have been an attempt to depict a wilder, untamed nature than existed in that area. Birds were frequently featured in Egyptian art and were often considered symbols of fertility, life, and regeneration. The Green Room may have been designed to soothe the pharaoh’s daughter, who lived there and the researchers suggest that the artwork would have enhanced the sensory experience of being in the room even more.
One of the species depicted in the artwork was the pied kingfisher, which had great significance in Ancient Egypt. It was known for its black and white plumage and its slender beak, and was often depicted in Egyptian art. The bird hunts by hovering over the water, before diving to catch its prey, and the painting in the Green Room captured this moment. The rock pigeon was also included in the paintings, despite it not being native to the papyrus marshes depicted. Experts believe that the inclusion was an attempt to “enhance a sense of a wilder, untamed nature”.
A Winter’s Tail
The paintings depict two unidentified birds that have triangular tails, which is unusual because no Egyptian bird known today has them. However, with the assistance of previous research, experts were able to identify these birds as the red-backed shrike and the white wagtail. These birds were believed to be annotated with triangular tail markings because it may have been the artist’s way of indicating the season in which those birds appeared.
