This little statuette, excavated in 1910 from the tomb of nomarch Senbi II at Meir, in Egypt, has become the beloved unofficial mascot of the Met. It was made during the 12th dynasty, between 1961 BCE and 1878 BCE. Just 11.2 cm tall, and 20 cm long, little William is painted blue faience and decorated with images of lotus flowers, buds, and leaves to symbolize regeneration.
He wasn’t just a cute figurine though. To the ancient Egyptians, hippos were powerful and dangerous man-killers. Perhaps that is why he was found with just one leg, to mitigate the damage he could do in the afterlife; the rest of the legs you see are modern add-ons.
Dude, don’t make it sound like this was some quaint Egyptian belief: hippos ARE powerful and dangerous man-killers. Unfortunately there’s no International Bureau of Animal Murder so nobody is really collecting statistics on this; most evidence is anecdotal and while news reports cite numbers from 500 to 2800 deaths per year by hippo, I can’t find any actual source for these numbers.
Hippos forage on land at night (where they do not defend territory, for the record) but they are mainly amphibious and their homes are rivers. They are typically not taller than human height, and they don’t actually swim well, so their homes are specifically near the shore, where they can walk or push themselves along the bottom with their nostrils above the surface. It’s hardly surprising then, that any African society or community that relies on rivers for water, food, or transportation is going to be wary of hippos.
That includes ancient Egyptians, who needed the Nile for all three. The fertility goddess Tawaret was the patroness of hippos, and hippos were also sometimes seen as symbolizing rebirth. Perhaps not coincidentally, she is one of the consorts of Set, a chaos deity who is sometimes depicted as a hippo, particularly in religious rituals that celebrated the defeat of Set by Horus. Ancient Egyptian society had a complicated relationship with these giant animals that ate their crops and could turn murderous in an instant, overturning boats and killing people; small wonder hippos became a symbol for a god of chaos. Egyptians seem to have admired hippos for their fierce protection of their young, but also to respect the strength and power of an animal that could absolutely fuck their shit up if the mood took it.
wupacing 