Diana’s lecture to the Society was the story of how she had disappeared down a rabbit hole (in her own words), after reading about the elite, pre-dynastic cemetery at Hierakonpolis.  This fascinating site appeared to be a cemetery for ancient Egypt’s elite:  humans and also their animals, including baboons and Diana wondered “why?”.

Baboons seemed to feature in ancient Egyptian culture in pre-dynastic times and also in the Old Kingdom.  They were found in the divine (for example the god Babi, who symbolised virility and aggression) and in stories of the Afterlife, as well as in real life, such as in the picture of what appears to be a policeman unleashing a baboon (like a police dog) on a criminal (5th Dynasty picture at the Mastaba of Tepemankh).

The baboon seems to disappear from Egyptian records during the Middle Kingdom but reappears in the New Kingdom in pictures, sculpture (such as the beautiful statuette of the scribe Nebremoutef and Thoth, in baboon form) and, once again in tombs and cemeteries.

All of this, in spite of baboons not being native to Egypt, but rather from  Punt, in the southern Red Sea region.  This raised the question for Diana:  could Hatshepsut have inadvertently (re)introduced the baboon to Egypt following her expedition to Punt?

Diana admitted that as she found more answers to her questions about baboons in ancient Egypt, she generated more questions.  And she ended on the observation that the baboons and other animals, in both the pre-dynastic and New Kingdom cemeteries, carried many signs of poor treatment at the hands of their human owners, which was a poignant ending to a fascinating talk.

We’ll look forward to seeing Diana again at future Bolton Archaeological an Egyptological Society meetings.