Erin mentioned that she wanted to see some primates and, low and behold, what came walking down the road right in front of us--a small group of baboons.
A group of baboons is collectively called a troop or congress. (Wikipedia)
Baboon connection to Cairo: Nate applied for and was awarded a three month fellowship to the American University in Cairo. This should occur after Erin receives her PhD (mid-June 2010) and before Nate's fall teaching requirements begin at UCSC (mid-Sept 2010). Research would include narrowing down the location of the mythical land of Punt by isotope tracing of the diets of mummified baboons in Egypt. The ancient Egyptians were said to have brought back baboons from their travels to Punt which is believed to have been from the interior of Africa (Uganda? Ethiopia? Kenya?)
In Egyptian mythology, Babi was the deification of the Hamadryas Baboon and was therefore a sacred animal. It was known as the attendant of Thoth and so is also called the Sacred Baboon. (Wikipedia)
Egyptian connection to pygmies: 4000 years ago the Egyptians had written of the little dark people up the Nile who loved to dance. (They still do by the way).
No comments:
Post a Comment