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The egret

White wading bird of the Nile marshes and canals, Egypt under Persian rule, 525 BCE

In the game: Level 2: The Spear-bearer

Egrets are white herons that feed in shallow water, and in Egypt they lived along the Nile, its canals and its flooded fields. No surviving source from the Persian period names the egret, so what can be said rests on Egyptian bird art and on the natural setting of the Nile valley.

In the game: The game draws egrets as birds overhead on the Memphis level only. They are scenery: no rule reads them, and they have no effect on play.

A bird of the Nile edge

Disputed

Several white heron species, including the little egret and the cattle egret, live in the Nile valley, and the ancient Egyptians probably knew them all. Which species an artist meant in a given picture is often uncertain, because herons and egrets were drawn in similar ways. Modern naturalists and Egyptologists do not always agree on the identifications.

P. F. Houlihan, The Birds of Ancient Egypt, 1986

Birds in Egyptian art

In the record

Egyptian tomb paintings and reliefs from many centuries show marsh birds in papyrus thickets, hunted or simply observed, and herons are among them. These pictures show that the Nile marshes were rich in wildfowl long before the Persians came. They give a picture of the setting, though none dates the egret to 525.

P. F. Houlihan, The Birds of Ancient Egypt, 1986

Herodotus on Egyptian animals

Ancient account

Herodotus describes the Egyptians as holding certain animals sacred and mentions the ibis among their birds. He does not, as far as can be confirmed, single out the egret. No claim that the Persians took notice of the egret in particular has support in his text.

Herodotus 2.65

The setting around Memphis

Ancient account

Herodotus says the Nile flooded the land each year and that the Egyptians lived by the river's rise and fall. Marshes and canals of the Delta and the Memphis region would then have drawn waterbirds, which is an inference and not something he reports. No source describes a particular flock of egrets.

Herodotus 2.14