A small and very old friend of the pharaohs

 The mystery of a possible Egyptian ursid

   Egypt, the land of the pharaohs, is an ancient place full of mysteries pending to be solved, Among them, the existence of fauna in ancient times that we do not officially know about has stood out.

And in ancient times there were beasts that rubbed shoulders with our ancestors and that are now extinct, as possibly a type of bear that lived in Egypt in ancient times, thank you for reading, I hope you support and without further ado, let's get started.

The alpini bear

The Alpini bear was a small animal, reported by the Italian doctor Prospero Alpini in 1736.

It was described as an animal of whitish color and extremely small size, no bigger than a common sheep, extremely docile and not hostile at all, being even tame to several points, fact In classical times, Herodotus also claimed that bears existed in Egypt, although they were rare.

The truth is that mentions of bears in Egypt come from Greek times, since Herodotus was the first to describe it, Also, some Egyptian arts like a painting on the wall of the ancient Egyptian tomb of Rekhmire It shows a parade of animals that were offered to the gods, among which stands out a bear that appears to be small in size, which would fit the description of the Alpini bear.

In addition to this, mentions and nods to bears became more recurrent during the 5th Egyptian dynasty, with rock engravings, statuettes, eh even, having a hieroglyph to describe them, so you could say that bears were relatively common in the miracle of the Nile, There is even mention in historical texts that it is recorded that Pharaoh Sahure of the V Dynasty had a type of bear in his royal zoo and according to Athenaios of Naucratis, Ptolemy II housed one or

Identity 

But the answer is still not given, what is or was this animal?, Well, there are several hypotheses in this regard, there are those who say that these were bears from Syria that are known to have been imported as a tribute of war and conquest  or a population of the Syrian bear with a longer range than previously thought, Another was that they were possibly Atlas bears, an extinct species of bear that lived in the Atlas Mountains in northern Africa and the only one that existed on the African continent, although the idea that it was a mysterious and still unknown species is not ruled out.

In short, the Egyptian bears are a mystery and perhaps they will always be so until fossil and archaeozoological evidence is found, the existence of these animals cannot be ruled or denied.

[Reading links]

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2131/2131-h/2131-h.htm

https://journals.ekb.eg/article_258029.html