This thick-snouted fish with a long
dorsal fin,
pairs of ventral fins front and back,
and a
bipartite tail is a member of the
Mormyrus
genus, more commonly termed the
Oxyrhynchus
fish in Egyptological literature. The
more
common name of this fish is that of the
village of
Oxyrhynchus situated in the Egyptian
Faiyum,
the agriculturally-rich region to the
southwest of
modern Cairo. Hollow cast in bronze with
the
eyes originally inlaid, the fish rests
on a
rectangular base. The fish wears as an
attribute
the horns of a cow fronted by a sun
disc.
The ancient Egyptian traditions which
grew up
around the Oxyrhynchus fish are varied
and
complex. The best known, preserved by
Plutarch,
a Greek priest of the oracle of Apollo
at Delphi
writing in the second century A.D., in
chapter 72
of his monumental opus De Iside recounts
how
the citizens of Oxyrhynchus engaged in a
bloody
confrontation with the citizens of
neighboring
Kynopolis because the citizens of
Kynopolis ate
the Oxyrhynchus fish. That account in
Plutarch
differs from the two ancient Egyptian
accounts of
this fish, both of which are associated
with the
god Osiris. As one recalls, Osiris and
his brother,
Seth, became embroiled in a conflict for
power
with the result that Seth triumphed over
Osiris.
In so doing, he dismembered the body of
Osiris
and scattered it far and wide. Isis, the
dutiful
wife and, incidentally, sister of
Osiris, gathered
up the pieces and reassembled them, but
not
before the Oxyrhynchus fish ate his
phallus. The
phallus was necessary for the posthumous
conception of Osiris’s son and heir,
Horus. In
another version of the myth, the
Oxyrhynchus
fish emerged from the wounds of Osiris
himself.
Whatever the truth in these matters
might be,
the Oxyrhynchus fish was inextricably
associated
with the god Osiris and revered by the
ancient
Egyptians. That reverence explains why
this fish
wears as attributes the sun disc and cow
horns,
associating it with Isis in her role as
the reviver
of her husband Osiris.
Such objects were frequently dedicated
in
sanctuaries by pious pilgrims as ex-
votos to
accompany their prayers. The rectangular
base
on which this example rests may have
originally
held the mummified remains of all or
part of an
Oxyrhynchus fish in order to imbue the
object
with more efficacious powers.
Douglas J.Brewster and Renée F.
Friedman, Fish
and Fishing in Ancient Egypt (Cairo
1989), pages
51-52, for a zoological discussion of
this fish.
Wolfgang Helck and Eberhard Otto,
Kleines
Lexikon der Ägyptologie [edited by
Rosemarie
Drenkhahn] (Wiesbaden 1999), page 216,
for a
succinct account of this fish and the
village with
which it was anciently associated.
Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson, British
Museum
Dictionary of Ancient Egypt (London
1995),
pages 100-101, for a discussion of fish
in
general and the Oxyrhynchus fish in
particular.
