One of my fav. pieces of Egyptian art, which I sometimes share in my course on talking animals in ancient literature: a "satiric-erotic" papyrus depicting anthropomorphic animals (it's originally one long strip, but I sliced it into four pieces for Twitter compatibility) (1/10)

This example dates to the 13th/12th centuries BCE and was excavated at Deir el-Medina, a town near Thebes where the artist-scholars responsible for decorating the famous Valley of the Kings lived and worked. Today it's housed in the British Museum (but usually not on view) (2/10)

The animals are depicted engaging in human activities. The artists also like to show "natural" enmities between species being either set aside or flipped upside down. Instead of hunting/being hunted, the lion and gazelle play a board game! (3/10)

The artists also show animals engaging in usual activities refracted through a human lens. After winning the game, lion and gazelle go to the bedroom to have sex in human positions on human furniture. Note: still no interspecies conflict (& even some interspecies love!) (4/10)

But it's not all board games and sex — there's work to be done! A jackal goatherd drives its flock, carrying a basket on a stick and playing a double-pipe instrument (a typical pastoral scene). Again, traditional interspecies conflict is thrown out the door (5/10)

The pastoral procession includes a second jackal, as well as a cat herding its flock of geese (note the little gosling it carries gently in its hand!) (6/10)

Also, notice how this papyrus mixes anthropomorphic and non-anthro animals. For everyone who has ever been puzzled that Goofy and Pluto are both dogs in the Mickey universe, just remember: it's nothing new — lines between anthro & non-anthro have been blurry for millennia! (7/10)

One reason I love this piece: it complicates common ideas that people bring to Egyptian art & culture. Yes, animal-headed human figures are part of Egyptian culture. But animal anthropomorphism has lots of forms in antiquity, and this is a good example of its wider variety (8/10)

You may ask, "So, what does this mean?" Short answer: no one knows. A pictorial record of an oral folklore tradition with talking animals, like the Aesopic fables that develop later in Greece and Rome? Satire of public figures? Religiously significant? Just fun? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ (9/10)

This isn't the only example of this kind of anthropomorphic animals in Egyptian art, and I'll walk through some more in the future — follow and stay tuned! And if you enjoyed this thread, please like and retweet so others can find it too! (10/10)