Owl

by Desmond Morris

  EGYPT

  Although it is possible to find some exquisite examples of painted owls or owls carved in relief on the tomb walls and buildings of ancient Egypt, there is surprisingly no Egyptian Owl God, or even a name for the owl in the ancient Egyptian language. In hieroglyph writing, the owl-glyph has the sole function of providing the sound or letter m. There are two interesting features of this glyph. All other birds and, indeed, all other forms of animal life, are shown in profile when rendered as hieroglyphs. This is a rigid tradition that is only abandoned with the owl, whose body is shown in profile, but whose head is turned through 90 degrees to face the viewer head-on. This was presumably the only way that the hieroglyph writer could make it absolutely clear that an owl, rather than some other bird of prey, was being depicted. A second curious feature of owl glyphs is that the birds are sometimes shown with their legs broken, as if there has been an attempt to make it impossible for the birds to come to life and launch an attack.

  Although the owl did not play the prominent role in Egyptian religion that we see for the falcon, the ibis or the vulture, we do know that it was sufficiently respected to have been accorded the honour of occasionally being mummified. Several different species have been identified from mummified remains, including the barn owl.

  ‘The Queen of the Night’ (the ‘Burney Plaque’), terracotta plaque of baked straw-tempered clay, Mesopotamian 1800–1750 BC. Probably from Babylonia (southern Iraq).

  It has been suggested that the owl may have been associated in a strange way with the human soul. The Egyptians envisaged the soul having separate parts. There was the ka, concerned with creative, life-giving energy – the life force. After death, the ka resided in the tomb, where it required sustenance in the form of offerings.1 There was also the ba, the non-physical ghost of the person; and the akh, which was the eternal spirit that lived on in the afterlife and was the result of the ka and ba combining. For this combination to occur the ba had to travel to join the ka and, in order for the physical body of the deceased to survive the afterlife, the ba had to return to the tomb every evening. It was believed to have undertaken this nightly journey in the form of a human-headed bird. It has been pointed out that this human-headed bird ‘may have derived from the owls that frequented the tombs’.2 It is easy to understand how the eerie, half-glimpsed owl, with its human-shaped head, flitting around near a tomb at dusk, could have given rise to this idea of a birdlike embodiment of the ba.

  Hieroglyph of an owl, a painting on the outer coffin of Djehuty-nekht, a prince of the Middle Kingdom; 12th Dynasty Egypt, 1991–1876 BC.

  An owl hieroglyph drawing of the Ramesside period, c. 1305–1080 BC.

  Owl of Athene, a Greek tetradrachm from Athens, 109–108 BC.

  GREECE

  Among the ancient civilizations, it was in Athenian Greece that the owl reached the zenith of its appreciation as a symbolic bird. It was here that wisdom and the owl became synonymous. Athens had been named after its protecting goddess, Athene or Athena, and the owl was sacred to her. For hundreds of years, from the sixth to the first centuries BC, Athenian coins were minted with the image of the goddess on one side and the owl on the other. It was this coin that introduced the concept of ‘heads or tails’ that became popular on many later coins. These Greek coins were known colloquially as ‘owls’, and in his play The Birds (414 BC) Aristophanes jokes that silver owls are the best kind because they ‘will never leave you; they will dwell in your home and nest in your purse, hatching out small change’.

  The Owl of Athene, Goddess of Wisdom, on a modern Greek 1 euro coin.

  The bird that was the model for the Athenian coin is thought to be the little owl (Athene noctua) and it is usually depicted in the Egyptian hieroglyph posture, with its body in profile and its head facing forward. In a few coins it appears instead in a frontal posture with its wings spread.

  The best-known Greek coin on which the owl appeared was the tetradrachm, the four drachm silver piece, but it appeared on coins of many denominations, including the decadrachm and the less valuable didrachm, drachm, hemidrachm, tetrobol, diobol, trihemiobol, obol, hemiobol, tritartemorion, trihemitartemorion, tetartemorion and hemiartemorion. (The challenge of working out the change when shopping in the agora must have been daunting.) The drachm was a coinage unit based on weight. One Greek drachm = 4.37 gm. These coins live on, even today, in the form of the modern Greek 1 euro coin, of which the Athenian owl is the centrepiece. In recent years the Athenian owl has also appeared both on Greek banknotes and Greek postage stamps. Its fame spread far and wide, and it is claimed that the American president Theodore Roosevelt used to carry an Athenian owl piece with him as a lucky charm.

  The image of the Goddess Athene on an Apulian red-figure glaux skyphos (owl cup). A Greek red-andblack glazed ceramic bowl, 4th century BC.

  In ancient times the Athenian owl also appeared on many Greek ceramic vessels, especially small measuring cups called glaux skyphos (owl cups) of the fourth century BC. It is thought that the presence of an owl image on one of the cups made it an officially recognized measuring device in classical Athens. Significantly, there is in the Louvre a little Greek vessel on which is shown the goddess Athene at war, carrying a spear. The odd feature of this particular image is that here Athene has been transformed almost entirely into the figure of an owl. The only human features that survive are her arms. Here, instead of being Athene’s owl, the bird has become the goddess herself.

  The reason for this close association between Athene and the owl does not appear to have been accurately recorded by the ancient Greeks themselves, which has allowed for endless academic debate ever since. One suggestion is that Athene had a precursor in the form of the prehistoric Mesopotamian Eye Goddess. She is known to us in the form of small idols that consist of little more than a simple body topped by a huge pair of circular, staring eyes. These idols, dating from 3000 BC, may not have been representative of owls themselves, but their staring eyes may well have led to comparisons with the eyes of owls and, in this way, to have linked Athene to this type of bird. A millennium later, in 2000 BC, small clay figurines of owl-headed goddesses were being made in large numbers in ancient Syria, so Athene may simply have been a late-comer in the long line of owl goddesses in the Middle East.

  An alternative view suggests that owls were often seen flying around near the great temple of the goddess, the Parthenon in Athens, and that their presence there may have led to the owl’s adoption as the bird sacred to the goddess. In fact, these two rival theories do not really conflict and may, indeed, simply have reinforced one another. Incidentally, owls must have been unusually common in Athens because there was a proverb about ‘taking owls to Athens’ that had the same meaning as the British phrase ‘taking coals to Newcastle’.

  Owl-headed goddesses in the form of clay figurines from Syria, c. 2000 BC.

  Another, rather ingenious, suggestion relates the owl to the goddess via her menstrual cycles. Briefly expressed, the argument goes like this: The owl is a bird of moonlight. The moon has a monthly cycle. The goddess has a monthly cycle. Therefore the owl and the goddess are intimately linked. When factual records are absent it is wonderful what the human imagination can do when faced with a puzzling question.

  Whatever the truth about the original link between the goddess and the owl, there is no doubt that the bird was regarded as a totemic animal by the Athenian Greeks, capable of bringing them good fortune. In his popular play The Wasps (422 BC) Aristophanes, for example, mentions the Athenian owl as a good omen in battle, when Athene ‘sent her night bird; and as the owlet flew across the host, our armies hope and joyous omens drew. So by the help of Heaven, ere yet the day did close, we shouted victory, and routed all our foes.’

  A powerful belief did indeed develop that the appearance of Athene in the shape of an owl was a crucial sign foretelling that Greek forces would triumph in battle. It was taken so seriously that one Greek general used to keep an owl hidden in a cage among his baggage so t
hat he could release it to circle over his troops and give them the courage necessary to ensure victory.3 ‘There goes an owl!’ was an Athenian saying meaning ‘there are signs of victory’.4

  A screech owl perfume container, a Proto-Corinthian terracotta vase, 7th century BC.

  In an earlier period the rival Greek city–state of Corinth had also employed the owl as an image for some of its ceramic vessels and in the Louvre there is a famous seventh-century BC Proto-Corinthian perfume container (aryballos) in the form of an owl-shaped vase. It has a curious shape, with the owl’s head twisted to one side, as though the Corinthian potter who fashioned it was still under Egyptian influence and was to a degree imitating the hieroglyph owl, with its body in profile and its head turned to face the onlooker.

  Ascalaphus turned into an owl: having revealed to Zeus that Persephone has eaten pomegranate seeds (thus ensuring her continued confinement in Hades), in revenge she sprinkles him with transforming Phlegethon water.

  The owl also figures in the Greek legend of Ascalaphus. He was an Underworld spirit, the son of Acheron and Orphne, who betrayed the fact that Persephone had eaten a pomegranate in the Underworld. She had been told that she could only return to the upper world if she did not eat anything while she was in the Underworld. She was punished for her misdeed and took her revenge on Ascalaphus by turning him into an owl. It is a fair question to ask why being turned into an owl was such a terrible fate when this bird was so revered by the ancient Greeks. The answer is an intriguing one, namely that Ascalaphus was not turned into just any owl, but specifically into a screech owl. The screech owl was the animal familiar of Hades, the god of the Underworld, and in mythological terms was quite distinct from the revered bird of Athene, which was the little owl. Ovid describes the screech owl as ‘a loathsome bird, ill omen for mankind, a skulking screech owl, sorrow’s harbinger’.

  ROME

  In ancient Rome the goddess Athene became transformed into the goddess Minerva. When the Roman armies subdued those of the Greeks they co-opted their guardian figure and, as their Roman goddess Minerva had virtually the same qualities as the Greek Athene, they borrowed her sacred bird and made it their own. Attached to Minerva, however, the owl fared less well because there was already a widespread belief among the Roman populace that owls were evil creatures and symbols of death.

  One of the popular Roman superstitions was that witches could turn themselves into owls and swoop down on sleeping babies and suck their blood, a belief that nudged the owl into the world of vampires. If an owl was heard to hoot it meant that a witch was approaching, or that someone would die soon. It was claimed than an owl had hooted just before the deaths of Julius Caesar, Augustus and Agrippa. To see an owl in daylight was thought to be a particularly bad omen and, if an owl could be caught, it would be killed and its body nailed to a door to protect a house from harm. In the first century AD, Columella, in his great work on Roman agriculture, states that owl bodies were hung up by country people specifically to avert storms.

  In his great Natural History (AD 77), Pliny the Elder says of the owl that ‘if he be seen to fly either within cities, or otherwise abroad in any place, it is not for good, but prognosticates some fearful misfortune.’ He then records what happened when an owl was observed in the centre of the great city of Rome. The owl entered ‘the very secret sanctuary within the Capitol at Rome . . . whereupon . . . the city of Rome that year made general processions to appease the wrath of the gods and was solemnly purged by sacrifices.’5 Pliny is sceptical about all this and, as a good scientist, records that ‘I myself know of cases where owls have sat on houses where no misfortune followed.’ Quite so, but perhaps the ancient Romans enjoyed the excitement of their purging sacrifices and all the other protective rituals that they had devised. One thing seems certain, however, and that is that in those far off days there were far more owls settling on houses than we ever see today. The traffic noises and the street lighting have scared them all away.

  Some Romans were so convinced that the cry of an owl heralded an imminent death that they would do their utmost to capture the bird and kill it, hoping that this would neutralize the prophecy. Even when the unfortunate bird was dead, there were fears that it would have supernatural powers that would enable it to come to life again, so its body was cremated and its ashes thrown into the River Tiber.

  Owls were also thought to be the messengers of sorcerers who danced on the graves of the dead. It is easy to guess how this last belief could have started, because owls often frequent graveyards where, on a moonlit night, they might be seen to swoop down on an unsuspecting mouse, and the act of actually grabbing it could have been interpreted as a sort of dance.

  Owls, or parts of them, were used in magical practices. It was believed that if you could place an owl’s feather on someone’s sleeping body without waking them up, you would be able to discover their secrets. And if you happened to be travelling abroad, a dangerous undertaking in ancient times, and were unfortunate enough to dream of owls, you were about to encounter a disaster of some kind, such as robbery or shipwreck.

  CHINA

  In China the image of the owl attracted the attention of a great civilization that flourished in the second millennium BC. The artists of the Shang Dynasty (c. 1500–1045 BC) created some of the most elaborate and beautiful bronze figures the world has ever seen. Among them were a number of majestic owls, covered in incised patterns and relief designs of an amazingly complex kind. They are generally dated to around 1200 BC and take the form of delightful little bronze wine containers called zun.6 Sitting firmly on a tripod made up of the two legs and the base of the stiff tail, these owls are thought to have been used during ceremonies of ancestor worship. The staring eyes are huge and the owl’s head is topped with double ear-tufts. On the owl’s chest is a bull’s head emblem in relief and, bizarrely, the wings are formed from a pair of spiral snakes. The back of the owl’s body is adorned with a pair of raptor-like birds with savage, curved beaks. The head of the bird is a removeable lid. In the example shown here there is a knob on top of the head that makes it easy to lift. The knob itself is also fashioned in the shape of a small bird with a long pointed beak and a small crest. This little bird seems to be emerging from the owl’s crown.

  A number of these remarkable owl figures have been excavated from the grave sites of the walled towns of those ancient feudal kingdoms, where the weight of bronze metal employed in their manufacture was clearly an overt display of an affluent society. No records of the period have survived to enable us to interpret with certainty the symbolism of these owls and several conflicting suggestions have been put forward to explain why they were favoured. The most plausible of these sees the owls placed in the darkness of the tomb to protect the occupants in their journey to the afterlife. With their ability to see in the dark and strike to kill, the owls would be able to detect dangers better than any other life form and deal with them silently and swiftly. They could then fly with the souls of the dead, guiding them safely to the other world. Perhaps the wings shaped like coiled snakes were thought to be able to beat in the darkness and strike down evil spirits with a lethal venom. We will never know for certain, unless new excavations reveal some long lost records of that ancient period.

  An owl-shaped bronze zun (wine vessel) of the Late Shang Period, c. 1200 BC.

  A millennium or so later, in the Taoist period, the early Chinese viewed the owl not as a wise old friend, but a violent, horrific figure – the evil predatory bird of the night. For some reason it was believed to be a monster and that owlets would pluck out their mother’s eyes or would devour her. If Chinese children were born on ‘the day of the owl’ (the Summer solstice) they were said to have a violent personality, and might even murder their own mother.

  It was perhaps the violent personality of the Chinese owl that led to a link with violent storms. In the Taoist religion, Lei-gong, the God of Thunder, was a chimera whose body was part owl and part man. He had the beak, wings and claws of
an owl, but the body of a man. It was his duty to punish human beings who were guilty of secret crimes. The Chinese owl was also associated with lightning because it was said to ‘brighten the night’ and there was an old custom of placing an owl effigy in each corner of the home to protect the building from being struck by lightning.

  Fremont Indian rock art: an owl with spread wings at Nine Mile Canyon, Utah, carved between AD 400 and 1350.

  An owl with horns among other animals in a panel at Rochester Creek, Utah.

  A Mochica gold bead in the shape of an owl’s face.

  A Mochica culture painted ceramic vessel in the form of an owl. Northern Peru.

  PRECOLUMBIAN AMERICAS

  The owl appears frequently in the arts of the ancient Americas, from the ancient rock art of North America to the painted ceramics of Peru. In particular, the Mochica culture that flourished in northern Peru between AD 100 and 800 has left us with a wide variety of appealing owl ceramic vessels. For the Mochica, the owl was an important and complex symbolic presence representing, on the one hand, wisdom and a magical healer and, on the other hand, a warrior involved in ritual decapitation and the spirits of the dead. So, in this case, the eternal contradiction of the owl – the wise and the wicked – existed within the same culture. In its wise role, it was seen as a human figure that became transformed into its animal counterpart during nocturnal rituals when, as a supernatural owl, it could magically see in the dark. In its wicked role it was a lethal warrior in whom a symbolic comparison was drawn between making war and hunting prey.