[Moderator's note: Posted in 3 parts (the daily FML limit).  I've combined
all three parts into one.  BIG]
 
This is in response to Ron's post regarding Egyptian ferrets.  It is not
a flame; I will discuss issues only and leave any personal feelings where
they belong--off this list (I actually have no personal feelings toward
Ron; I don't know him and I don't think I've ever met him.  But I would
like to think we can both discuss these issues without personal feelings or
politics getting in the way.  I know I can.)  I apologize for the complexity
and length of these posts; I am just attempting to take the time and effort
to fully explain why the "Out of Egypt" idea of ferret domestication is
wrong.  In the past, shorter and simplier explanations have not been
convincing enough to overcome decades of misinformation.
 
Ron posted on the FML: "The egyptology musem in Cairo has mummified remains
of ferrets and meercats (a kind of mongoose native to Africa).  These are
among only the most ancient of animal mummies found dating about 3700 to
4300 years BC!"
 
I suspect Ron means "The Egyptian Museum" located in Cairo.  There are
something like 60+ museums in Egypt, many in or near Cairo, but the
majority are extremely small and have only a small number of artifacts.
Ron's dad could mean any one of them, but since most tourists only see the
major spots, my guess is the Egyptian Museum.  In the past, I have spoken
(via telephone) with several curators at this museum, and they assure me
there is not a single domesticated ferret or European polecat housed there.
Lots of mongeese and meercats, a few weasels and zorillas, but not a single
domesticated ferret or European polecat.  However, since Ron's report, I
will call later this week and confirm the earlier conversations.
 
The lack of polecats and ferrets in ancient Egypt is supported by several
recent books on the subject, including Douglas J. Brewer etal 1994
"Domestic Plants and Animals: The Egyptian Origins," Dale J. Osborn and
Jana Osbornova 1998 "The Mammals of Ancient Egypt," Rogar A. Caras 1996 "A
Perfect Harmony: The Intertwining Lives of Animals and Humans Throughout
History," Rosalind and Jack Janssen 1989 "Egyptian Household Animals,"
Patrick F. Houlihan 1996 "The Animal World of the Pharaohs," Joachim
Boessneck 1988 Die Tierwelt des Alten Agypten : Untersucht Anhand
Kulturgeschichtlicher und Zoologischer Quellen," Geoffrey T. Martin etal
1981 "The Sacred Animal Necropolis at North Saqqara : the Southern
Dependencies of the Main Temple Complex," and Dale J. Osborn 1980 The
Contemporary Land Mammals of Egypt (Including Sinai).  There are dozens of
other references in my stack and not a single one identifies domesticated
ferrets or European polecats in ANY Egyptian archaeological OR present day
material.  According to all contemporary scientific sources, ferrets and
polecats were NEVER in Egypt.  Well, actually a few could have been; some
might have been traded in for the Pharonic collections, but there is no
evidence of this, none have been found, and that wouldn't even be close to
domestication.  In light of the scientific evidence, if ANYONE wants to say
polecats or ferrets were in Egypt, they have to prove it.
 
I'm not saying Ron's father is wrong on his own account.  He could have
been misinformed, or even the English translations in the descriptive texts
could be wrong.  I have a Russian paper on the hybridization of European
polecats and domesticated ferrets where "polecat" is translated as "skunk."
The St. Louis zoo identified domesticated ferrets on display as wild
European polecats.  The King James/Old English translation of the Hebrew
word "Anakah" was mistranslated as "ferret" when the literal translation
meant "groaner" or "sigher," and is more properly translated as gecko (or
mouse-shrew).  It happens all the time and only fuels misunderstanding and
myth.  I suspect either someone told Ron's father the animal was a ferret,
he saw the obvious physical similarities between polecats and mongeese and
mistook it for a ferret, or the animal was misidentified on some sort of
placard.  The mistake is an easy one to make, and has been made even by
reputable scientists.
 
Then Ron wrote, "Also there are paintings of a ferret type creature
guarding the granarys of three cities in upper Egypt," and "It is thought
that cats replaced these early ferrets."
 
There are quite a few paintings of "ferret-type creatures" in Egyptian
paintings, as well as statuary, pots, models, and, of course, as glyphs;
I have photocopies of dozens of them.  If you look at the above listed
references, you can see reproductions of many of them, including the one
cited by Chuck and Fox Morton as their basis of arguing ferrets were
domesticated in Egypt.  "Ferret-type creatures" is a great description;
Egyptologists and zooarchaeologists have universially agreed the animals
depicted are mongeese.  In fact, the ancient Egyptians nearly domesticated
the mongoose and what some people claim for ferrets (early Egyptian
domestication) actually applies to mongeese.  Ron is right about the cat
replacement; one theory holds cats were easier to breed and had a higher
fecundity than mongeese, others say the cat seemed "more regal in
carriage," or were better hunters.  Whatever the reason, mongeese were
replaced by cats, although they are *still* kept as pets and as mousers to
this day.  Reportedly, they are good pets, especially those which normally
live communally, like meercats.
 
Then Ron said, "It is possible either the ferret or the meercat may have
been worshiped in upper Egypt at this time, but no solid proof exists."
 
Egyptians were extreme animal worshipers and worshipped most animals in the
area, including mongeese.  There is good evidence that the Egyptian god
Atum is sometimes represented by a mongoose because he was thought to have
transformed into that animal from time to time.  Although most depictions
of mongeese do not usually refer to Atum, they reportedly were mummified
and saved in his temples.  The early Egyptians not only worshipped animals,
but were fanactical in preserving all of them, from birds to shrews and
from crocs to hippos, so they would exist in the afterlife.  Very little
was missed; Even tiny shrews were preserved as mummies.  Because of this,
even those animals that were not extensively worshiped were mummified in
great numbers.  However, those animals that were worshipped, like cats and
ibis, had entire temples dedicated to the preservation of their remains,
which were stored in the millions.
 
Then Ron said, "Very few of these mummies still exist because the were
used to feed the furnaces of locomotives in the late 1800's."
 
Yes and no.  Yes, tremendous numbers of mummies were destroyed, but the
part regarding the existence of only a few mummies is incorrect.  Even now,
there are hundreds of thousands of animal mummies still stored away in
archaeological sites and stuffy museums.  British, French, USA and German
museums store thousands and that is not even counting what is in Egypt.
It is correct that both animal and human mummies were used extensively for
fuel, including powering locomotives (they were also used by the tons for
fertilizer).  I have read estimates that perhaps 80 to 90 percent of the
mummies (both human and animal) were destroyed in this manner.  However,
that doesn't mean the rare mummies were lost or destroyed, or that the
reason "ferret mummies" are rare is because they were all burned up.
Shortly after the translation of the Rosetta stone, a world-wide Egyptology
fad took place, and people were buying everything from scraps of papyrus to
huge stone artifacts.  Mummies of all types were extremely popular and it
was considered a public coup to have a party with a mummy on display.  The
rare mummies commanded the highest prices, so they were constantly being
watched for, collected and sold.  The common mummies (cats, dogs, ibis,
humans, etc.) where destroyed in quantity, but not to such an extent that
they are "rare" today.
 
Here is why the destruction of the mummies doesn't matter.  If the
destruction of all animal mummies was RANDOM, then the loss of a single
type of mummy is proportional to the loss of all other mummies.  In other
words, if 25% of 1000 mummies are ferrets (250/1000), even if you randomly
destroy 90% of them, you would still have 25% ferret mummies (25/100) in
the leftover collection.  Now, since we are talking about MILLIONS of
animal mummies that were randomly destroyed, there would STILL be scores
of rare mummies left to play with.  If you believe that ferrets were
domesticated by the Egyptians, you do *NOT* want this to be the case
because it would mean that ferrets are so rare in the record, that they
were completely lost in the mummy destruction.  In other words, the
"rarity" of ferret mummies proves they were not domesticated by the
Egyptians and the occasional mummy found is due to deliberate importation,
NOT domestication.  You see, if ferrets were domesticated as mousers,
they they would be found in great numbers, just like the other Egyptian
household animals.  But they are not found, so they are either extremely
rare, OR they were never there.  Both cases prove non-domestication.
 
If the destruction of all animal mummies was NOT RANDOM, that is, someone
pulls out the rare ones to sell, such as hippos or cows, then you would
expect ferret mummies to be either saved if rare, or destroyed at the same
rate as common mummies such as cats, dogs or ibis, if not rare.  If you
believe that ferrets were domesticated by the Egyptians, you do *NOT* want
this to be the case because it would mean that 1) ferrets are so rare in
the record, that they were never found for saving, or 2) they are still
commonly found in similar proportions as cats or dogs or ibis.  Since we
KNOW the second option is incorrect, that only leaves the possiblity that
ferrets were too rare to be found for saving, which proves, again, they
were not domesticated.
 
Random or not, the destruction of the animal mummies, as horrific as I feel
about it, has no real impact on deciding if ferrets were in Egypt of not.
In a very real sense, it was nothing more than a crude sort of sampling,
but with an "N" in the thousands, which makes for some really great and
powerful statistics.  So even though a tremendous amount of information
was lost, it doesn't matter because what was left behind is more than good
enough.  Why?  The offical phrase is "sampling to redundancy." What this
means is, as you continue to sample the population, you reach the point
where even though you continue to add numbers, the final results stay the
same.  Ok, consider a town where 100 people own red cars, 500 people own
blue cars, and 1000 people own white cars, making a ratio of 1:5:10.  As
you sample, you reach the point where even though you might have only
randomly counted a few hundred cars, the ratio of 1:5:10 has already been
reached (when rounding off to whole numbers).  Continued counting changes
nothing, so you have sampled to redundancy.  Now, lets say a single person
owns a green car.  What are the chances of sampling it?  Very poor; you
could count every car in town before you found it.  So sampling to
redundancy does not attempt to find the very rare objects, but it is very
accurate with the more common ones.
 
And that's the rub.  You see, if ferrets were domesticated in a land where
there was an almost fanatical obligation to preserving the wildlife for the
afterlife (either as mummies, models or drawings which could come to life)
and where the "zoological record" preserved as art and glyphs was an
accurate account of the animals living in the area, then ferrets wouldn't
be rare.  By its very nature, domestication implies a somewhat common and
large population; after all, the "Out of Egypt" hypothesis does say ferrets
were domesticated and used in Egypt as mousers at graneries and in homes.
By implication, there had to be a lot of them.  They may not be as common
as other animals, but they still would not be so rare as to be missed when
sampling to redunancy.  It is their rarity (or nonexistence) that PROVES
ferrets were never domesticated in Egypt.
 
You see, domesticated animals are not rare in archaeological records.
In some cases, their remains outnumber those of wild animals by a large
degree.  If Egyptians domesticated ferrets for mousing, and only later
replaced them with cats, then you would expect to find ferret remains,
then ferret and cat remains, and finally just cat remains as you move from
older to more modern deposits.  But you don't.  You only find cat remains.
Now, either something is purposely taking ferret remains out of the
archaeological record, or they were never there.  If you think it is the
former, be prepared to list the reason to prove the removal.
 
Now, here is something for everyone to suck on.  Lets assume you actually
found a mummy or bones of a ferret.  How do you know it's a ferret?
Exactly how can you show it is NOT a polecat?  I have been directly
studying that question for some time, and I have just started to get some
ideas on how it can be done.  But I am a long way from publishing those
ideas.  At this point in time, you cannot tell the difference between a
ferret and a polecat, except for some very small differences in the skulls
of some individuals.  So, if you cannot prove the remains did not come
from a polecat, how can you prove they are from a ferret?  To prove
domestication, you have to prove any remains are ferrets, not polecats.
If you had a lot of mummies or remains, you could make such an argument,
but if you only have rare remains, you cannot support domestication.
 
There is ONE other line of evidence, and that is folklore.  Most mammals
(or actually "types" of animals--there may have been no distinction between
types of mice or bats, etc.) usually are mentioned--even if rarely--in
the folklore of the locals.  The first possible ferret tale are several of
the Aesop's fables, where modern translations of early texts suggest
"house-weasel."  This could be a reference to the ferret or it's ancestor.
BUT, if used with other evidence, like Aristophanes' works, then it
supports the idea that ferrets were in existance in Greece about 400-300
BC.  Ferrets in early folklore are only found in Europe, and not a single
tale from Egypt.  There are tales regarding cats, dogs, cattle and other
domesticated animals from Egypt, but not a single ferret tale.
 
Now, the astute reader may point out there is a lack of fossils of
ferrets in Europe as well, assuming as I do that Europe is the probable
domestication area.  It's a good point, but a faulty one.  First, while
ferret subfossils ARE rare, the remains of polecats are not; it is more
than likely that since it is nearly impossible to presently tell a
prehistoric ferret from a polecat, some of the remains are undoubtably from
ferrets.  Second, Egypt is not Europe; in Egypt, people were purposely
making mummies out of any animal they could get their hands on, which would
have included ferrets if they where there.  Also, bones do not preserve
well in damp acidic forest environments like those found in Europe, but do
great in dry alkaline environments like those in Egypt, so you can't blame
it on preservation.  Finally, everyone and their mother has run off to
Egypt for a little archaeology, but vast areas of central and eastern
Europe have had very little archaeological investigation, and what has been
done is only reported in obscure journals.  So, the ferrets are probably
there; they just have not been found.  Yet.
 
So this is what you have.  No prehistoric polecat or ferret remains in
Egypt; plenty of polecat remains (and some ferret) in Europe.  No ferrets
mentioned in Egyptian literature, lots mentioned in early European
literature.  No ferrets in Egyptian art, lots in European art.  No stories
or tales about ferrets in Eygpt, some found in Europe.  You can blame
the rarity of ferrets in Europe due to lack of preservation, lack of
archaeology, little accessable reporting, and inability to tell the
difference between ferrets and polecats, but these conditions did not,
for the most part, exist in Egypt.  I think the burden of proof exists
with the "Out of Egypt" camp; they should offer it or drop the subject.
 
Now, why is this so critically important anyway?  Because we, as ferret
owners, are fighting the twin spectors of misinformation and prejudice.
Like each incident of a ferret biting a baby, each occurence of
misinformation will come back to bite us hard and deep.  Already there is
a CaCaLand Fishing Gestapo and Door Breaking webpage that uses the "Out
of Egypt" argument to cast doubt on our other claims.  After all, if our
ferret research is flawed on this one easy-to-disprove subject, what is it
like in our more critical and important issues, like ferrets going feral,
or low bite incidence?  As my dad used to say, once you kiss the butt of a
horse, you are labeled, regardless if it was accidental or not.
 
In an honorable argument designed to overcome unfair laws, prejudice and
misinformation, the truth is critical.  The use of unproven "ideas" in
order to bolster a case is not only unethical, it runs the risk of tainting
our other evidence, WHICH IT IS CURRENTLY DOING!  I would LOVE to be able
to prove ferrets were domesticated longer than cats; in fact, all my early
research was done in an attempt to do that very thing.  But I can't, nobody
can.  All I know is, like a bad apple, the "Out of Egypt" hypothesis of
ferret domestication is damaging our other, more important arguments.  We
can't afford this.  Our ferrets cannot afford this.  I, for one, believe
the truth will set ferrets free; who cares if ferrets were domesticated
5000 or 2500 years ago?  I wouldn't care if they were only domesticated
1000 years ago because, the fact is, they are domesticated now, which is
all that matters.
 
I don't know exactly when or where ferrets were domesticated; not a single
person knows the location or timing of ferret domestication.  I suspect
it was in southcentral Europe maybe 2500 to 3000 years ago, but I have no
physical evidence to support that idea.  But I do know this; the "out of
Egypt" hypothesis is wrong, promoting it is wrong, and even allowing it
to be a possibility is wrong.  It is an argument constructed of smoke and
mirrors, easily explained away, whose "proofs" consist of mistranslations,
misinterpretations, misidentifications and misdirection.  People are free
to believe in illusion all they want; I prefer to watch the hands of the
magican and realize truth is not what which is percieved, but what which
is provable.
 
Again, I have to apologize for the length and complexity of these posts; I
simply knew of no way to offer the argument without this minimum space or
discussing some difficult concepts.  Also, again, I want to stress that
this post is not a flame or a put-down.  It is nothing more than a
discussion of the issues as brought out by Ron.  Ron, I hope you don't see
it as a flame, and I apologize beforehand if you think so.
 
Bob C and 16 Mo' Darwinian Refugees           [post 1]
Bob C and 16 Mo' Selectionist Sofa Sharks     [post 2]
Bob C and 16 Mo' "Out of Europe" Descendants of Domesticated Polecats
[Posted in FML issue 2745]