Ooops, andother typeo.  Ratz.  Yes, Carla, I caught the goof, but only after
*several other people* e-mailed me to point it out.  That's the problem with
spell checks; they don't care how dumb the people are if the word is spelled
correctly.  I want to personally thank all you wonderful souls who felt it
was their duty to make light of my mistake; I now need lots of therapy...
8-p (I have my glass on instead of the contacts)
 
Liza: The red eyes are there because ferrets are satanically-spawned evil
monsters, bent on killing cows and CaCa Biocrats.  No, the ferret is an
albino, lacking all pigment in it's cute little body.  The red is the
retina, colored by blood vessels, and is normal (flash photos show the same
thing--called red eye--in pigmented animals and people, BTW).
 
JodyLee: You were way to nice about the book thing.  Its a horrible,
horrible thing.  People complain about the decline of the school, but let me
say its not the schools, nor the teachers.  Its the books (well, uncaring
parents who distrust anyone with an IQ higher than Dan Quale on a 'no-brain'
day might be a factor.  [Did you hear DQ joined a club for people of his
intellect?  Its called DENSA])
 
Sorry, we all have our buttons.
 
Kat: I love Eqyptology as well.  My cat is named Bast (Actually 'Bastet' but
we shorten it) Her sister, who died several years ago during a
misunderstanding of the braking capabilities of large trucks, was named
Mefdet.
 
I've been able to trace the "egyptian ferrets" story back to Chuck and Fox
Morton's book (the book was actually written by Fox Morton, a very nice lady
I might add, but her ex got the first author position) After a lengthy
dicussion, she indicated the story was included after she was shown a
photograph of an Egyptian hieroglyphic, with an animal identified as a
ferret.  She didn't make the ID; the authority who showed it to her did (I
forget his name off hand) and insisted the picture was a ferret.
 
The term 'ferret' is not part of the Eygptian language; like many other
people, the word for ferret is the same as for polecat.  I have a friend who
has been doing faunal analysis of ancient Egyptian stuff for decades, and
states he has never found a ferret/polecat.  They are not part of the fossil
record.  Excluding the single hieroglyphic, no other picture has been found.
This is not what I would call 'good evidence' considering there are millions
of pictures (ok, tens of thousands) of all the other domesticated animals
recorded on heiroglyphs.  As for the picture, I saw a reproduction of it,
and it is probably a mongoose--quite common in the area, and also kept as
pets.  Although the general outline is there, the head and tail are wrong
for ferrets.  In the meantime, the story has been cited and reprinted, and
has taken on a life of it's own.  Some people would rather believe it than
ask for evidence, or even check sources, so it continues to be printed as
fact.
 
The fact is, the earliest mention of ferrets was by Aristophanes at about
450 BC, or approximately 2500 years ago.  These animals were domesticated
even if the Greeks used the same word for ferret as they did for polecat.
This indicates the domestication process occurred prior to 450 BC, but that
aspect has been lost in antiquity.  How can we say when the ferret was
domesticated when we don't know the exact species it developed from, nor the
culture or location?  If the Egyptians had them, they why didn't they write
about them, (They wrote about *everything* at great length), and why aren't
there any remains?  (There are plenty of bones of every other domesticate;
sheep, cats, dogs, even lions, hyaenas and crocodiles were mummified.  Not
one ferret or polecat) Simple; the ferret was unknown to the Egyptians, and
as far as we can tell, it just popped up during the time of the Greeks.
(Maybe that was the origin of "Pop goes the weasel?)
 
I might add that the animals known to the Egyptians and the early Hebrews
were virtually identical; a comparison of the animals mentioned in the Bible
closely matches those mentioned by the Egyptians.  Again, not a single
mention of ferret or polecat.  (Older King James versions say 'ferret' but
that has been proven to be a mistranslation of the Hebrew for 'gecko.')
 
In short, there is absolutely no evidence that the ancient Egyptains were
even aware of the existence of the ferret, much less having domesticated
them.  Sorry, it is a myth.  I want to say we shouldn't fault Fox Morton on
this; she went to someone she concidered to be an expert, and was given
erroneous information.  Besides, the book was meant for the popular press
rather than the scientific.  But continuing to publish the myth is another
matter, and you can judge the quality of the reference by the author's
willingness to investigate sources, and stick with those that are provable,
or at least has *some* evidence.
 
Any typos are Carlas fault.
 
Bob and the 14 Tube Snakes
[Posted in FML issue 1608]