What Bit the Ancient Egyptians? Niche Modelling to Identify the Snakes Described in the Brooklyn Medical Papyrus

ABSTRACTThe Brooklyn Papyrus is a medical treatise from Ancient Egypt (∼660–330 BCE) focusing on snakebite. Herpetologists have proposed identifications for many of the animals it describes, but some remain uncertain partly because the species no longer live in Egypt. This paper uses niche modelling to predict the palaeodistributions of ten of these snake species, to test some proposed identifications. Occurrence records and environmental variables were used to generate maximum entropy models for each species in the present day and the mid-Holocene (∼4,000 BCE). Our models performed very well, generating AUC scores ≥0.867 and successfully predicting species’ current ranges. Nine species’ predicted palaeodistributions included areas within Ancient Egypt, and four (Bitis arietans, Dolichophis jugularis, Macrovipera lebetina and Daboia mauritanica) were within modern Egypt. Daboia palaestinae was also predicted to occupy a patch of suitable habitat inside modern Egypt, but separate from the species’ core range. The tenth species, Causus rhombeatus, would have been present in kingdoms that were the Ancient Egyptians’ regular trading partners. We therefore conclude that all ten species modelled in this study could have bitten Ancient Egyptian people. Our study demonstrates the usefulness of niche modelling in informing debates about the species ancient cultures may have interacted with.KEYWORDS: Ancient EgyptsnakesBrooklyn PapyrusMaxENTniche modellingpalaeodistributions AcknowledgementsWe thank Gonzalo Sanchez, Nick Casewell, Tomáš Mazuch, Gordon W. Schuett, Stephen Spawls and David A. Warrell for many enlightening discussions about snake distributions and possible candidate species to match the descriptions in the Brooklyn Papyrus. We received no funding for this research.Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationNotes on contributorsElysha McBrideElysha McBride is a MZool graduate of Bangor University in Zoology with Animal Behaviour. Her main interests are in animal behaviour and ethnozoology.Isabelle C. WinderIsabelle C. Winder is a Senior Lecturer in Zoology at Bangor University interested in evolutionary anthropology and primatology. Her research explores how human evolution has been shaped by interactions with the environment and other organisms.Wolfgang WüsterWolfgang Wüster is a Professor in Zoology at Bangor University interested in herpetology and toxinology. His main research interests are the selective drivers of snake venom evolution, systematics, biogeography, conservation and addressing the public health issues caused by venomous snakebites.