According to the Chinese tradition they received their poultry from the west—probably Burma or the adjacent countries, about 1400 B.C.
Among the sacred books of the East we find in the Institutes of Manu that the tame fowl as food was forbidden, while in the wild state it was allowed to be eaten, indicating it was domesticated when those laws were written[1]. Unfortunately very little is known as to the date of the Institutes of Manu. They are probably much older than their present form which Prof. Buhler[2] places somewhere between 200 B.C. and 200 A.D.
In the Old Testament apparently no mention is made of the domestic fowl.
According to Alfred Newton[3] and Sethe[4] Jungle-fowl are figured on Assyro-Babylonian gems, but they hardly date earlier than the seventh century B.C. Upon this subject Mr Sidney Smith has kindly given me the following note upon the domestic fowl in Babylonia and Assyria:
“There are several references[5] in bird-lists and omen-texts of the Kuyunjik collection to a bird, the name of which in Sumerian was written (
Cuneiform characters) meaning the 'egg-bird[6].' The Sumerian form gave rise to the Accadian Tarru and Tarlugallu, which became in Syriac ܬܰܪܢܳܓܠܳܐ, gallus, cock. The history of the word clearly shows that the cock was known in Babylonia in the early Sumerian period, i.e. before 2500 B.C. The mention
of the bird in omen-texts shows that it was subject to the same kind of observation in Babylonia as in Rome[7]. From the syllabaries it appears that it was also known by various epithets, viz. burrumtu, 'parti-coloured,' kakabanu, 'the starry[8],' and kudurranu[9], 'the crested.'
"The hen was most probably called kurkû[10], a bird known to be a domestic fowl from frequent references[11]. It was used for festival offerings to the goddess Bau in the time of Gudea[12], and was kept, as were all the other domesticated birds, in great numbers by the temples.
- ↑ Vide Alfred Newton, Encycl. Brit., XI ed., X, p. 760.
- ↑ Sacred Books of the East, vol. XXV; also see Encycl. Brit., XI ed., XIV, p. 435.
- ↑ Alfred Newton, op. cit.
- ↑ K. Sethe, Festschrift Friedrich Carl Andreas, Leipzig, 1916, pp. 109–116.
- ↑ Collected and discussed by Hunger, Tieromina, Mitteilungen der Vorderasiatisehen Gesellschafl, 1909, pp. 42
- ↑ Genocillac, Revue d'Assyriologie, vol. III, p. 159.
- ↑ See e.g. Livy, XII, 1, and Pliny, X, 25.
- ↑ Smith suggests "Perhaps from a fancied resemblance of the points of the crest to rays of light"; but Dr Lowe has pointed out to me that it was probably Gallus sonnerati Temm., of which the characteristic markings are tiny spots like stars.
- ↑ So with Meissner, M.V.A.G., 1904, No. 3, p. 18, against Hunger, loc. cit.; this view is certain owing to phonetic readings on an unpublished Tablet Sm 644.
- ↑ Thureau-Dangin, Sumerische und Akkadische Konigsinschriften, p 80, Anmerkung (i), doubts the identification with Syriac ܟܶܘܪܟܝܳܐ, grus, crane, accepted by Jensen, Mythen und Epen, p. 501. The rendering "hen," generally accepted, seems to have been first suggested by Winckler in his Sargon.
- ↑ See Muss-Arnolt, Dictionary, sub roce, and the references in Meissner, Babylonien und Assyrien, pp. 222, 223.
- ↑ Thureau-Dangin. op. cit., pp. 80–81.
Islands). 2. Gallus ferrugineus Murghi Robinson and Kloss. Pen. of India, N. of the Godavari and E. to Assara. 3. Gallus ferrugineus bankiva (Temm.). Java and Lombok. 4. Gallus lafayetti Lesson. Ceylon. 5. Gallus sonnerati Temm. Indian Pen. S. of a line drawn from Mt. Aboo to the mouth of the Gadavari.
