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History of Taxidermy


Taxidermy, or the process of preserving animal skin together with its feathers, fur, or scales, is an art whose existence has been short compared to forms such as painting, sculpture, and music. The word derives from two Greek words: taxis, meaning order, preparation, and arrangement and derma, meaning skin. Directly translated, taxidermy means “skin art.”

According to John W. Moyer, a staff member at the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History famous for his comprehensive studies on the development of this process, in his book Practical Taxidermy, the modern form of taxidermy greatly differs from the taxidermy of antiquity. In ancient times, although considered some form of “art,” it was a process of animal preservation; in contrast, modern taxidermy methods seek to produce lifelike mounts of wildlife by accurately modeling the anatomy of animal specimens as they might appear in their natural habitat. According to Albert B. Farnham, in his book Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit, although its methods greatly differ over time, the art reveals that there existed then as now the desire to preserve the trophy of the hunter’s prowess and skill in natural objects

As documented in Frederick H. Hitchcock’s 19th-century manual entitled Practical Taxidermy, the earliest known taxidermists were the ancient Egyptians and despite the fact that they never removed skins from animals as a whole, it was the Egyptians who developed one of the world’s earliest forms of animal preservation through the use of injections, spices, oils, and other embalming tools. As early as 2200 BC, they embalmed the bodies of dogs, cats, monkeys, birds, sheep, oxen, and any other pets of Egyptian royalty and buried them in their Pharaoh’s tomb. This art of embalming was effective, not for the purpose of having the specimens look natural or for exhibition, but to satisfy the tradition of the times. Likewise, according to Thomas Brown, a 19th-century naturalist and malacologist, “Egyptian preservation attempts were prepared in such a manner as to produce no pleasurable sensations in examining them; instead, they were remarkable only for their great antiquity and spiritual beliefs”. Though these people did not seek to preserve animals for modeling their anatomy as they might appear in a natural setting, the ancient Egyptians’ ability to preserve the carcasses of animals as immense as the hippopotamus (a mummy of which was discovered in Thebes) reflect the veracity of these early textual claims to the art’s earliest roots.


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