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

The 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.