Meidum Geese, Chapel of Itet, Meidum, Egypt. Photo C.K. Wilkinson.
It may not be a golden goose, but a feathered friend depicted in an ancient Egyptian painting is still delighting scientists the world over.
Anthony Romilio, a researcher in the Dinosaur Lab at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, believes that the speckled goose in a 4,600-year-old painting often referred to as “Egypt’s Mona Lisa” is, in fact, the only known documentation of an ancient and now-extinct species.
Called
Meidum Geese, the painting was discovered in the 1800s in the Chapel of Itet at Meidum. Itet was the wife of the vizier Nefermaat, who ruled Egypt from 2610 to 2590 B.C. The powerful couple was able to commission works from the most sought-after artists of the day, according to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (A facsimile of