Al-Tuyour

The ancient Mesopotamians ate a lot of birds and eggs. Game was plentiful. There were ducks, geese, and many kinds of pigeon, excluding perhaps doves, which, though domesticated, were tabooed. They were thought of as belonging to the goddess Ishtar, and during religious festivals, worshipers fed them crumbled cakes made especially for such occasions. Some of the wild marsh birds were domesticated as pets, such as the ibis, crane, and heron, of which seven varieties are mentioned in the ancient records. Pelicans were trained for fishing, and the fields were the home of birds like thrushes, blackbirds, sparrows, and larks. Partridges and francolins were bred in the countryside. Chickens were the last to reach the scene, but were definitely known by the first millennium bc. The chicken reached Greece around 600 bc by way of Syria, where it was called the ‘Akkadian bird.’