ancient zoos. Ancient Zoos Horrible History of Zoos

ZOOS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD
Few people know that zoos have an amazingly long history. More than 4 thousand years ago, the rulers of Egypt and Mesopotamia (Mesopotamia, the region between the Tigris and Euphrates), the creators of the majestic pyramids and powerful empires, came up with a new entertainment for themselves: to collect exotic animals and plant gardens.
About 4 thousand years ago, the Egyptian pharaohs built their famous pyramids, and the kings of Mesopotamia created the world's first empires. At the same time, the rulers founded the first menageries and botanical gardens. Over the next two millennia, zoos filled with various exotic animals: they included African giraffes, cheetahs and monkeys, seals, bears and elephants from Asia. In the gardens, among the plantings of rare plants, aviaries were arranged for exotic birds, and unusual fish were released into the ponds.
Documentary evidence of the first gardens and zoos has also been preserved. The most numerous Egyptian finds are found in burials from 2500 to 1400 BC. Mesopotamia is best told by the bas-reliefs of the Assyrian palace from 880-627 BC. In both areas, a huge number of written sources relating to the entire period are found: clay tablets, papyri, inscriptions on the walls of graves and tombstones. They describe how pharaohs and kings set up zoos and gardens for pleasure, prestige and scientific curiosity. Animals, seeds and cuttings of plants were brought from distant lands, sometimes as gifts from friendly or conquered powers, sometimes special expeditions were organized for this. The royals were proud of their collections and made every effort so that plants and animals could grow and reproduce normally.
A fragment of a colored bas-relief (1) is the oldest visual evidence of the passion of royalty in the ancient Middle East, who collected exotic animals from all over the world in their menageries. The bas-relief depicts Syrian bears on a leash. Together with other gifts, they were presented to Pharaoh Sakhur (reigned from 2458 to 2446 BC) by participants in a trading expedition to the Levant (the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea). Where exactly the royal menagerie was located, and whether these bears were trained, is unknown.
It seems that the sculptor himself saw these animals with his own eyes - their long claws, heavy tread and expressive muzzles are surprisingly naturalistic.
The parade of exotic animals is depicted on the frescoes (2) of the Theban tomb of the noble nobleman Rekhmire, who served in the 15th century BC at the court of the great Egyptian pharaohs Thutmose III and Amenhotep II. During their reign, military and trading expeditions were constantly equipped south to Nubia and north to the Levant, from where these animals were brought. Above - a Nubian leads a pack of hunting dogs, long-horned cows follow, a young giraffe, along whose neck a green monkey climbs. Below - the Syrians with an elephant, a bear and horses, in their hands they have copper ingots, elephant tusks and vessels of various shapes and colors.
The image of a giraffe is especially remarkable. Upon closer inspection, it is noticeable that the spots on its skin are small quatrefoils. This geometric stylization was made by the artist not by chance, but for political reasons. The fact that a foreign animal adorns a traditional Egyptian motif testifies to the subjugation of the Nubians to Egyptian domination.
In the ninth century BC, the ruler of the Assyrian kingdom, Ashurnazirpal II, boasted that he "gathered herds and quadrupled their numbers", and also "collected plants and their seeds in those countries where he visited." In 879 BC, Ashurnazirpal II built the city of Nimrud, a new administrative center with a palace. Shortly thereafter, he began to increase his collection of exotic animals. It is known that at the palace there were special enclosures and pens for animals, extensive gardens and parks were laid out around. Monkeys on leashes (3) arrived at the court of the Assyrian ruler along with other animals: elephants, bears, deer and "sea creatures" (perhaps dolphins or seals).
* An animal park was established in Nineveh during the time of King Sennacherib around 700 BC. The tsar himself called this park "A hall without intrigues". He wanted to create a park-reserve where native animals could live and breed in natural conditions. The texts testify that his efforts were crowned with success: "plantations flourished; herons from distant lands made their nests; wild pigs and other animals produced numerous offspring." The bas-relief (4) depicts a prolific sow walking with a brood of piglets, and a resting deer hiding in reed beds.

Veronika Izvitskaya
based on foreign press materials

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Today, thanks to the work of archaeologists, it is possible to restore the entire history of human development. Since most of the skeletons belonging to the era of interest to us were found on the African continent, scientists recognize this territory as the historical homeland of primitive people - Australopithecus and, later, Homo habilis. Stone tools appeared about 2-2.5 million years ago, which allows historians to consider this time as a kind of starting point for the development of the human race. Unlike his ancestors, a "skillful" person - using primitive tools - moves confidently on his feet, and his hands can not only hold a stone or a stick, but also use them as the first primitive tools. However, this is where the differences between Homo sapiens and Australopithecus end: they also communicate through screams, exclamations and gestures. Even after a million years, the creature that historians call the “straight man” still resembled a monkey, not only externally - it was covered with hair, had the appropriate shape of the head and hands - but also in habits. Despite this, the brain of the “rectified man” significantly increased in size, which was reflected in his abilities: he could make tools designed for different purposes: to catch and kill animals, butcher their carcasses, dig the ground, hew wooden sticks. Thanks to the developed skills, man was able to survive the ice age and move from the African continent to Java, to Northern China and to Europe. The "straightened" man began to hunt large animals - elephants and deer - and use fire, which warmed him and protected him from predatory animals. Due to the complication of human activity, 250 thousand years ago, homo sapiens appeared - “reasonable man” or, as he is also called, Neanderthal. Reasonable people first began to use the high caves in which bears hibernated. Firstly, they thus obtained meat without much effort, and secondly, they occupied caves in which they subsequently lived in large groups. It was during this period that strong family relationships began to take shape. The dead people began to be buried with special rituals, surrounding the graves with stones and flowers. The skeletons found have allowed scientists to determine that "intelligent" people were trying to cure sick or injured relatives by sharing food with them and caring for them. Ceremonies and rituals were also characteristic of everyday life: animal skulls arranged in a special order were found in the caves, since it is impossible to trace exactly how their “transformation” into people of the modern type took place. In Latin, he is also called homo sapiens sapiens, or "twice sensible" man, and his appearance is associated with the Stone Age. A man of this species already had practically nothing in common with a monkey - his arms became shorter, his forehead became higher, a chin appeared. Stone tools were replaced by bone ones. In general, in his everyday life there were about 150 types of tools for different purposes. However, animal bones were used not only for the manufacture of tools. From massive bones, people built dwellings, wore animal teeth as decorations.Obviously, the life of people directly depended on animals: primitive communities followed the herds that migrated south. For hunting, they used a spear and a bow, and for the construction of primitive dwellings, not only bones, but also animal skins.

created around 1500 BC by Pharaoh Thutmose III. Returning from military campaigns, he brought to Thebes, his capital, various animals. And his stepmother even equipped special expeditions for animals in Punt (now Somalia). This park, located in the western part of the city, kept many of the animals of northeast Africa; there were especially many species of fish and waterfowl.
In the XII century BC. e., as the Chinese "Sacred Book of Songs" tells, Emperor Wen Wang founded a garden for keeping wild animals between Beijing and Nanjing. According to various sources, it occupied from 400 to 600 hectares and was called the "Park of the Mind" (or the "Garden of Knowledge").
In the ancient Assyrian state, between the Tigris and Euphrates, there were also zoos, where animals were kept in huge fenced areas. And often these zoos had a certain specialization: Queen Semiramis preferred to keep leopards in captivity, her son Ninia - lions, and King Ashur-banipal - camels and lions. In the 10th century BC, King Solomon also had a zoo.
When did they appear zoos in the Western Hemisphere, it is not known exactly, but animal collecting was very popular in Mexico. In 1519, when the Spanish conquerors broke into the capital of the Aztecs, they discovered a beautiful well-maintained zoo with a lot of tropical birds in the possessions of the ruler Montezuma. The birds were served by 300 people, of whom some were engaged only in catching insects for feeding. Birds of prey also lived there, for feeding which 500 turkeys were spent daily.
At the residence of Montezuma there was a house for predatory mammals, pens for ungulates; special rooms were arranged for reptiles. In Europe, the first zoos Appeared, obviously, among the ancient Greeks and Romans. Moreover, inquisitive and enlightened Greeks widely used zoos to study animals.
Alexander the Great sent his teacher Aristotle not only skins, but also live animals and birds from all the countries he conquered. Aristotle kept them in a special park in Athens, described their life and habits, studied anatomy and physiology. Hippocrates tested drugs on animals.
Around 300 BC For the first time, four elephants were delivered to Rome, obtained in the war against King Pyrrhus. In the 1st century BC. Emperor Octavian Augustus kept 3,500 animals, including 260 lions, 420 leopards, 36 crocodiles, 600 different predators of Africa, as well as hippos and rhinos. The inhabitants of ancient Rome loved spectacles, but bloody spectacles.
Fights of people and wild animals were arranged, then fights of animals - elephants with lions or bulls with leopards. Mass persecution of animals was practiced. At that time, special facilities were created to keep wild animals. A huge vivarium and numerous cages with paddocks for predators, parks for deer and other ungulates, and extensive areas for elephants were built in Rome. With the fall of the Roman Empire, many animal structures were destroyed, and the Romans did not see wild exotic animals for several centuries.
Authentic information about the first European zoos have come down to us only from the 10th century AD. At the beginning of the 12th century, the first English zoo was created in Woodstock, famous for its richest collection of large wild cats. During the Renaissance, there was a magnificent menagerie in Florence. At the beginning of the XIV century, a large collection of wild animals was in the residence of the French king Philippe VI. Later, Louis XI founded a zoological garden on the outskirts of the city of Plesile Tours, and at the end of the century this collection was moved to the Louvre, where it was replenished with wild animals brought from North Africa.
One of the first stationary menageries in Germany was Dresden, founded in 1554, which was located in the residence of the Saxon princes. But the term "zoo" ("Tiergar-ten") in Germany was first used in 1451 for the name of a park in Stuttgart. In Portugal, the first menagerie was created in 1517, and in 1726 the menagerie, which belonged to the royal court, became the basis of one of the oldest zoos in Europe - Lisbon.
In Spain, the royal menagerie of Charles III, founded in 1774, in 1869 was transformed into the zoological garden of Madrid. In the Netherlands, in the park of the Count of The Hague in the 14th century, lions, a bird of prey and other animals were kept.
In France ca. 1570 Charles IX built a menagerie in the center of Paris, and Louis XIV commissioned the architect Le Be to build a palace menagerie in the Versailles Park. This menagerie was intended only for the royal family. Architect arranged
rooms and walks for animals radially in the form of a half-opened fan. From the center from the place of "opening the fan" it was possible to see all the living exhibits at the same time. This architectural and planning solution subsequently became widespread in many menageries, which were built on the model of Versailles.
In Austria, the first menagerie was founded by Maximilian I. In 1752, Emperor Franz I founded the second menagerie, which still exists today near Schönbrunn Palace. It was believed that the first menageries in Russia appeared under Ivan the Terrible in 1571. One of them was 5 fathoms long and was divided into three parts, where only brown bears lived. The other was placed on Red Square near the Kremlin, where, at the Nikolsky Gate, lions were kept in a moat, donated by the English queen, and an elephant brought from Arabia. The lion's ditch adjoined the wall of Kitay-Gorod. Lions were kept in this place both in the heyday and in troubled times.
Animals came to Russia as gifts. However, long before that (in 1061) there was a zoo in Novgorod, on the Sofia side, where the Zverino-Nadeinsky Monastery was located.
This zoo contained not only animals of the local fauna, but also exotic animals, which were brought from distant countries by merchants and travelers.
In 1663, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich organized an economic farm in the village of Izmailovo near Moscow, where they were engaged in beekeeping, gardening, and cattle breeding. A menagerie was also set up on the territory of the farm, the largest of all Russian menageries of the 17th century. Wild boars, elks, deer, wolves, bears were kept there, there were even lions, tigers, leopards; There was also a poultry yard. Moreover, the animals were kept not only in cages, but also in pens, and even in the wild. The menagerie has existed for over 100 years.
Gradually, Izmailovo lost its former significance as a royal estate, and in 1765 the palace was destroyed, the economy fell apart, people dispersed, and the remains of the menagerie in 1812 were destroyed by the French during the invasion of Moscow.
Petersburg, various wild animals have been kept since the beginning of the 18th century. The first public zoo in Russia open to the general public was the Moscow Zoo, founded in 1864. Its founder is a prominent scientist and public figure, Professor A.P. Bogdanov wrote that this institution should not only be commercial or entertaining, but should also serve to educate the people and preserve rare animals.
However, four years after the opening of the zoo in Moscow, Bogdanov was forced to abandon his lofty ideas, and the park turned into a purely commercial institution, where animals were kept in disgusting conditions. Such were all zoos and numerous mobile menageries. Advanced people both in Russia and in many countries of the world tried to transform zoos to scientific and educational institutions. A timid attempt was made in the middle of the 18th century by Karl Hagenbeck, a well-known animal dealer, but he did not succeed in everything he planned.
Alfred Brehm gave a lot of energy to the creation of zoos in which animals would survive captivity as best as possible.
First in Hamburg and then in Berlin, he tried to create zoos, which would become both scientific and educational institutions, and would help to preserve rare animals. Brem's merit is that he was able to develop a theory of future zoos, which is being put into practice only now.
Today are being created zoos where animals are created conditions as close to natural as possible.
In Ukraine, in 1889, F. Falz-Fein made an attempt to create a New Zoo of this type in Askania. The son of a wealthy landowner, he had the opportunity not to think about the commercial side of the matter, but simply kept the animals in tolerable conditions, took care of them.
However, the Falz-Fein Zoo was an exception at the time. The bulk of the zoos were entertainment and commercial institutions, where many people went to have fun, where they could even tease animals and birds, make fun of them. It is not surprising that most decent people of that time had a sharply negative attitude towards zoos and menageries.

What is the history of zoos? What bloody entertainment did they replace? And how did zoos appear in Russia?

We all loved going to the zoo when we were kids. Balloons, ice cream and exotic animals were waiting for us there. And before, we thought that zoos were only needed for caged animals to please us with their appearance. But in fact, zoological parks also pursue important scientific goals. And few people know that the maintenance of wild animals by humans has a long history that resembles the bloody fantasies of a flayer.
In ancient Egypt, wild animals were kept to be sacrificed to the gods. And the first European zoos were similar to human prisons: animals lived there for a short life in terrible conditions to the delight of their owner and cruel public. For the first time, a person began to show humanity to animals only in the 19th century - it was in this century that real zoos began to appear around the world, including in Russia.

zoological parks

"Zoo" is properly called a zoological park. And from this phrase, its purpose immediately becomes clear - the study of animals, because "zoo" from Latin is translated as "animal", and "logos" - knowledge, teaching. Zoos also keep animals for their conservation (for example, David's deer can only be seen in zoological parks - hunters completely destroyed them in captivity), restoration and return to the wild. But the main task of zoos is to educate children and adults in the ideas of a humane attitude towards the animal world. Zookeepers should not only entertain visitors, but also instill love for “our smaller brothers” and talk about conservation activities.

Modern zoological parks have on their territory outdoor recreation areas, presentation halls, museums and even cafes. It is hard to believe that most of them started as small collections of animals: from menageries, animal exhibitions, private collections and zoos. For example, the oldest zoo in the world - Schönbrunn in Vienna, which is over 260 years old - originally belonged to the imperial family. And one of the largest zoological parks today, located in San Diego, began with a small private exhibition organized for promotional purposes. But this is now. And in ancient times, keeping wild animals in captivity looked very different.

The scary history of zoos

For the first time, the ancient Egyptians began to engage in the maintenance of wild animals (namely, maintenance, and not domestication) more than 5,000 years ago. Sacrificial and cult animals lived in their temple menageries: crocodiles, rhinos, antelopes, monkeys and others. A little later, similar menageries began to appear at temples in the countries of Central Asia and India. True, the animals were not studied in them, were not released into the wild, and were not even shown to the people. They were either sacrificed to the gods at large festivities, or they simply lived at temples and participated (or rather, were present) in rituals.

The first menagerie where animals were simply put on display appeared in ancient China about 3,000 years ago at the imperial court. It is known as the "Gardens of Knowledge". Wild animals lived in spacious enclosures, where pundits could contemplate them. A similar zoo in ancient times was still in the state of the Aztecs. It existed until the beginning of the 16th century, until it was destroyed by the Spanish conquistadors. Judging by the records of Fernando Cortes, the Aztec imperial zoo contained not only wild animals, but also birds, and even sea fish in salt water ponds. And the attendants lived on the territory of the zoo.

The first private menageries appeared in ancient Rome long before our era. Noble and wealthy citizens kept cheetahs, tigers, lions, monkeys and other animals. The imperial collections were especially striking: elephants and even polar bears were found in them. Such a wide distribution of private menageries forced the Roman senators to introduce a tax on the keeping of wild animals and a law that determined the amount of the fine for harming them. By the way, this fine was higher than the fine for harming pets.

But with all this, in the battles of gladiators with wild animals, not dozens, and not even hundreds of animals, but thousands died. For example, during the opening of the famous Colosseum, about 5,000 predators were killed. And this is far from the only case. Of course, such entertainment caused severe damage to the African and Mediterranean fauna.

In the following centuries, the fashion for private menageries moved to Europe. It reached its peak in the dark Middle Ages. The attitude towards animals, like all the mores of that time, was striking in its cruelty. The animals were kept in stone casemates behind iron bars. Visitors to the menageries (they were the owners' guests) came not to look at the lions and tigers, but to boast of their courage and cruelty: they threw stones at them, poked with sticks and teased them in every possible way, driving the predators into a frenzy. Naturally, animals in such conditions lived a very short life. At the same time, the first mobile menageries appeared, in which the conditions for animals were no better than in private menageries. Surprisingly, the church maintained a cruel attitude towards animals, because Christian teaching says that man is the crown of God's creation and the king of nature. And by an act of cruelty, it seems that people wanted to confirm this.

This state of affairs continued until the Enlightenment. In the 18th century, people finally noticed the decrease in the number and diversity of animals and birds in the world. And from that time on, the study of the life of animals began, the improvement of their conditions in menageries and zoo exhibitions, and the appearance of the first zoos pursuing educational goals. These establishments were so popular that every big city considered it prestigious to have its own zoo. So in the 19th century, more and more new zoos were opened all over the world: in America, England, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, France, Japan and other countries. In the Russian Empire, the first zoo opened in 1806 in Kazan, and the first zoological park appeared in Moscow on February 12, 1864.

The first zoo in Russia

The Moscow Zoo owes its appearance to A.P. Bogdanov, a professor at Moscow University, who did a lot for its opening and further development. Immediately after its opening, it became clear: no one needs the zoo, and the first 50 years of its existence were difficult. At first it was developed on donations from visitors, later it was transferred to private rent twice, it was almost closed in the 1870s due to debts, it suffered greatly from the revolutions of 1905-1907. and 1917. But the situation changed for the better in the 1920s after its nationalization. Thanks to the selfless work of biologists M. M. Zavodsky and P. A. Manteifel, the zoo was expanded, equipped with the latest technology and replenished with new animals. Since that time, the Moscow Zoo has experienced many changes and transformations. Today it is one of the largest zoos in Russia and a participant in international captive breeding programs for wild and rare animals.

In addition to the Moscow Zoo, one of the first in Russia were opened zoos and zoos in St. Petersburg, Penza, Kazan, Kaliningrad. Today in Russia there are about 60 modern zoos, most of which are involved in the study and maintenance of wild animal species in captivity.