Ancient Falconry

The problem is that most of the larger birds of prey are unsuitable for hunting – at least, according to purists in the world of falconry. The smaller eagles and some buzzards are mainly scavengers and carrion feeders, and will only occasionally hunt live prey. Other large species, like the vulture, can easily be trained to fly to the hand but apparently cannot be made to kill anything. Falconers today generally use a relatively select range of species, all at the smaller end of the size range. These include the larger bird-killing falcons (such as the peregrine, the lanner, the saker and sometimes the gyrfalcon) and the majority of goshawks and sparrow-hawks – precisely the kinds of bird that are rare in the Middle Eastern archaeological sites.

But can we be sure that ancient falconers followed the same practice? All birds of prey can be easily tamed and trained, and present-day falconers in Central Asia, India, and even Europe have trained a whole host of larger birds of prey to fly and hunt, some more successfully than others.

Golden eagles, for example, can be trained to catch something as large and formidable as a wolf. In Uzbekistan, and Khazakstan today, some skilled hunters still depend upon golden eagles to catch hares, foxes and wolves for their skins, which are then sold.Various travellers in Central Asia have described the use of eagles for hunting large quarry. In the thirteenth century, Marco Polo participated in a hunt using eagles with the great Kublai Khan and commented: "He has also a great multitude of eagles which are very well trained to hunt; for they take wolves and foxes and buck and roe deer, hares and other small animals."

In 1559, the European traveller A. Jenkinson reported seeing Tartars using "Haukes" (probably golden eagles) to hunt wild horses and states that "they are used to bewilder the hunted animal." Lieutenant D. Carruthers in 1949 described natives of Tarim using eagles to bring wild pig to bay, so the hunters can close in and club the victim to death. In these cases the eagle has little more than nuisance value, but it's sufficient to confuse the quarry in order to bring it to bay and bag.