The crocodiles of the Nile in John Gardner Wilkinson’s Modern Egyptians

Record summary

John Gardner Wilkinson’s Modern Egyptians includes observations on Egyptian life, beliefs, and animals, including the Nile crocodile and local attitudes toward it. The book provides a named nineteenth-century source for examining how crocodile lore could be interpreted by European observers as evidence of extraordinary creatures. Its value is comparative: it places animal behavior, religious symbolism, and everyday testimony in the same ethnographic frame. The main uncertainty is how much of each passage reflects Wilkinson’s observation, earlier published sources, or generalized claims about “the Egyptians.”