EOTO: Carrier Pigeon

From the development of the first telegraph to the first message ever sent from a telephone, you may be wondering "where did it all start?" Luckily for you, and for the better half of humanity before the telegraph and telephone there was the Carrier Pigeon. 

This mural was found in Pharaoh Akhenaten's castle,
located in his green room.

Going back as far as Ancient Egypt pigeons have been consistently used as a resource to the human race. Don't believe me? According to Did Ancient Egypt have a Pigeon Problem? An article written by Atlas Obscura shows a painting Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten commissioned for his castle in which birds akin to pigeons are shown in a positive manner. It is also according to the article that pigeons were viewed as domesticated pets, a food source, and also as ways of communication. In 1350 BCE, for example, there is a bas-relief demonstrating how the pigeons were used to communicate, which was by bringing them far from home, then letting them go to travel back on their own. Pharaoh Akhenaten's city of Amarna was even set up with "pigeon-huts" or dovecotes designated for these pigeon mail-men. 

Ancient Grecian Woman with Pigeon

Moving into Ancient Greece, pigeons were used once again to announce news, or to deliver messages to and from one city from the next. It is typically Greece where one begins to think of the origins of the Carrier Pigeon, and it is in Using Carrier Pigeons for Communication in Antiquity where it is discussed that even though that is not inherently true, the Carrier Pigeon was a huge commodity for the Ancient Greek civilization. 

St. Olga of Kiev with Pigeon

Moving from BCE to AD, I would like to introduce  you to one particular problematic point in Carrier Pigeon history. Watcher's The Bloody Revenge of Saint Olga of  Kiev discusses how Carrier pigeons were used to carry sulfur to a neighboring city in an attempt to light the city on fire. While St. Olga was successful this action harmed most, if not all of the pigeons who were used. This action on Olga's behalf would be but one example of the mistreatment of the Carrier Pigeon, even when it was most useful to our human society. 

Soldier releases Pigeons

During World War One Carrier Pigeons were also used to convey co-operative messages across enemy lines. Back then, the Carrier Pigeon was considered one of the most useful resources of the early 19th century. Dr. Elizabeth Bruton in EXCITING TALES AND TOP SECRET WORK OF PIGEONS IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR mentions the many advantages and disadvantages to the use of the Carrier Pigeon during the war, it flew silently, it was necessarily untraceable, they were fast, and able to fly for miles away. On the other hand, they could only fly to and from where they established their home in, controlling or trying to branch the pigeon out to other locations was unobtainable.  Another problem came with the fact that the Carrier Pigeon could not carry large messages, meaning the Carrier Pigeon was only used to carry emergency messages and espionage. 

Today, we treat pigeons as a nuisance, a pest bombarding our major cities. That is one sad reality of the Carrier Pigeon. We no longer revere them as this adaptive and innovative messengers, which is unfortunate since it was us who gave them those jobs to begin with.