>>2 In particular, sparrows were associated by the ancient Greeks with Aphrodite, the goddess of love, due to their perceived lustfulness, an association echoed by later writers such as Chaucer and Shakespeare. Sparrows are represented in ancient Egyptian art very rarely, but an Egyptian hieroglyph is based on the House Sparrow, the sparrow hieroglyph: ... The symbol had no phonetic value and was used as a determinative in words to indicate small, narrow, or bad.
Also, Jewish sparrows: The Dead Sea Sparrow (Passer moabiticus), as its name suggests, is a breeding bird around the River Jordan, Dead Sea, and into Iraq, Iran and western Afghanistan. Breeding recorded in Cyprus (1981/1982) but is probably extinct there now. It is migratory or dispersive, although the regular wintering grounds of this nomadic species are largely unknown, except that the eastern race winters in Pakistan. Flocks of the nominate western race have been found in winter further south in the Middle East.