Animal mummy

[1] In 1888, an Egyptian farmer digging in the sand near Istabl Antar discovered a mass grave of felines, ancient cats that were mummified and buried in pits at great numbers.

Besides Egypt, pre-Columbian bird mummies have been found in the Atacama Desert of Chile, including some next to the oasis town of Pica.

These mummies were part of unknown rituals and a long-range trade from the humid tropics across the Altiplano and the Andes to reach Atacama Desert in modern Chile.

[5] Diodorus Siculus, a Greek historian from the first century BCE, witnessed the lynching of a Roman who had accidentally killed a cat during a visit to Egypt.

Understandably, this punishment frightened many Egyptians to the point that if one would happen upon a naturally dead animal, they would flee from it as to avoid the accusation of being its killer.

[10] If this had been her child, it would have meant that she had, at some point, broken the oath she had taken as High Priestess, raising a slew of other questions regarding her life.

[10] Finally, in 1968, an X-ray was done on the small mummy and it was revealed to be an adult African green monkey (Chlorocebus aethiops), not a child, eradicating the speculations on her.

[10] Prince Tuthmose of the Eighteenth Dynasty was also buried with a beloved animal—his pet cat was mummified and placed in a stone coffin in his tomb.

[9] Another Egyptian, named Hapymen, had his pet dog mummified, wrapped in cloth, and placed at the side of his coffin.

[11] This food was included in tombs in order to sustain the deceased person's soul, called the ka, during the journey to the next world.

[4] Prior to the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, there were a tremendous number of these deities, each patron of a different element of the natural world.

[10] However, eventually a cheaper alternative to bronze statues, animal mummies became the most popular form of offering.

Studies have revealed many of the large-scale animal offerings to be "fakes" (the wrappings containing only a few bones, feathers, reeds, wood, or pieces of pottery).

When visiting the temples, Egyptians of the general public would purchase these pre-mummified animals and offer them to the deities.

[13] Cats were mummified as religious offerings in enormous quantities and were believed to represent the war goddess Bastet.

More expensive mummies were typically adorned with features drawn in black paint and colored glass, obsidian or rock crystal eyes.

[14] The ibis cult was established primarily during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods and was dedicated to the god of wisdom, Thoth.

The vast number of mummified ibises suggests that this was done in a mass production, as many times the mummies contained only a part of the body.

The appearance of baboons on canopic jars, which housed the organs of human mummies, is testament of the animals’ cultural significance.

This evidence includes proof that the baboons usually did not die from natural causes, and that the majority suffered from malnutrition, fractures, osteomyelitis, and vitamin D deficiency.

When found in extremely large quantities, crocodile mummies, like many other sorts of animal offerings, contained only reeds or random body parts.

They were wrapped in linen and held together by bands of cloth soaked in sticky resin, permanently encasing the mummies.

Several species of fish have been identified, but due to the deteriorating condition of the mummies, scientists are unable to conclude if the organs were typically removed during the process of mummification.

According to the Museum of Liverpool, the Nile perch was one of the species mummified and offered to the gods; one of these cults is related to the goddess Neith.

Priests believed that the Apis bull was a medium of communication between the two creator gods, so its movements were carefully observed and sometimes consulted as an oracle.

The earliest signs of non-human animal mummies are dated to the Badarian Predynastic Period (5500–4000 BCE), before the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt.

Mummies sold to pilgrims as offerings were only minimally treated, and unlike humans, even the most sacred of animals, such as the Apis bulls, did not have their internal organs preserved.

The large scale of production indicates that relatively little care and expense was involved in animal preparation compared to human mummies.

Egyptians treated animals with great respect, regarding them both as domestic pets and representatives of the deities.