Animal mummification was common in ancient Egypt. Animals were an important part of Egyptian culture, not only in their role as food and pets, but also for religious reasons. The tens of millions of animal mummies deposited as offerings in the necropolises of the Nile Valley bear witness to an intense religious fervour, and to the practices of collecting and preparing animals that undoubtedly contributed significantly to the economy from the Old Kingdom (3rd millennium BC) to Roman Egypt (1st-3rd centuries AD).
Many different types of animals were mummified, typically for four main purposes: to allow people's beloved pets to go on to the afterlife, to provide food in the afterlife, to act as offerings to a particular god, and because some were seen as physical manifestations of specific deities that the Egyptians worshipped.
Throughout the history of Ancient Egypt, animals were highly respected. According to Egyptologist Herman te Velde, in few other cultures have animals been as influential in so many aspects of life, nor has any culture depicted animals so often in their artwork or writing. It is estimated that one in every four or five Egyptian hieroglyphs relates to animals. Egyptians believed that animals were crucial to both physical and spiritual survival-vital to physical survival because they were a major source of food and to spiritual survival based on how well a person treated animals during their life on earth.
Some animals were considered to be literal incarnations of the deities; therefore, it is understandable why Egyptians would have wanted to hold such animals in the highest regard, giving them a proper burial through mummification. In order to determine a person's admittance or denial to the afterlife, the deities would ask a series of judgment questions. One of these crucial questions would be whether they had mistreated any animals during their life on earth. Because of this religious belief, the killing of an animal was considered a serious crime punishable by death.
Long before animal mummies were used as religious offerings, animals in Egypt were occasionally mummified for a more personal reason-as beloved pets that were to keep the deceased company in the afterlife. The most common Egyptian pets included cats, dogs, mongooses, monkeys, gazelles, and birds. Many Egyptians loved their pets, and the customary process of mourning the loss of a loved pet included crying and shaving one's eyebrows. Specific archaeological findings have confirmed that pets were mummified. The most famous example of this is the Theban priestess Maatkare Mutemhat’s African green monkey (Chlorocebus aethiops). When her tomb was discovered, there was a small, mummified bundle present at her feet, which was initially believed to be her child.
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Ancient Egyptian religion was characterized by polytheism, the belief in multiple deities. Prior to the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, there were a tremendous number of these deities, each representative of a different element of the natural world. After the great unification, a more limited list of deities developed. These were usually depicted as having a human body and an animal head, further emphasizing the importance of animals in Egyptian religion.
Over time, religious cults emerged for the worship of each specific deity. The vast majority of Egyptian animal mummies were religious offerings. If an Egyptian sought a favor from a deity, an offering would be made or purchased, then placed at the appropriate temple. Before animal mummification became common, these offerings were usually bronze statues depicting the animals. However, eventually animal mummies-a cheaper alternative to bronze statues-became the most popular form of offering. As such, millions of these mummified animals have been discovered throughout Egypt.
Inspection of those mummies, usually done through CT scans which allow researchers to examine the skeletons of the mummies without damaging the outer wrappings, has suggested that these types of animals were bred for the sole purpose of offerings. As the process of animal mummification for the purpose of offerings grew, mummification techniques became progressively less meticulous. 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).
The animals were raised on temple grounds and then sold to pilgrims or regular citizens. The necks of the animals were often broken, an indication that their sole purpose in life was to be sacrificed as offerings.
Specific Animal Cults and Mummification Practices
Ancient Egyptians mummified a wide variety of animals, each with its own significance and purpose. Here are some notable examples:
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Cats
Cats were mummified as religious offerings in enormous quantities and were believed to represent the war goddess Bastet. This cult was primarily centered at Thebes and Beni Hasan beginning in the Ptolemaic Period. In addition, thousands of cat mummies have been found at the catacombs of Saqqara. Cats who were bred to become offerings of this type usually died due to strangulation or the breaking of their necks.
During mummification, the cat bodies would be dried and filled with soil, sand or some other kind of packing material. They were either positioned with their limbs folded closely to their bodies or in a sitting, lifelike position. Early in the development of animal mummification, cat mummies were placed in little bronze or wooden sarcophagi. More expensive mummies were typically adorned with features drawn in black paint and colored glass, obsidian or rock crystal eyes. Kittens and fetuses were mummified and buried inside the stomach of a statue that represented their mother. As time went by, like all mummies designed for this purpose, the mummification became less precise.
Mummified cats have also been found outside Egypt. In 1906 a 15th-century mummified cat, in 2025 named Polleke, was discovered in the inside the walls of the Grote Kerk in Breda, the Netherlands.
Cat mummy of the Egyptian Late Period - Ptolemaic Period, 400-200 BCE. The body is wrapped in five different types of fabric. Radiography.
Ibises
The ibis cult was established primarily during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods and was dedicated to the god of wisdom, Thoth. Research from 2015 using 14C radiocarbon dating suggests that the Egyptian ibis mummies in the study were from time frame that falls between approximately 450 BCE and 250 BCE. This timing falls in Egyptian history between the Late Period to the Ptolemaic Period. Saqqara alone is estimated to contain nearly 500,000 of these mummies and is also thought to have produced 10,000 mummified offerings per year.
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Mummification of the ibis included desiccation and evisceration. Usually, the head and neck of the bird were bent backwards and pressed on the body. The body was then dipped in tar and wrapped tightly with linen. 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.
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The unusual covering of a votive ibis mummy-a shell of linen and plaster-reproduces the bird's long beak and head, with glass beads added for eyes.
Baboons
Baboons represented Thoth, the god of the moon as well as the god of wisdom. The appearance of baboons on canopic jars, which housed the organs of human mummies, is testament of the animals’ cultural significance. Baboons were reared in mass quantities at temples, though the numbers of baboon mummies that have been discovered are not as large as cats or ibises. Around 400 were uncovered at the tombs of Saqqara. Most baboons were mummified with the use of plaster and buried in wooden chests.
Baboon mummies that have been discovered have provided significant evidence that they were bred and mummified as offerings.
Crocodiles
The crocodile was regarded as an extremely fierce animal, often used to terrify enemies during war. The crocodile cult was devoted to Sobek, god of fertility, and the sun god, Ra. Typically, crocodiles were raised in a life of complete luxury, indulged until they died. In the early years of this cult, dead crocodiles were lavishly mummified with gold and other precious things. However, as mummification gradually became a production process, less effort was exerted in their mummification and eventually consisted simply of cloth wrappings and the application of resin, a preserving agent. When found in extremely large quantities, crocodile mummies, like many other sorts of animal offerings, contained only reeds or random body parts.
Other Animals
Fish were mummified in mass quantities as offerings to the deities. They were wrapped in linen and held together by bands of cloth soaked in sticky resin, permanently encasing the mummies. Many times, black circles representing the eyes were painted on the hardened linen. 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.
A large type of mongoose common in Africa, the ichneumon (Herpestes ichneumon) is represented in Egyptian art from the Old Kingdom onward. Dogs were used as domestic pets, guardians, herders, and police assistants. Several dog breeds could be found in ancient Egypt, the most popular being the greyhound, basenji, and saluki, all very good for hunting. Snakes and lizards, as well as eels, were popular depictions of the god Atum. Among beetles, the scarab was very popular in Egyptian culture.
Snake mummy. 750-390 BC, Third Intermediate Period/Late Period.
The Mystery of the Ibis Mummies: Breeding or Hunting?
An ancient Egyptian mystery has been solved, according to researchers, who say they have cracked the conundrum of where millions of mummified birds came from. More than 4 million sacred ibis mummies have been found in the catacombs of Tuna el-Gebel and 1.75 million have been discovered in the ancient burial ground of Saqqara. The vast majority were votive offerings to the god Thoth, a practice that had its heyday between 450BC and 250BC.
But the sheer quantity of mummified ibises left experts scratching their heads - where did all these birds come from? One suggestion is that they were reared on an industrial scale in hatcheries. That idea appears to have some support in ancient texts, such as the writings of Hor of Sebennytos, a priest and scribe in the second century BC, who wrote about feeding tens of thousands of sacred ibis with bread and clover.
To explore the possibility, Wasef and colleagues analysed DNA from 14 mummified sacred ibises found in ancient Egypt and 26 modern samples from across Africa. The results, published in the journal Plos One, reveal the level of diversity in the mitochondrial DNA among the ancient birds is similar to that among modern wild birds, and have similar levels of potentially harmful mutations. However, the team says if the ancient Egyptians farmed sacred ibises, the genetic diversity in ancient birds would probably be lower due to high levels of inbreeding.
Wasef said this suggested that, rather than being bred in a mass-farming situation, sacred ibises were tempted to local areas and kept in a natural habitat - or perhaps captured and kept in farms for a short time, ready for sacrifice. Indeed, she notes, there was a swamp near Tuna el-Gebel and the Lake of the Pharaoh near Saqqara.
However, Pontus Skoglund, an expert in ancient DNA at Francis Crick Institute, noted that if a hatchery was large enough the birds within might have retained a high level of genetic diversity. Wasef said no hatchery structures had been found. What’s more, in a votive offering, a bird was killed, dipped in hot resin and wrapped to form the mummy - yet some of the mummies found in the catacombs are fake, being little more than a feather, nest material or piece of eggshell.
Isotopic Analysis and Bird Origins
Whether these birds were industrially raised or massively hunted is a matter of heavy debate as it would have a significant impact on the economy related to their supply and cult, and if hunted it would have represented an ecological burden on the birds populations. Here we have measured and analysed the stable oxygen, carbon and radiogenic strontium isotope compositions as well as calcium and barium content of bones along with the stable carbon, nitrogen and sulfur isotope composition of feathers from 20 mummified ibises and birds of prey recovered from various archeological sites of Ancient Egypt.
On one hand, isotopic values show that ibises ingested food from the Nile valley but with a higher isotopic scattering than observed for the diet of ancient Egyptians. On the other hand, birds of prey have exotic isotopic values compatible with their migratory behaviour.
If the birds were raised along the Nile valley, they would drink waters from the Nile and eat food characterized by an isotopic variability similar to, or lower than that of the food consumed by contemporaneous Egyptians. Wild ibises and birds of prey such as the Greater Spotted eagle (Clanga clanga) or the Northern Long-legged buzzard (Buteo rufinus rufinus) are migratory birds. Therefore, it is expected that they would drink waters of various origins and consume preys of various nature.
If mummified birds were bred before mummification, they should have the same 87Sr/86Sr ratio than that of the sediments of the Nile Valley, a drinking water δ18Ow value reflecting that of the Nile, δ34S values within the range of vertebrates living in the Nile valley, as well as a variability in δ15N and δ13C values of their diet similar to, or lower than, that of the Egyptians living during the same period.
Localization of bird cemeteries in Egypt.
The Mummification Process
"Mummification was a fundamental aspect of Egyptian religion," says Westminster College Egyptologist Alicia Cunningham-Bryant. Far from the Westernized horror movie tropes and our modern fascination with the macabre the process was an intimate, important, and delicate preparation for the afterlife. And not only was the practice important for people of various backgrounds and social classes, but animals were mummified, too.
The mummification process did not only include physical preparations, but, within Egyptian religion, required knowledge of the right spells to use during the process. One particular recitation, she notes, was meant to prevent the deceased from being stuck upside down in the afterlife. The same care was taken with animals, from cats to crocodiles.
The production of vast quantities of animal mummies reached its peak in the later periods of ancient Egypt, such as at the necropolis at Tuna al-Gebel with the temple to Osiris Baboon and Osiris Ibis. Over 15,000 mummified birds - from ibis to vultures - have been found there. The mummification of these birds carried special significant. The birds were representations of the gods, Cunningham-Bryant notes, and so people paid to embalm the birds and bury them in a ceremony that invoked the god Horus burying his father Osiris as avian imagery was important to both deities.
Egyptologist Sofie Schiǿt published a translation of a mummification handbook, Cunningham-Bryant notes, and many other archaeologists have extensively studied the written and cultural records of the practice. All that information inspired Cunningham-Bryant, who was looking for a new way to engage students, and so she drew from the available records to try mummifying a bird herself.
Replicating the practice isn't just a matter of replaying history, but underscores how precious a process mummification really was. By trying mummification at home, Cunningham-Bryant says, you can see "the time, effort, and ingenuity that ancient Egyptians brought to burial practices."
The following table summarizes the key animals mummified in ancient Egypt and their associated deities:
| Animal | Deity | Significance |
|---|---|---|
| Cats | Bastet | War goddess, protection |
| Ibises | Thoth | God of wisdom, magic, judgment |
| Baboons | Thoth | God of the moon and wisdom |
| Crocodiles | Sobek, Ra | God of fertility, sun god |
| Bulls | Ptah, Osiris | Symbol of strength and fertility |
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