Ancient Egyptian Animal Mummies
The embalming room chamber was solemn and
quiet. Temple priests spoke in
hushed voices as they prepared a tiny body for burial.
Every step was carefully done according to the ancient ritual laws of
Egypt. The priests were preparing a
messenger of the goddess Bastet. This
mummy was a cat!
The Animal Mummification
Process
Messengers To The Gods
How Do We Know That?
Animals played many important roles in ancient
Egyptian society. Some animals were
kept as household pets, used for work, or raised as food. Others were revered as messengers or symbols of the Egyptian
gods and goddesses. When they died,
many of these important or beloved animals were mummified just like people.
The Animal
Mummification Process
For many years, explorers have been discovering the mummified remains of
bulls, sheep, monkeys, dogs, cats, ibises, falcons, fish, snakes, mice and other
animals. These mummies were all
created in a process similar to the one used to prepare human mummies.
The animals’ internal organs were removed, and the body cavities were
stuffed with sand or cloth. The
bodies were then wrapped carefully in long strips of linen.
Faces were sometimes painted on animal mummies.
More important animals, like cats, sometimes even had a thin layer of
gold over their faces.
Egyptian animal mummies have been found in many
places. Favorite pets were
sometimes mummified and buried with their owners.
Other animal mummies have been found in special animal cemeteries, or
around ancient Egyptian temples. Sacred
animals' mummies were often left as offerings at the shrines of Egyptian gods and
goddesses.
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Messengers
To The Gods
Gods and goddesses of the ancient
Egyptian religion were each represente
d by an animal.
Special animals were also thought to act as messengers to a particular
god or goddess. Cats were believed
to be the messengers of the goddess Bastet, while dogs carried messages
from the god Anubis. These
sacred animals, which also included crocodiles, baboons and ibises, were very
carefully mummified.
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How Do We Know That?
Huge numbers of cat mummies were found in special animal cemeteries near the
remains of the ancient Egyptian city of Bubastis.
This city was dedicated to the cat goddess Bastet, and cats were
considered to be sacred. Near the
end of the 19th Century, though, so many cat mummies had been unearthed
that more than 300,000 of them had been shipped to England, ground up and used
for garden fertilizer.
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