Animal mummy
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. 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. Bastet, the cat goddess, is an example of one such deity. 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. If bird distribution was as in present, the closest place to Pica from where all bird species could have been captured is Beni Department in northern Bolivia. The mummified birds found in Atacama Desert had their organs removed as well as their tail feathers. Some bird mummies were found wrapped in textiles.
In Europe a 15th-century mummified cat, was discovered inside the walls of a church in the Netherlands. The cat is believed to have been deliberately sealed into the church's structure as a foundation sacrifice; a ritual believed to protect buildings from evil spirits.
Egyptian beliefs about animals
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. 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 dead animal, they would flee from it as to avoid the accusation of being its killer.Beloved pets
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. Ancient Egyptian pets were given names just like they are today, a fact evidenced by more than seventy names deciphered in inscriptions identifying pet dog mummies. Pets were often depicted on the tombs of Egyptians, indicating their masters’ affection toward the animals. Egyptians believed that mummification was imperative in order to gain admittance to the afterlife, and therefore the belief was that the mummification of these pets would ensure the animals’ immortality.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. When her tomb was discovered, there was a small, mummified bundle present at her feet, which was initially believed to be her child. This puzzled archaeologists because Maatkare Mutemhat was a High Priestess who had taken a serious vow of celibacy. 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. Finally, in 1968, an X-ray of the small mummy revealed it to be an adult African green monkey, not a child. Similarly, Maatkare's half-sister, Esemkhet, was discovered buried with a mummified pet—she had a mummified gazelle in her tomb.
Prince Thutmose 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. Another Egyptian, named Hapymen, had his pet dog mummified, wrapped in cloth, and placed at the side of his coffin. At the tomb KV50 in the Valley of the Kings, a mummified dog and baboon were discovered buried together, although the owner is unknown.
Food for the afterlife
Egyptians believed that the afterlife would be a continuation of this one, allowing for the transportation of items from this life to the next. In order to bring food to the afterlife, Egyptians would surround human mummies by what are known as victual mummies, made of edible animals. These animals were prepared by dehydrating the meat and wrapping it in linen bandages, which indicated that the animals were food, not pets. The victual animals were not mummified to the same meticulous extent that a pet or human would be, but they were nonetheless carefully preserved using natron and other special salts. 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. A variety of food has been found in many tombs, mostly breads, meats, and fowl. King Tutankhamun's tomb held several coffin-shaped wooden boxes containing victual mummies, in his case duck and other types of meats.Religious purposes
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. Two main types of worship distinguished the cults: the first choosing to worship the god through mass mummified animal offerings; the second selecting a totem animal to represent the god during its life, which was then mummified at the time of its death.Votive offerings
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 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. When visiting the temples, Egyptians of the general public would purchase these pre-mummified animals and offer them to the gods.The Egyptian scribe known as Hor son of Harendjiotef, writing in the second century BCE, suggests the purpose underlying the practice of mummifying animals: "The benefit which is performed for the Ibis, the soul of Toth, the greatest one, is made for the Hawk also, the soul of Ptah, the soul of Apis, the soul of Pre, the soul of Shu, the soul of Tefnut, the soul of Geb, the soul of Osiris, the soul of Isis, the soul of Nephtys, the great gods of Egypt, the Ibis and the Hawk." The scribe indicates that each mummy harbors the essence of the deity with which it is associated: That is to say, some animals were, or contained, a ba, a part of the soul that is an active agent in this world and the spiritual world. Therefore, ancient Egyptians believed, the votive animal mummies enabled the animals' souls to act as messengers between people on earth and the gods.
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. The wrapping was usually completed through intricate, geometric patterns.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. In fact, Sir T. C. S. Morrison-Scott, former Director of the British Museum of Natural History, unwrapped a large number of cat mummies, but discovered many were simply stuffed with random body parts of cats and not mummified with detailed care.
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. The cat is believed to have been deliberately sealed into the church's structure as a foundation sacrifice; a ritual believed to protect buildings from evil spirits.
File:Cat mummy - Museo Egizio, Turin C 2348 01 p08.jpg|Skittle-type cat mummy with a naturalistic, modeled head.
File:Cat mummy - Museo Egizio, Turin C 2348 01 p07.jpg|Profile view
File:Cat mummy - Museo Egizio, Turin C 2348 01 p03.jpg|The body is wrapped in five different types of fabric. The front of the body is covered with a pattern of linen cords woven with linen threads, creating a net.
File:Cat mummy - Museo Egizio, Turin C 2348 01 p02.jpg|Radiograhy. The cat died as an adult at approximately twenty-two months of age.
File:Cat mummy - Museo Egizio, Turin C 2348 01 p09.jpg|Radiograhy