Mummies... pets of the pharaohs

Thousands of years ago, the great pharaohs and kings were embalmed after their death, turning them into mummies. However, the rulers of that time wanted their pets to be embalmed with them. To this day, archaeologists find mummies and remains of animals and birds that were once pets of the pharaohs.

In 1888, an Egyptian farmer, digging up a plot of land near the village of Istable-Antar, discovered a mass grave. The buried were not people — the farmer found an incredible number of mummified ancient cats.

The village children sold the best samples to tourists, the rest was sold in droves as fertilizer. There is a case when sailors of European countries used cat mummies as ballast on a ship, and upon arrival at the port these relics were crushed and sold to farmers as fertilizer (approximately 180 thousand mummies weighing about 17 thousand kilograms were sent to feed the fields in Liverpool).

Sacred animals were turned into mummies — the crocodile and the marsh bird ibis, as well as parts of animals, in order for their meat to serve as food for a person in his afterlife. But, as Ikram reported at one of the last environmental symposiums in Dallas, scientists did not pay enough attention to animal mummies, they remained practically unexplored.

Studying the mummies, one can draw conclusions about the climatic and natural conditions in the Nile River area that existed several thousand years ago. It is known that more than a million ibises were buried in cemeteries in Hermopolis. Due to the arid desert climate in modern Egypt, such varieties of birds no longer exist. Many species of mummified fish stored in the collections of the Cairo Museum do not currently live in the Nile. By studying the texture and preserved natural particles of mummies, scientists can learn about which plants prevailed on the territory of Ancient Egypt.

Funeral services that made human mummies offered to mummify animals as well. This process was quite painstaking and long. Initially, the mummifier removed the internal organs, then the body was rubbed with a specially prepared solution, which contributed to its dehydration. After several weeks, it was thoroughly wiped, oiled, and the body was ready for "eternal" life. Currently, scientists already know the technology of mummification, but some techniques have not yet been explained.

At the Cairo Museum, a group of specialists led by Ikram studied the process of making rabbit mummies. Most of the experiments were successful. But one rabbit exploded three weeks after being treated with a sodium solution.

Among the collection in In Cairo there is a highly artistic stone sarcophagus with a cat engraved on the side. Too long even to store a human mummy, this sarcophagus became the last resting place of the beloved cat of one of the princesses. According to Frank Yurko, an expert on Egypt, in one of the museums in Chicago, the inscription on the sarcophagus connects the cat with the god Osiris. The beloved pets of a rich Egyptian often accompanied the owner in his afterlife.

The tombs of pet mummies had everything for their comfortable existence. The paintings inside the coffins often depicted dogs chasing prey; monkeys eating the best fruit; cats playing with a ball, and even table legs so they could sharpen their claws. Perhaps pets died a natural death. After all, according to Ikram, no injuries were found in animal mummies when X-rayed.

However, it is known that other animals were treated much worse.

Ibises in Hermopolis were brought as a gift to the god Thoth, as well as thousands of mummified baboons. In Sakkara, the ancient "city of the dead", about 10,000 cats were sacrificed to the goddess Bas-tet. The kittens just had their necks twisted at the same time. Huge animal cemeteries were located on the territory of Egypt about 700 BC. During this period, there are almost no such animals that would escape cruel reprisals. Geese, lizards, scorpions, monkeys and, according to Yurko, "almost all kinds of animals that you can imagine" were subjected to them.

Along with domestic and wild animals, sacred animals were sacrificed to the gods. The ancient Egyptians firmly believed that God is in the body of an animal during its life, and after death passes into another body. And so the owner of the pet paid great attention to his mummy. The sacred bulls of the Apis cult were surrounded with special care in ancient Egypt. People believed that these animals were the physical incarnation of the god Osiris on earth. Ikram believes that during their mummification, the internal organs were not removed, but only separated from each other, processed and then returned to their places. The tendons of the front legs of the bulls were often cut off, and thus the animals could be in sarcophagi in the sphinx pose.

The servants of the crocodile cult also mummified their idols. In the museum 's collection in Cairo is an artfully executed reptile mummy about six meters long. Ancient authors, such as Herodotus, mentioned that the crocodile as a sacred animal was often decorated with earrings and bracelets.

Animal parts were also mummified — they served as food for the deceased person. These "edible" mummies were buried not in special sacred animal cemeteries, but together with people. X-rays of some shapeless bundles show that inside there are perfectly preserved ducks, oxtails, meat ribs. All the game was cut in such a way that it was convenient to cook food from it. Based on this, scientists concluded that the inhabitants of ancient Egypt loved meat dishes.

Sometimes only a few bones are found inside bandages instead of animal mummies. An X-ray of one of the crocodile mummies showed that her head was wrapped in bandages intended for the tail part. According to scientists, some mummifiers "messed up", inattentively and not too respectful of the stages of the expensive and time-consuming process of preserving the body.