Egypt
Discovery News (Rossella Lorenzi)
- Online: Egyptian Animal Mummies Database
Egyptian Animal Mummies Database Animalmummies.net is a searchable database of Ancient Egyptian animal mummies. Animal mummies were created by the millions during the Late-Roman Periods in Egypt, mostly to be used as votive offerings at temples of gods...
- Millions Of Canine Mummies Revealed At Saqqara
LiveScience (Wynne Parry) The excavation of a labyrinth of tunnels beneath the Egyptian desert has revealed the remains of millions of animals, mostly dogs and jackals. Many appear to have been only hours or days old when they were killed and mummified....
- Open Access Database - Animal Mummies
Ancient World Online See the above page for links. Animalmummies.net is a searchable database of Ancient Egyptian animal mummies. Animal mummies were created by the millions during the Late-Roman Periods in Egypt, mostly to be used as votive offerings...
- Lecture: Beloved Beasts: Ancient Egyptian Animal Mummies, Salima Ikram
Daily Beacon (Elizabeth Storey) This page reports on a lecture delivered by Salima Ikram in Cairo, about animal mummification in ancient Egypt. Animal mummies, long overshadowed by human mummies, hold much more useful information about ancient Egypt than...
- Menagerie Of Mummies Unwraps Ancient Egypt
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6989 New Scientist article about a new collection of animal mummies being studied by the Natural History Museum in London, UK. X-ray analysis of the skeletons of some of the animals, particularly cats, suggests...
Egypt
Animals mummified by the millions in Ancient Egypt
Discovery News (Rossella Lorenzi)
Millions of animals were ritually slaughtered in ancient Egypt to foster a huge mummification industry that even drove some species extinct.
As an exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. shows, almost no animals escaped the carnage.
Although pets died of natural causes before their mummification, and sacred beasts were pampered by adoring priests, most animals in ancient Egypt had miserable, short lives.
Many were simply bred to become votive mummies -- offered to the gods in the same way that people light up candles in churches today.
"Various gods had different animal totems or avatars. Priests who maintained temples for these different gods offered a service whereby people could have an associated animal mummified and placed in a catacomb in their name," exhibition curator Melinda Zeder, director of the archeobiology program at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, told Discovery News.
- Online: Egyptian Animal Mummies Database
Egyptian Animal Mummies Database Animalmummies.net is a searchable database of Ancient Egyptian animal mummies. Animal mummies were created by the millions during the Late-Roman Periods in Egypt, mostly to be used as votive offerings at temples of gods...
- Millions Of Canine Mummies Revealed At Saqqara
LiveScience (Wynne Parry) The excavation of a labyrinth of tunnels beneath the Egyptian desert has revealed the remains of millions of animals, mostly dogs and jackals. Many appear to have been only hours or days old when they were killed and mummified....
- Open Access Database - Animal Mummies
Ancient World Online See the above page for links. Animalmummies.net is a searchable database of Ancient Egyptian animal mummies. Animal mummies were created by the millions during the Late-Roman Periods in Egypt, mostly to be used as votive offerings...
- Lecture: Beloved Beasts: Ancient Egyptian Animal Mummies, Salima Ikram
Daily Beacon (Elizabeth Storey) This page reports on a lecture delivered by Salima Ikram in Cairo, about animal mummification in ancient Egypt. Animal mummies, long overshadowed by human mummies, hold much more useful information about ancient Egypt than...
- Menagerie Of Mummies Unwraps Ancient Egypt
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6989 New Scientist article about a new collection of animal mummies being studied by the Natural History Museum in London, UK. X-ray analysis of the skeletons of some of the animals, particularly cats, suggests...