Unearthed: 33% of Egyptian animal mummies are dummies!

LONDON: Elaborate and visually spectacular Egyptian animal mummies dating as far back as 800 BC have been found to be dummies.
In the world's largest scanning project of its kind, British scientists from the Manchester Museum and the University of Manchester for the first time used imaging technology to study what kind of animals were mummified across Egypt during the rule of the pharaohs.

They found that almost 33% of the animal mummies lying across 56 museums in UK where they were exhibited actually had no animal remains in it but stacked with mud and sticks.

Speaking to TOI, Dr Lidija McKnight, an Egyptologist from the University of Manchester said: "We have data from over 800 animal mummies. Initially we were shocked to find that most mummies didn't have any animal remains inside. Later we realised that it was actually quite common to stack these mummies up with mud, sticks, reeds, eggshells and feathers wrapped inside line cloth".

Dr McKnight said the more elaborately decorated was the mummy , the less its chances were to contain an actual animal. "We found around a third don't contain any animal material at all--so no skeletal remains. It was like over compensating," Dr McKnight said.

"Human mummies have been extensively studied.We wanted to look at animal mummies which were of tremendous importance in Egyptian culture. We wanted to therefore see inside the mummies using undestructive techniques.

"So we used X-Ray scans to see mummies over 1200 years--from 800 BC to 400 AD. We found all sorts of animals--from cats, dogs, crocodiles, birds, fish, snakes and rodents. Egyptians believed in composite gods--body of a human and head of an animal. They believed the characteristics of the animals related to that of the gods".

Dr McKnight said the findings will form part of an 18-month touring exhibition beginning from October in Manchester Museum.