Creepy exhibition reveals what lies beneath the bandages of cats, crocodiles and jackals offered to the Gods
By Sarah Griffiths for MailOnline
By Sarah Griffiths for MailOnline
From bandaged crocodiles to cats entombed in wooden effigies, a new exhibition seeks to unravel the mystery of animal mummies.
The ancient Egyptians carefully prepared the mummies in their millions as votive offerings to the gods.
Now,
thousands of years after they were made, the exhibition will reveal the
contents of these unusual mummies using X-rays and CT scans to the
public.
The Gifts
for the Gods exhibition at Manchester Museum will explain the background
behind what today seems like a bizarre religious practice, in the
context of life in ancient Egypt.
While
many people may imaging Ancient Egypt to be a sandy wilderness, it was a
country of lush grassland and a taxidermy exhibit will show what the
mummified animals would have looked like when they were alive.
The strangest one to go on display is a jackal mummy which was found to contain fragments of human bone.
But
Lidija McKnight, Research Associate at the KNH Centre for Biomedical
Egyptology at the University of Manchester told MailOnline: ‘The ancient
Egyptians mummified just about every animal they could find from cats
and dogs, to fish, crocodiles, rodents, birds and baboons.
‘Perhaps the
more surprising are the mummies which don’t contain animals themselves,
or which contain more than species wrapped together.’
While
it’s been known for a while that some animal mummies contain no real
animal, she said this didn’t matter to the Egyptians that bought them as
offerings to gods.
Work by the
University of Manchester has shown that as many as a third of the
mummies studied have no animal material, a third have parts of animals
and the remaining third do have an animal inside.
‘All
animal species mummified by the ancient Egyptians were deemed to have
close associations with gods, mainly because of characteristics they
were seen to share with the deities, or through their appearance at
significant sites,’ she explained.
Cats,
for example, were sacred to Bastet who was the goddess of warfare,
while jackals were associated with Anubis, the god of embalming.
‘Ibis birds were associated with Thoth, the god of wisdom and writing,’ Dr McKnight said.
Egypt’s many gods could take animal forms to express their superhuman nature.
The exhibition explores how images of animals - pictures, statuettes or mummies - could be used to communicate with the gods.
Animal
mummies and bronzes statuettes were the most common votive offerings,
or gifts to the god and the exhibition will also include a recreation of
a subterranean animal catacomb that visitors will be able to enter.
The atmospheric, narrow room will be lined with pots containing votive animal mummies, centred on a focal point for worship.
It
is not clear exactly how the animal mummies would have fitted into
religious rituals because there is little surviving evidence about how
votive worship worked.
‘It is believed that animal mummies would have been symbolic offerings to be given to the gods,’ Dr McKnight continued.
‘So,
the person offering the votive was not worshipping the animal itself,
nor the mummy, but it was seen as a recognisable and suitable offering
to take their prayers to the gods.
‘Their role can be seen as a communication device in personal religion.’
While great care was taken in embalming humans, the practice of votive animal mummifications was hasty in comparison.
‘The animals themselves are not extensively treated,’ Dr McKnight said.
‘There
is little sign of natron [a mixture of sodium carbonate decahydrate]
being applied, certainly not to the extent it was in humans, and a
simple application of an emulsion of beeswax and tree resins.
‘In short, the preservation of the animals was simple,’ she explained.
Elswehere,
radiography suggests that evisceration - the removal of the internal
organs - was often not carried out, presumably because of their size and
because the animals were mummified quickly.
But, some of the decorative styles applied to animals does mirror what we see in human mummies for certain periods.
Animal
mummies were sometimes given elaborate wrappings, sometimes with
extravagantly criss-crossed bandages, so their construction would have
taken a great deal of time.
The exhibition will look at the scientific study of animal mummies of which the University of Manchester is a leader.
Using
wrapped, partially wrapped and completely unwrapped animal mummies from
a variety of UK collections, the exhibition will show what they look
like inside and in detail using photography, radiography, CT scans and
light microscopy.
The
display will combine mummified specimens such as jackals, crocodiles,
cats and birds with cultural artefacts such as stone sculpture and
bronze statuettes, alongside 19th Century works of art and
never-seen-before archives romanticising Ancient Egypt.
Dr
McKnight said: This exhibition will showcase the role played by the
British in the discovery, excavation, collection, curation and
scientific research of this understudied subject.
'The
University of Manchester, with its long history in Egyptian mummy
research, is leading the field; helping to shed light on the material
remains of this ancient practice and, hopefully, to reveal more about
how and why these animal mummies were produced.’
The exhibition, Gifts for the Gods: Animal Mummies Revealed, is the first exhibition on animal mummies to be held in the UK.
Dr
Campbell Price, Curator of Egypt and Sudan, Manchester Museum said: ‘It
offers the chance to reunite mummified material from different
archaeological sites for the first time in over a century.
‘It will feature over 60 mummies, including many never before seen on public display.’
The
exhibition will open at Manchester Museum on October 8 and run until
April 17, before the mummies go on show at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and
Museum, Glasgow and the World Museum, Liverpool.
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3195386/Unravelling-animal-mummies-Ancient-Egypt-Creepy-exhibition-unveils-lies-beneath-bandages-cats-crocodiles-jackals-offered-Gods.html
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