Egypt’s animal mummies on display at US museum

SANTA ANA, California: Dogs and cats are often beloved family members in current culture, but animals held such a prominent place in ancient Egyptian society that tens of millions were mummified, some going into the pharaohs’ tombs to rest eternally in the company of their kings.
Others had their own special cemeteries, where they were buried in coffins as elaborately carved as those of royal family members.
Dozens of the best surviving specimens have taken up residence at Orange County’s Bowers Museum as the centerpiece of the exhibition “Soulful Creatures: Animal Mummies in Ancient Egypt.”
There’s a dog so well detailed that even its floppy ears are prominent. An ancient cat has been laid to rest with its little paws drawn across its body, creating an image eerily reminiscent of a human’s funeral pose.
“It just shows how closely Egyptians thought of animals on some basic level as being very similar to human beings,” said Edward Bleiberg, the exhibition’s curator. “The Egyptians believed that animals had souls.”
But soulful or not, most people — other than a king or queen — couldn’t afford to keep a dog or cat around just for companionship in ancient times, Bleiberg said.
Thus, the hunting dog seen waiting patiently under a chair during a dinner table scene etched onto an ancient tablet in the exhibition would likely have been shown the door if it hadn’t contributed to making that meal possible.
“There’s a letter included with one of the animal mummies that suggests there’s this man who is having a terrible problem at work,” Bleiberg noted. “He has this rivalry with a co-worker, he’s certain that the co-worker is badmouthing him to the boss and making him look bad and he requests that Thoth make him stop.”
Another letter sent with an animal mummy included a plea to heal a sick relative.
In all, the exhibition contains more than 100 items, including drawings and sculptures, as well as the mummified remains of dogs, cats, birds, snakes and crocodiles. Many are wrapped in intricately patterned linens, and some have been placed in sarcophaguses carved to resemble how the animal looked in life.
To give museum visitors a better look at what’s underneath the wrappings, the mummies have been CT scanned and the scans used to create three-dimensional images.
Preparing animal mummies was detailed and expensive work. So much so that Bleiberg says an expert at the craft earned twice as much as a farmer.
Animal mummifying was such big business that Ptolemaic III, who ruled Egypt more than 2,000 years ago, passed several decrees regulating the industry.
One ordered that anyone who paid for an animal mummy really got one. How successful it was is open to debate: A CT scan of one exhibition mummy revealed nothing inside but rocks. Another showed bird feathers but no bird.