Mummified Cats: Everlasting Pets Of The Pharaohs
Animals have been part of the Egyptian household and when they died, they looked after their pets as well. Instead of dumping them in a ditch, they also believed the pets would touch the after life. For this, they needed their bodies just like the Pharaoh. They were mummified and laid to rest with the Queen or King.
Mummified Cats: Everlasting Pets Of The Pharaohs
Mummified Cats
Animal mummies discovered in Egypt hold arresting clues to life and death in old Egypt. Then in 1888 and Egyptian farmer discovered a mass grave. It was soon apparent that there were not humans in the grave but mummified cats. Near the hamlet of Istabl Antar, mummified cats were discovered in thinkable, numbers. Thousand of them.
Pets
These mummies of the cats were mostly turned into fertilizer, a few were sold to tourists and the remainder of the treasure found its way to the Cairo museum. Today this animal range is one of the most favorite exhibits in the treasure-filled museum. The fact that we know the Pharaohs had pets make them human while scientist can study these animals, x-ray them and take strict measurement.
Other animals
In the Cairo museum, you can see more than cats. You can see shrews in boxes of carved limestone, rams in beaded casings, gazelles, crocodiles, hawks and fish.
The scarab beetles with some dung tell us more about these creatures than books could have told us. Most of the animals were buried with a prayer.
The Nile itself starts in mid - Africa and all along the river; sites are discovered with mummified animals. Some of these places were connected with gods and we find symbolic animals such as bulls, dogs, horses, monkeys and cats mummified. The Ibis mummies obviously represented the god Thoth while Falcons represented the god hours. Dogs had ties to the god Anubis. In the city of Memphis they discovered what is referred to as an embalming house. Here the Apis bulls lay in natron on a immense stone bed where the sun could help disinfect the animal. These stone structures can still be seen near the hamlet of Mit Rahina.
As a pet for a Pharaoh, a dog or cat would have been spoiled rotten. This earthly life would not end but the Pharaoh would take his pets with him. When the Pharaoh or the pet died, the pet was interred in a specially prepared tomb in the Valley of the Kings.
While many of these mummies were destroyed or pulped as fertilizer, a range of mummified animals can still be seen in the Cairo museum today.
share the Facebook Twitter Like Tweet. Can you share the original source Mummified Cats: Everlasting Pets Of The Pharaohs.
No comments:
Post a Comment