For the first time, 2,600-year-old scarab mummies have been discovered in addition to cats, and snakes, in the necropolis of Saqqara, Egypt.
Offerings of mummified cats discovered in a tomb in the Saqqara necropolis, near Cairo, Egypt.
ANIMAL MUMMIES. Seven tombs, including four dating back more than 6,000 years, were unearthed on the site of Saqqara, near Cairo, by an Egyptian archaeological mission, including beetles and mummified cats, authorities announced on Saturday November 10, 2018. The discovery took place "around a rocky area bordering the burial complex of Userkaf in the (royal) necropolis of Saqqara ", capital of the Old Kingdom, said Egyptian Minister of Antiquities Khaled el-Enany.
Saqqara, a vast necropolis in the region of ancient Memphis
Three of these tombs "date back to the New Kingdom period (second half of the second millennium BC) and were used as necropolises for cats ", he added in a press release. The four other tombs date from the Old Kingdom (i.e. 4,300 years before J-C), "of which the most important is that of Khufu-Imhat, guardian of the buildings belonging to the royal palace. It dates from the end of the 5th Dynasty and the beginning of the 6th ", still according to the minister. A French mission, in the past, had already excavated the eastern part of this site and already delivered many animal mummies.
The site of Saqqara is a vast necropolis in the region of ancient Memphis, where there are countless tombs and the first pharaonic pyramids. For his part, the secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Mostafa Waziri, indicated that the Egyptian mission, working on the site since April 2018, had also exhumed the first mummified scarabs ever discovered in this necropolis.
"Wrapped in linen, two large mummified beetles were inside a small, rectangular, limestone sarcophagus “, he specified.
Two wooden sarcophagi of crocodiles
Another collection of mummified beetles was also released from a sealed box, decorated with one of these beetles painted black. Dozens of mummified cats were also found as well as a hundred statues of these felids in gilded wood in addition to a bronze statue, dedicated Bastet, the cat-headed goddess.
Example of mummified cat. Credits:Khaled Desouki / AFP
A collection of gilded wooden statues depicting a lion, a cow and a falcon are among the items unearthed, according to Waziri. As well as two wooden sarcophagi of crocodiles, a thousand earthenware amulets, canopic jars, papyri covered with demotic writing, as well as a few chapters from the Book of the Dead, funerary formulas generally placed near the mummies.
The ancient Egyptians believed in immortality, and had themselves mummified to preserve their bodies after death, while animal mummies were used as offerings. Millions of animals were mummified in Egypt. They were seen as physical manifestations of the deities worshiped by the Egyptians. To bring visitors back after the fall in tourism that followed the Arab Spring, the Cairo authorities are constantly showing the exceptional richness of the civilization of ancient Egypt.