FOOD FOR THE DEAD

The Ancient Egyptians wished to ensure that they would have enough to eat in the after life. Scenes of hunting, farming, and domestic food animals along with processions of servants bearing different foods were often carved and painted on their tomb walls.
egyptian fishing scene from tomb
This relief from Saqqara shows fishermen returning with an abundant catch.
model egyptian fishing boats from tomb
Models of foods made of clay, faience or wood, were placed in the tomb as well. The model left shows a fishing scene.
FOOD MUMMIES
Meat was not usually not placed in the tomb as whole carcasses. Rather it was jointed and butchered as if to prepare them for cooking. Until the Eighteenth dynasty these ‘victual mummies’ in the form of joints of meat or entire fowl were placed directly in the burial chamber, sometimes in pottery dishes, so that the deceased could enjoy them in the Afterlife.
mummified joint of meat tomb carving man with meat
The mummy to the left contains a joint of meat similar to the one the servant holds in the tomb painting at the right.
From the Eighteenth to the Twenty-first dynasties these joints of meat and whole fowls were turned into what can be termed ‘victual mummies’.

These ‘victual mummies’ consist of joints of meat or of entire birds that were treated with salt and/or natron. The desiccated joints were then wrapped in linen bandages, and were placed in individual sycamore-wood ‘coffinets’ shaped to the form and dimensions of the meat.

Some of the mummies are coloured brown; it is possible that a roasted appearance (browning) was given to these mummies by the application of very hot resin on the wrapping which no doubt cooked the exterior surface of the mummy, while preventing bacterial infestation. Close investigation of these mummies would suggest, however, that it was more probable that the resin on the mummies came from the pitch applied to the interior of the coffinets rather than to the mummies themselves.
x-ray of mummified fowl
mummified fowl in coffin
The x-ray to the right shows that this mummy, in its bird shaped box, is a fowl such as the alabaster model or the little clay fowl (#1) from the model offering dish below.
(#2 in the model offering bowl is a cow's head)
food offering dish model
egyptian alabaster duck from tomb model duck from tomb

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