The Ancient Egyptians not only mummified themselves - they also preserved:
These animal mummies have been largely ignored by Egyptologists. Today, the Cairo Museum holds on of the world's largest collections of these unique artefacts. A collection which needs to be carefully recorded, studied and preserved for future generations.
90 years ago a small selection of the mummies in the Cairo Museum collections were unwrapped and accurately identified. Since then no work has been done on the collection and many mummies have simply been described according to what investigators thought they contained. X-rays have since shown that such assumptions were often wrong. The appearance of mummies is misleading. Some mummies contain no animals at all, they are ancient FAKES! Other, Late Period mummies, look like children complete with masks of human faces but actually containing the bones of hawks and other birds of prey.
The Ancient Egyptians preserved for us a fantastic legacy, now it is our turn to ensure that these unique cultural treasures survive for another few millennia. Mummies are fragile. Removed from their desert environment they deteriorate, fall prey to insects, disintegrate and turn to dust.
The Animal Mummy Project hopes to ensure the continued survival of these precious remains by providing:
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