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An Egyptian archaeologist cleans mummified cats in the necropolis at Saqqara, south of Cairo, on Saturday.
Khaled Desouki / AFP / Getty Images
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Khaled Desouki / AFP / Getty Images
An Egyptian archaeologist cleans mummified cats in the necropolis at Saqqara, south of Cairo, on Saturday.
Khaled Desouki / AFP / Getty Images
The more archaeologists continues to explore the tombs of ancient Egypt, the most evidence of ancient Egyptians admired cats – and loved mummifying them.
Egypt's Ministry of Antiquities announced on Saturday that a team of Egyptian archeologists excavating a 4,500-year-old tomb near Cairo has found its way to the world. Also in the tomb were 100 gilded, wooden cat statues, and a bronze statue of Bastet, the goddess of cats.
The discoveries were made at Saqqara, the site of a necropolis used by the ancient city of Memphis. The tomb dates from the Fifth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom, and the archaeologists have found it untouched.
The Ministry of Antiquities was attracted to the eyes of the world, and it was discovered by the president of Hosni Mubarak.
The ministry tweeted photos of the findings. Smartly, pictures of the cat statues took over with the ancient felines looking proud and cool, like an upscale, 4,500-year-old version of what a cat fancier today might try to commission.
The mummified cats themselves – well, those images are more unsettling, though they offer uncontrovertible evidence that mummification is highly effective.
While ancient Egyptians saw them as divine, they did not worship, Antonietta Catanzariti, curator of the exhibit Divine Felines: Cats of Ancient Egypt, told NPR last year.
"What they did was to observe their behavior," she said, "and they are gods and goddesses in their image – they have a lot of other things, including dogs, crocodiles, snakes, and bulls.
And while cat mummies are fascinating, Catanzariti said they were also pretty common in ancient Egypt, where they were bred for the purpose. "In the 1890s, people from England went to Egypt and they collected all these mummies." One cargo was 180,000 of them. "
Perhaps, that's why the antiquities ministry made a bigger deal about something else they found in the tomb: mummified scarab beetles. Two large specimens were found wrapped in linen, and apparently in very good condition. They were found inside sarcophagi decorated with drawings of scarabs.
"The (mummified) scarab is something really unique," said Mostafa Waziri, Secretary-General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, told Reuters.
"A couple of days ago, when we discovered those coffins, they were sealed with drawings of scarabs.
