- Cat mummies
- The ancient Egyptians excelled in mummification, whether human beings or animals, and they have a different way from each other. This mummification of animals originated from ancient Egypt, and they modernized various animals. This type of mummification played a big role in ancient Egyptian culture, not only as food and pets, but also religious. The animals were embalmed for four main reasons: for these pets to go to the other world, to provide food for the deceased in the other world (where they were embalming roast geese and meats in order to feed the soul of the deceased), and to play the role of offering to a lord of the lords, or with them It was considered the embodiment of divine manifestations in ancient Egyptian mythology.
- In order not to prolong the conversation further, our topic today deals with mummified cats, which were found in many parts of Egypt, and the cat animal was represented by a "bast" (or "bastet") of the cat with features of the cat, which makes the shape of a cat full, and from this the ancient Egyptian called me an embalm Pet cats for eating We found cats that accompanied their owner in the grave. In the year 1888 AD, an Egyptian tomb discovered in the soil near "Stable Antar" discovered a great tomb, which was filled with stuffed cats, which were buried in pits in huge numbers.
- Cats were embalmed with the intention of being religious offerings in large numbers, and he believed that they represented the goddess "bastet", the goddess of fun, joy and happiness in the homes, and symbolized the sun and motherhood, as was the goddess of the pregnant women and infants, and its sanctification center was in the city of Tal Basta.
- This sanctification was initially concentrated in Thebes and Bani Hassan, beginning with the Ptolemaic period. Therefore, thousands of stuffed cats have been found inside catacombs in Saqqara.
- During embalming, the cat's bodies were left to dry and fill with dirt, sand or any kind of packing material. She was placed with her limbs folded into her bodies or she was placed in a sitting position, that is, in the conditions in which she was in her life.
- As for the process of winding with linen coils, this process was complex and it came out with a wonderful engineering look. Early on, when the process of embalming animals evolved, embalmed cats were placed inside bronze or wooden piers. The most expensive mummies were decorated with the features of cats by means of black paint and the eyes were studded with an obedian stone, colored glass dough or crystal stone.
- As for the kittens or their fetuses, they were embalmed and buried in the stomachs of statues symbolizing their mothers. Over time, this type of embalming became less accurate, and indeed, TCS Morrison-Scott, the old director of the British Museum of Natural History, removed the cats laces of many cats, but other scientists discovered that they contain nothing but fabrics or other materials instead of cats and the reason behind That was the effort of the mummifieds to make money, so the extract that wanted to make the offering did not remove those scrolls to reveal what was inside.
- What reflects the extent of the love of the ancient Egyptians for cats, is that the parents of the infants naming their own children the daughters of them by the name (dead) or (dead) and this word literally means (a cat or a cat) and the name came by imitating the sound of cats when they die.
- Whereas, the mummy of a five-year-old girl was found in Deir el-Bahari, specifically in the funerary temple of King Mentu-Hutu II, and she was called (Moyot).
- There were many cemetery tombs or those where cats were found alongside human mummies. For example, scientists discovered mummified cats inside the Maya cemetery in Saqqara, which is the nurse of King Tutankhamen.
