One wall of this room is a menagerie of mummified animals in individual glass wall caskets. There are cats, crocodiles, a mongoose, even a box containing hundreds of mummified scarab beetles.
A dark red wooden statue of an Ibis sits on a rectangular base, with its legs tucked under it. Its long claws lie flat, stretched on the ground, though bits have broken off and been damaged. The bird is a bit weathered, but its dark surface glimmers. Measuring just over 40 centimetres long and about 20 centimetres tall, it is carved and painted. It has a small head, with beady eyes carved on either side, and an elongated neck. Its long slender beak curves all the way down to the ground. A feathered tail is carved into the end of its half dome shaped body.
Egyptians revered animals as representations of the gods. To Ancient Egyptians the ibis represented Thoth, the god of knowledge and language, because its long curving bill resembled a writing quill.
In the top right corner of the row of mummies lies a metre-long clothed bundle, tied loosely with bandages around the middle and hindquarters, with eyes drawn on the head shaped bulge on the left. The calico-like cream cloth is tinged beige through age and weathering. It’s a lion cub mummy. This was perhaps the most amazing item in the Saqqara cache, an archaeological dig 20 miles south of Cairo on the Nile’s west bank, where massive treasures have been uncovered in the last decade.
The Egyptians mass-produced these animal mummies. They were specifically raised to be killed and mummified and used as an offering to the gods. If you wanted to give thanks to a god, you bought an animal mummy which would be buried in the precincts, within holy grounds. This was a big business for the temples.