Lion cub mummies discovered at Bubasteion excavation in Saqqara since 2018. Excavations at the Bubasteion at Saqqara have been ongoing since 2018 Mummified remains of several lion cubs around 8 months old were found inside a vast animal cemetery Complete lion cub mummies were almost unknown before this discovery
Remarkable discoveries at the Bubasteion in Saqqara, where excavations since 2018 have uncovered mummified lion cubs around 8 months old in a vast animal cemetery. Professor Selma Ikram's CT scan work showed many cat mummies held kittens just 3-4 months old, some with broken necks, while others contained only scraps of linen or no remains at all. Herodotus wrote that hundreds of thousands flocked to Bastet's festival there in the 5th century BCE.
Key Facts
- Excavations at the Bubasteion at Saqqara have been ongoing since 2018
- Mummified remains of several lion cubs around 8 months old were found inside a vast animal cemetery
- Complete lion cub mummies were almost unknown before this discovery
- Egyptologist Professor Selma Ikram's CT scan research revealed that cat mummies often contained kittens only 3-4 months old, many with broken necks before wrapping
- Some CT-scanned cat mummies contained only a few bones, scraps of linen, or no animal remains at all
- Temples oversaw or relied on large-scale breeding of cats to supply demand for mummified offerings
- Millions of cat mummies may have been produced over centuries; a shipment of roughly 180,000 cat mummies was exported to England in the late 1800s for fertilizer
- In the 5th century BCE, Herodotus wrote that more people gathered at Bubastis for Bastet's festival than any other festival in Egypt, with hundreds of thousands of pilgrims
Related site: Bubasteion of Saqqara — view location, images, and history on the Ancient Nerds map.
Source: Why were Ancient Egyptians Obsessed with Cats? by Anyextee