Egyptians are known for their mummification practices. People believe that only human
remains were mummified, but that is not the case. Egyptians would also mummify animal
remains. The mummy that I came across is a non-human mummy of a cat. Cat mummies were
common in Egypt since they were sacred and were related to the Goddess Bastet. Bastet was
the goddess of cats, music, and women. According to Bonnie V. Beaver, ‘as Bastet became the
primary goddess, the cat became a prized animal—legally protected, . . . and mummified for
burial in special cemeteries” (Feline Behavior). The cat mummy appears to date around 30 BC
to 100 AD. It is associated with the Roman-Egyptian culture. The mummy is associated with this
culture due to the “geometrical patterns using interlaced dyed strips of material” (World
Museum). This mummy was mummified artificially since people worked on the cat after it died
to preserve its body. The mummy’s outside appearance contains cat features, such as ears and
a face drawn on it, in order to identify the type of animal. The geometrical patterns are colored
brown. The cat inside the mummy is actually “much smaller than the bundle itself and is placed
in the center of the bundle” (World Museum).
The mummy had scientific analyses conducted at the Royal Manchester Children’s
Hospital. It was part of the University of Manchester’s Animal Bio Bank Project. The cat mummy
was x-rayed and CT imaged to reveal what was inside of it. The analyses show that the cat was
