Divine Creatures: Animal Mummies in Ancient Egypt.

• Author: Atherton-Woolham, Stephanie
• Position: Book review

Divine Creatures: Animal Mummies in Ancient Egypt. Edited by SALIMA IKRAM. Cairo: THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO PRESS, 2015. Pp. xxi + 274, illus. $24.95 (paper).

The second edition of Divine Creatures retains the original concept of the first as "... an initial attempt to begin to understand the Egyptian phenomenon of mummifying animals." It begins with the four types of animal mummy that appear in ancient Egypt--pet, victual, cult, and votive--alongside contextual explanations of these. As an introduction to animal mummies, this section is succinct. The second edition would have benefitted from an explanation, however brief, of those animal mummies which do not seem to fit into these categories (McKnight et al. 2015). In addition, usage of the phrase "ancient fakes" (see this volume pp. 14, 203) to describe those animal mummies without a single, complete individual could be considered a little dated. Ikram's evidence for the "trickery of the priests" derives from the Archive of Hor (Ray 1976), textual evidence from a single site, Saqqara. This deserves mention but it could mislead new readers to think that this was the case for every animal cult in Egypt. Ikram does consider alternative theories, with particular reference to that proposed by Kessler and Nur el-Din (p. 156), but it would be useful to state that animal cults seem to have operated at regional level with well-noted variations occurring at different sites.

Ikram continues with the mummification methods observed in animals, which include post-dispatch bodily treatment through to the final wrapping stages. Relevant comparisons with materials and methods found in human mummies (which, in the history of mummy studies, have been researched much more than those of animals), as well as species and animal mummy type-specific mummification methods, are discussed under five themes: evisceration and desiccation, desiccation and anointment, enemas, defleshing, and immersion.

A brief discussion of victual mummies is welcome here to highlight that while these are indeed animal mummies, they have a different purpose and are thus prepared in a manner appropriate to their purpose. An overview of the last rites, wrapping styles, and orientation evident in animal mummification is based on the findings from Ikram's research (Ikram and Iskander 2002) as part of the Animal Mummy Project, with particular reference to examples in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. Importantly, this section is completed...