SEAMS · a Study of Egyptian Animal Mummy Styles

a Study of Egyptian Animal Mummy Styles

Votive animal mummies are extraordinary expressions of ancient Egyptian religious beliefs and craftsmanship. From the Third Intermediate Period through to the Roman Period (c. 1069 BCE–4th century CE), millions of these votive offerings were produced to meet the growing demand of worshippers, who dedicated them to specific deities in the hope of securing divine favour. As with other ritually charged objects, the ritual transformation of these offerings was accomplished through the act of wrapping, which constituted the true medium of sacralisation. Through the wrapping process, the animal mummy was transformed into a sacred being, whose soul was believed to retain mobility between the earthly and divine worlds, thereby acting as an intermediary responsible for conveying pilgrims’ prayers, requests, and complaints directly to the gods, eliciting divine attention and, potentially, divine intervention. At the same time, wrappings stand at the core of the material construction of votive animal mummies. While protecting the animal remains, they shaped an idealised version of the animal’s form, immediately recognisable to both the donor and the deity to whom it was dedicated. Concurrently, they acted as “time capsules”, preserving traces of the technological choices, stylistic conventions, and regional practices of the skilled craftspeople who produced them. Despite their importance in shaping both the material aspect and the sacred transformation of votive animal mummies, textile wrappings have long been marginalised within Egyptological research, which often considered them primarily in aesthetic terms, rather than as a source of technological and cultural information. Only in recent years have they begun to receive the attention they deserve, prompting a re-evaluation of wrappings as a purposeful and technologically significant category of evidence. However, these studies have generally been restricted to selected groups of mummies drawn from specific cemeteries, collections, and/or animal species, and examined mainly through visual inspection. While this approach continues to serve as a valuable research starting point, it often falls short of fully capturing the structural and symbolic complexity of the wrapping process. This has led to a fragmented understanding of bundle shapes and decorative patterns. As a result, wrappings have frequently been described using vague and imprecise terminology that fails to account for their actual construction and internal logic. In turn, this has contributed to considerable confusion and inconsistency in the limited attempts at classification, underscoring the need for a more systematic, rigorous, and coherent study. A Study of Egyptian Animal Mummy Styles (SEAMS) represents a significant step forward in addressing this gap. The project goes beyond traditional visual inspection by adopting an interdisciplinary, non-invasive diagnostic methodology that combines conventional approaches with an integrated suite of advanced technologies, each selected to investigate specific aspects of the wrapping sequence, across a broad, multi-collection sample of votive animal mummies. In doing so, SEAMS aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of wrapping manufacture and to trace diachronic and geographic technological variations in the wrapping chaîne opératoire, thereby enabling the contextualisation of previously unprovenanced specimens within their original cultural settings. In doing so, SEAMS contributes to advancing Egyptological research, supports museums in the documentation and interpretation of their collections, and establishes a methodological framework that can be transferred to the study of other complex, composite artefacts.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union