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Mummified Ibis in a Jar

Place of production Egypt
Date 4th Century BC - 3rd Century AD
Object type organic remains
Medium, technique Animal mummy; pottery
Dimensions

39 × 15 cm

Inventory number 68.1-E
Collection Egyptian Art
On view Museum of Fine Arts, Basement Floor, Ancient Egypt, Temples and gods

Ibises (Threskiornis aethiopicus) were the sacred animals of the god Thoth in ancient Egypt. The mummification of ibises began in the seventh century BC when the first cemetery of ibises and baboons was established in the necropolis of Hermupolis (Tuna el-Gebel), the most important cult centre of Thot. Initially, only this cemetery served as a burial place for mummified ibises, later ibis cemeteries were also established in other cities of Egypt, which were named Hermaion after Thoth, who was identified with Hermes in the Greco-Roman Period. In the Tuna el-Gebel cemetery, ibises were buried for about nine hundred years until the second century AD, and their number can be estimated to amount to several million. There was also a large ibis cemetery in the Memphis necropolis (Saqqara), which was put in use later, but around the second century AD. In the Late Period, all specimens of ibises, like cats and falcons, were considered sacred animals, the bodies of dead ibises were mummified, wrapped in bandages, or, in some cases, only in linen. After mummification, the ibises could be placed in clay pots, stone, wooden or clay coffins according to the given cemetery and the customs of the era. Based on the characteristics of the vessel shown here, this mummy could have come from one of the two large ibis galleries of North Saqqara.

This record is subject to revision due to ongoing research.

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