Some Remarks on Cat Mummies in Light of the Examination of Artefacts from the National Museum in Warsaw Collection

Abstract

Votive mummies of cats were offered at the shrines of particular gods, to whom these animals were sacred. They played an important role in Egyptian religion during the Late and Greco-Roman periods and represent an important source on the popular beliefs and practices of ordinary Egyptians at the twilight of their civilisation. For many years, this subject was neglected and a large number of animal mummies were simply destroyed. However, many specimens of unknown origin are still preserved in collections around the world, which allows further research to be conducted upon them.After the Second World War, the National Museum in Warsaw received five such artefacts. Their exact provenience, archaeological context and the precise time of their execution is unknown. In April 2011, an x-ray examination of the artefacts was conducted by Łukasz Przewłocki, Wojciech Ejsmond (students at the Institute of Archaeology, Warsaw University) and Dr. Monika Dolińska (curator of the Egyptian collection at the National Museum in Warsaw).This paper presents an interpretation of these objects in the wider context of animal mummies and also provides a description of the results of their recent examination. All the specimens can be dated to the Greco- Roman period (332 BC-AD 390) with the exception of one, which probably dates to an earlier time. There are some unusual aspects to the group, such as the presence of a human tooth in one specimen and traces of restoration carried out at an unknown date in other one.