Brooklyn Museum to Debut Animal Mummies Exhibit

The Brooklyn Museum will debut its new exhibit Soulful Creatures: Animal Mummies in Ancient Egypt in September.
 

Soulful Creatures features 30 different mummified animals, including birds, cats, and dogs, and more than 65 objects that were related to the use of animal mummies in ancient ritual. The exhibition will focus on the mummification of animals and the role they played in Egyptian culture and religion. 

“By drawing on archaeology, cultural history, and modern medical imaging…Soulful Creatures also reveals that many animal mummies are not what they seem,” according to a Brooklyn Museum press release. 

Visitors will have the opportunity to see the Ibis Mummy, one of the most intricate mummies in the exhibition. The ibis was a sacred animal in ancient Egyptian culture and was thought to be a messenger to the god Thoth. This artifact is extraordinarily wrapped in linen strips with a “wooden beak and crown” to allow the ibis to still be recognizable once mummified. 

The exhibition will display CT scans that analyze the creation of the animal mummies and what is included within them. Soulful Creatures highlights information about animal mummification that has been uncovered by recent scientific tests. The exhibition also works to explain to visitors the history, including confirmed rumors of corruption in animal cemeteries, regarding the mummification of animals.