http://www.theguardian.com/science/animal-magic/2015/sep/30/gifts-gods-egyptian-mummy-crocodile-eight-heads
The crocodile with eight heads
With the opening of a major new exhibition on mummified animals from ancient Egypt, curator Lidija McKnight celebrates the discovery of a crocodile with eight heads
A mummy of a crocodile from ancient Egypt
This is a mummified crocodile. But how many heads are inside? Photograph: Alan Seabright/Manchester Museum, the University of Manchester
Wednesday 30 September 2015 02.05 EDT
Last modified on Wednesday 30 September 2015 04.24 EDT
Name: 12008
Species: Crocodylus niloticus
Dates: ~30 BC
Claim to fame: Contains the remains of eight crocs
Where now: Manchester Museum, the University of Manchester
I am in the radiology department at The Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital. The patient lies motionless on the table. It is dead. It is an Egyptian mummy. It is not human. It is shaped like a crocodile.
The strange object enters a CT scanner. Above the door, the ‘x-rays on’ sign illuminates. Images begin to appear on a computer screen providing initial glimpses into this ancient mummy. No one in the room is expecting what we see. Four crocodile skulls appear, neatly arranged in a line along the length of the bundle.
Inside specimen no. 12008. An x-ray showing four crocodile skulls on a stick. Photograph: The Ancient Egyptian Animal Bio Bank Project, The University of Manchester
Computer wizardry and visualization techniques reveal yet more secrets: the remains of another four juvenile crocodiles surrounding the skulls, with the bundle supported by a stick placed in the mouth of the first crocodile.
An embellished image reveals the remains of a further four crocodile hatchlings. The red colour shows the soft tissue preserved through mummification. Photograph: The Ancient Egyptian Animal Bio Bank Project, The University of Manchester
In ancient Egypt, at the turn of the first millennia, animal mummies were produced in vast numbers as offerings to the pantheon of gods. But research by the Ancient Egyptian Animal Bio Bank Project at the University of Manchester has revealed that only around one third of these votive mummies contains the remains of a single animal. Many are filled with bits and pieces of more than one animal, as in this case. Some animal mummies contain no bones at all, but are constructed from materials like mud, sand, plant material, egg shells and feathers.
The geometric decoration and addition of false eyes to our crocodile, specimen 12008 from Manchester Museum, suggests that it most likely dates to the Roman period between 30 BC and 395 AD when votive animal mummification was at its peak. Votives - whether bronze statuettes, ceramic or stone objects, or animal mummies - offered the means through which the Egyptians could communicate on a personal level with their gods. Crocodiles were sacred to Sobek, god of the Nile, associated with the life-giving properties of its waters. They are amongst the most common animal mummies found in museum collections in the UK and internationally.
This particular specimen is thought to have been donated to the Museum by Bertha Fanny Waeny following the death of her husband Max Emil Robinow in 1900. Robinow collected at least seven animal mummies in Egypt that found their way to Manchester. Further items from his collection were accessioned into the Manchester Museum collection following the death of his son, William, in 1959.
Tale ends
Robinow’s crocodile will be displayed alongside over 60 ancient Egyptian votive animal mummies in Gifts for the Gods: Animal Mummies Revealed, an 18-month touring exhibition that opens at Manchester Museum on 8 October 2015. From here, it will go to the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery, Glasgow, and World Museums Liverpool. The exhibition will take visitors on a journey back to the ancient catacombs, through to the romantic depiction of ancient Egypt by the Victorians, the excavations and collectors who brought animal mummies to the UK and the scientists who are studying these remains today. A book to accompany the exhibition will also be available: Gifts for the Gods: Ancient Egyptian Animal Mummies and the British is published by Liverpool University Press.
If there is a zoological specimen with a story that you would like to see profiled, please contact Henry Nicholls @WayOfThePanda.
Lidija McKnight is a research associate on the Ancient Egyptian Animal Bio Bank Project at the University of Manchester
Topics
Natural History Museum
Zoology
Museums
Biology
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