Eight million dog mummies found in Saqqara,Egypt

8 Million mummies and not a single photograph.

Alone the thought of counting 8 MILLION mummies makes me think we are dealing with a translation error here.

lets see now 8 million dogs divided by 100 years equals 219.18 dogs a day ......?

how about 1000 years 21.98 dogs a day impressive even compared to the fiscal cliff numbers.

or maybe my math is way off?

reply to post by lunchmanstan


As someone mentioned, this was likely done over the course of 3,000 years. So what, 6 a day? That's manageable.
Lots and lots of practice. I imagine it was a high crime to mess up a mummification. In Egypt, if you were a physician and you were found guilty of malpractice, they'd cut your hands off

This is way cool! Great find Op S&F.

That is a stinking large amount of anything mummified! I wonder if they were mummified during the same time period or if it was done over centuries. Perhaps an animal bank of sorts, people could make deposits and withdraws. Probably not lol. But just the sheer number is staggering, man the Ancient Egyptians really did like to do things big. I am looking forward to finding out more info on this.

reply to post by JayinAR


Not a real history buff here but, any other consistent civilzation or religon lasting unchanged or 3000 years?

I think the Chineese may have been around that long but I believe the belief system has changed dramaticly over the centuries.

So was this for sacrificial purposes? I don't think so..

Those mummies can be genetically tested.. that place may be more like a library. There are millions of artifacts and heiroglyphs that point to genetic manipulation occuring at some point.

Why else would you mummify a newborn puppy??????

To keep records.

reply to post by H1ght3chHippie

It is a well known thing that the ancients had and revered pets, just like we do.

Here, just for you...

Pictures of Egyptian mummified animal remains

Similar story to the millions of mummified birds found.

The numbers of animals the Egyptians mummified are astonishing.

Millions of birds were mummified at Saqqara.

During periodic celebrations at Bubastis, a city that claimed as its deity the cat-like goddess Bastet, priests daily snapped the necks of hundreds of 4-month-old kittens.

At Tuna el-Gebel, baboons and ibises representing the god Thoth were mummified.

At Abydos, dogs and jackals were sacrificed for the gods Khentyamentiu and Wepwawet.

Because so many animal mummies have been found, archeologists speculate that animals were bred specifically as offerings or were kept in sacred colonies.

All of these sacred animals, whether sacrificed or dying naturally, were buried in animal cemeteries. By 300 B.C., more than 130 animal cemeteries existed across Egypt.

More info and photos at this link:
Source

So these animals were bred as sacrifices? This is very interesting.

I have found conflicting answers. Food for the afterlife, gifts to the gods, changing the course of nature, curing the sick, giving thanks, etc.

It would be nice to have a clearer answer.

Wow. I think the pet funeral business was booming those days. I wonder how much it cost to have your dog mummified those days

Look for treasures around that area. Oh yeah, forgot. What ancient people thought of as valuable back then is probably worthless now.

reply to post by H1ght3chHippie


A few pictures can be found here.

As part of the first full excavation of Egypt's ancient Dog Catacombs, scientists examine 2,500-year-old animal remains—a small sample of the roughly eight million animal mummies in these tunnels.

Killing an animal was seen as a heinous crime, punishable by death, but I guess exceptions were made.

reply to post by Julie Washington


Bred for sacrifice.. mmm, doesn't set right with me.

From the OP

Studies on their bones revealed that those dogs are from different breeds but not accurately identified yet.

So if it were for food for the gods why not use all beefy dogs? Gifts and Thanks.. basically "prayers", so yeah if that were the case they would be sacrifices. Did the Mayans even sacrifice animals?

I can't think of what they are called but there are 100's, maybe 1000's of these statues in Egypt along a walkway side by side, a few feet apart (I even want to think its right near the temple of Anubis). Every single one though as you walk the path changes its features ever so slightly until you reach the end result which barely resembles the first statue on the path.

Do you know what those are called? Its not a bunch of sphinx's, its animals.

reply to post by 1/2 Nephilim


There are several walkways lined with statues. Do you mean this one at Karnak?

There were daily ceremonies of giving offerings and providing for the needs of the gods

Source

Now this is the most logical answer I've seen:

Today, "in some churches people light a candle, and their prayer is taken directly up to God in that smoke,” archaeologist Salima Ikram said. In much the same way, a mummified dog's spirit would carry a person's prayer to the afterlife, said Ikram, founder of the Animal Mummy Project at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

If they were making "daily" prayers - that could add up to a lot of animals. Perhaps they bred puppy mills... for every puppy born was a prayer they could offer to the gods. I wonder if they will find a more male animals than female, as perhaps the females were kept to bare more animals?

Sounds morbid, but does make sense.

Natgeo

The biggest question is how many people would be needed to mummify 8 million animals? It gets pretty hot in Egypt, so not like you could leave the job to just one man.

Were these puppies complete or were they taking something off of them to make a medicine or some sort of special food? Mummifying them so they could eat their liver may have been a gift to the animal so a vegetarian society could survive. The mummification may have been something they thought of as a reward.

Originally posted by 11I11
The biggest question is how many people would be needed to mummify 8 million animals? It gets pretty hot in Egypt, so not like you could leave the job to just one man.

I am pretty much sure the ancient Egyptian's were not people

reply to post by shivaX


So very sad how many life's of all kinds have been taken for religion.

So many I can't even comprehend it!

saqqara a much more interesting site than the great pyramids of giza to me.Gives a lot greater senses of what the pyramids were for and how they were centers of activity.

The pyramid at saqqara is a lot older than those at giza.

reply to post by Julie Washington

It would be nice to have a clearer answer.

How about selfishness? Today we find tombs filled with gold, artifacts, cattle, servants bones. Some of these were the wealthy elite of their day.

I guess if you can't take it with you, nobody else is going to get it either.

reply to post by Julie Washington


Thank you very much for putting up the pictures here.
It is good to know that Nat Geo is sponsoring the project and not some government. At least everything will be public