Creatures of Earth, Water and Sky: Essays on Animals in Ancient Egypt and Nubia Hardcover – 22 Sept. 2019

The first ever international conference dedicated to animals in ancient Egypt and Nubia was held in Lyon in June 2016, and here you can find 32 papers presented at that meeting from researchers from a wide range of disciplines from epigraphy and analytical chemistry to archaeozoology and conservation. The papers (15 in French and 18 in English) cover areas of research into the use of sacred animals, representations of animals and their meanings in Egyptian art, interactions between animals, humans and their environment and new methods of analysis and conservation of animal mummies.A wide range of animals and birds are featured. Halima Ali Toybou explores the exploitation of ostriches in ancient Egypt and Nubia, highlighting the relative scarcity of ostrich-shell beads found in Egyptian tombs compared to those in Nubia. Aiman Ashmawy Ali investigates a group of donkey burials found at the Delta site of Tell el-Yahudia which were associated with Hyksos burials and the associations of donkeys with the god Set. Julie Anderson and Daniel Antoine describe the scientific analysis of a large crocodile mummy in the British Museum which was mummified with over 25 crocodile hatchlings attached to its back; a study of its stomach contents (prime cuts of meat) suggests it was a sacred crocodile rather than a votive offering. Linda Evans solves the mystery of ‘Baqet’s Rat’, revealing that the unusual rodent depicted taking on a cat in the Tomb of Baqet III at Beni Hasan is a Nile grass rat, while highlighting how relatively rare images of mice and rats are in Egyptian art despite being the most commonly encountered animals in human life.Silvia Bussi shows how the practice of animal cults became one of the principal sources of wealth for the Egyptian temples in the Graeco- Roman Period, while Tessa T. Baber narrates the sorry tale of how the ‘inexhaustible supply’ of animal mummies ended up as souvenirs or as ingredients of fuel, paper, fertiliser, medicine and paint during the rush to explore Egypt from the sixteenth to twentieth centuries, but also points out how ironically it is the written accounts of the mummy pit plunderers that has provided us with so much information about the animal catacombs.Other papers include the experimental mummification research of Lidija McKnight and Stephanie Woolham on animal mummies at the Manchester Museum, Paul Nicholson on the Ibis Catacomb at Saqqara and Salima Ikram “Shedding New Light on Old Corpses” in her introduction to the current state of study of ancient Egyptian animal remains.Well illustrated, with copious references, this will appeal to anyone with an interest in the relationship between the ancient Egyptians and the animals around them.Review by ancientegyptmagazine dot com