Divine Creatures: Animal Mummies in Ancient Egypt by Salima Ikram

Although practiced by other civilizations, mummification is most popularly associated with the ancient Egyptians. Our modern fascination with the mummy is only too apparent in the crowds that flock to the Egyptian Museum to gawp at the wizened remains of long dead pharaohs, or the enduring popularity of certain B-rate horror movies of which they are the spine-tingling focus.

Apparently the human mummy is only just part of the story, for not only did the ancient Egyptians also mummify their animals, they did so in industrial quantities. Animal cemeteries at places such as Tuna al-Gebel, Saqqara, Bubastis and numerous other sites have yielded animal mummies that number in the millions and yet have received relatively little attention.

Divine Creatures Animal Mummies in Ancient Egypt, edited by American University in Cairo (AUC) Egyptology Professor Salima Ikram, does much to redress this imbalance though it remains, in the most positive sense, very much still a work in progress.