Although the ancient Egyptians are renowned for their human mummies, their production of animal mummies is less well known despite the fact that they number in the millions. While the reasons for creating animal mummies are unclear, current archaeology divides animal mummies into four broad categories: 1) pets which accompanied their owners in life and followed them in death; 2) victual mummies served as food for the dead; 3) sacred mummies were an earthly incarnation of a god and 4) votive mummies, given as an offering to a specific god, which are the largest category of animal mummies found in collections. Animal mummies have been studied sporadically for a few centuries. Attention was paid to them as a manifestation of Egyptian funerary beliefs and embalming technology, as well as a source of information concerning the fauna of ancient Egypt. More recently they have been studied to learn about disease and veterinary care, breeding programs and the ancient Egyptian environment. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) has been used in a number of applications for the study of ancient Egyptian mummies. These include the study of microfossils, identification of hair types, identification of organic contaminants such as fungal growth and the origin of the fibers used to construct the wrappings. In this study we present the preliminary results from SEM imaging of fibers from the wrapping material of an ancient Egyptian animal mummy.
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