The mystery of miniature mummies

Hi! 👋As the weather has been really foul lately, I have prepared for you an archaeological discovery straight from hot Egypt! So, there is nothing left to do but use our imagination: when reading, think of that hot sun that is now shining above the pyramids!🌞

The discovery that I want to tell you about took place relatively recently although it could have happened long before. You are probably wondering what I mean so let me explain 😇 Namely, the collectors from the National Maritime Museum in Haifa (Israel) have kept two miniature sarcophagi for over 50 years without knowing what was inside❕ I really don't understand how such valuable exhibits were so neglected for half a century…

Until now, it was only known that the sarcophagi were over 2,000 years old and that inside them were probably human hearts. Finally (better late than never), at the end of 2020, some museum employees found mummies while carrying out an inventory and it was at last decided to investigate them.

Taking advantage of the pandemic’s museum closure as an opportunity to clean house and possibly shore up some items’ unclear provenances, Haifa Museums’ director and education center curator Adi Shelach and collection management registrar Ron Hillel, decided to investigate what was under their mummies’ wraps. ~  Amanda Borschel-Dan, the Times of Israel 

As I wrote before, it was believed until now that such small-sized coffins were used to hide human hearts. As I read, sending these organs to the Afterlife was part of the funeral rite in ancient Egypt. However, to everyone’s surprise, after the CT scan (computer tomography) it turned out that the sarcophagi didn’t contain human hearts, and what's more, they didn’t contain anything related to humans!

dr. Marcia Javitt and colleagues when scanning mummies / Rambam Health Care Campus

In the larger coffin (45 cm) there was a mummy that resembled Osiris, the god of fertility, agriculture, afterlife, dead, resurrection, life and vegetation. More surprisingly, the “mummy” was made of… clay and maize kernels! 🌽 Such objects were usually used to celebrate the holidays in honor of Osiris. After preparing this kind of mummy, it was soaked in water so that the seeds inside could start to sprout. This activity was supposed to symbolize the binding of life and death.

In the smaller coffin (25 cm), the archeologists found remains of a bird, probably a falcon. The sarcophagus itself was supposed to resemble Horus – the Egyptian god of kingship and the sky, usually depicted as a falcon-headed man. When scanning the animal's remains, scientists made interesting observations:

It’s missing its left leg, nobody knows why ~ Dr. Marcia Javitt, chairperson of radiology at Rambam Hospital in Haifa, Israel

It was also noted that the bird’s neck was broken and that someone had removed some of his internal organs but, surprisingly, not all of them, given that the heart was still inside the mummy.

results of the CT scan / Rambam Health Care Campus

Although the mummies had to wait over 50 years to be analyzed, now they will certainly not be abandoned so easily. Research is currently underway to explore mainly a smaller sarcophagus. As we can read in the article:

(…) the bird mummy had desiccated, meaning that the tissue got more dense, like beef jerky. Meanwhile, the marrow in the bones had dried out, leaving nothing but delicate bone tubes.

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I hope that you found this Egyptian discovery interesting and that you managed to forget about this gray and poor weather that surrounds us… 

For those who are hungry for knowledge, here are some links to the articles about “mini-mummies”:

• Small ancient Egyptian mummies keep surprises within … and they aren’t human
• Little ancient Egyptian mummies hold surprises inside … and they aren't human
• Mystery of Haifa mummies finally unraveled