It is known that in ancient Egypt many animals were worshiped in association with a deity, the divine personality absorbing the qualities or specific features of the animal. Thus, a series of felines are associated with the goddesses Sekhmet, Bastet but also with the gods Ra and Amon, the falcon with the god Horus, the crocodile with the god of water and flood and implicitly of the fertility of the land, Sobek, the bovids with Hathor, Isis and Mut. The animal epiphanies of the gods are iconographically illustrated by their representation in the form of animals or with animal heads placed on a human body. In the Saqqara necropolis, archaeologists have found the remains of millions of Ibis, considered the incarnation of the god Thoth. This tradition has helped to reduce the number of ibis. For economic reasons, fake mummies of birds were created, as artifact no. 6 from our #zmeaonline series, a piece from MNIT’s Egyptian Collection – a bird mummy placed in a tapered ceramic bowl. The “bird” or parts of it were mummified by impregnation with resins and wrapping in textile strips. The piece is part of the donation of Balázs Orbán, along with other goods donated to the Collection of Antiquities of the Transylvanian Museum Society in 1859-1860.

How did we come to this conclusion? In short, before performing the curative preservation interventions, we performed a series of analyzes, including a computer tomography investigation that illustrated the fact that there is no skeleton inside and shows the existence, approximately in the middle of the conical vessel, of an agglomeration of uneven fragments whose nature cannot be specified. The image indicates that only fragments of an uncertain nature have been mummified and not a whole bird. This could be a partial mummification of an animal. Sometimes such “fake” mummies were placed in elaborate containers.

Other types of analysis, especially qualitative analytical microchemistry and light microscopy, have shown that the mummy was wrapped by manual assembly from several fragments of shroud-cloth. The physico-chemical investigations carried out revealed that the cloth was made of linen yarn, but also of another type of material, jute, with a much thicker thickness, clearly different from the linen cloth used normal in the mummification process. It is also possible that the animal mummy underwent restoration work prior to entering the museum’s collections and a reassembly/repositioning of the textile sheets.

Due to functional wear, the nature of the materials,of the lying environment and then of the conditions of extraction from the archaeological environment and of the means of transport, storage, exposure, the object has inevitably suffered a series of degradations. The object, being made mainly of organic materials, has been subjected to inevitable degradation: the materials age naturally. The action of degrading agents over time has inadvertently accelerated the deterioration of this object.

The cloth fabric with which the animal mummy was wrapped is characterized by different types of degradation: dust deposits and dirt of unknown natures on the entire surface; flotation, thinning, flossing; dehydration. The clay vessel also suffered some damage, as well as previous restoration work.

The curative conservation-restoration activities aimed at carrying out minimal interventions, the main purpose being to stop the already visible degradation of the object and to restore its integrity. The first step in this regard was to extract the animal mummy from the clay pot for cleaning treatments.

Thus, dry and wet surface cleaning treatments were carried out, taking into account the particularities of the object (construction technique, nature of materials, degradation), by local aspiration with surgical vacuum cleaner, with preservative sponge and by brushing. Wet cleaning treatments were also performed. The treatments were repeated at different intervals. The removal of brown spots, probably from contact with embalming substances, was not possible, as it involved solvent treatments and the removal of strips of cloth from the mummified animal’s body.

The clay pot has also undergone curative preservation interventions: dry cleaning treatments by vacuuming (with a surgical vacuum cleaner) and brushing, using different types of preservative brushes and sponges.

Gods and Mortals of Ancient Egypt (ZMEA), RO-Culture Program, contract no. RO-CULTURA-A1-2/2020/31.01.2020.

https://www.ro-cultura.ro/,

https://www.umpcultura.ro/

www.zmea.mnit.ro