Sacred Animals in Ancient Egypt: Cults and Worship | Middle East And North Africa

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SACRED ANIMALS IN ANCIENT EGYPT

falcon mummy

Animals were important in the religious life of ancient Egyptians in both their deified forms as half-animal Egyptian gods and as the animals themselves. A.R. Williams wrote National Geographic, “Different sacred animals were worshipped at their own cult centers — bulls at Armant and Heliopolis, fish at Esna, rams at Elephantine Island, crocodiles at Kom Ombo. Ikram believes the idea of such divine creatures was born at the dawn of Egyptian civilization, a time when heavier rainfall than today made the land green and bountiful. Surrounded by animals, people began to connect them with specific gods according to their habits.” [Source: A.R. Williams, National Geographic, November 2009]

“Take crocodiles. They instinctively laid their eggs above the impending high-water line of the Nile’s annual flood, the pivotal event being that water enriched fields and allowed Egypt to be born again year after year.” Ikram said, “Crocodiles were magical because they had that ability to foretell." The news of a good flood, or a bad one, was important to farmers. And so in time crocodiles became symbols of Sobek, a water god of fertility, and a temple arose at Kom Ombo, one of the places in southern Egypt where the swelling flood was first observed every year. In that sacred space, near the riverbank where wild crocodiles lay sunning themselves, captive crocodiles led an indulged life and were buried with due ceremony after death.”

“Some places were associated with just one god and its symbolic animal, but old venerated sites such as Abydos have yielded whole menageries of votive mummies, each species a link to a particular god...Excavations have uncovered ibis mummies likely representing Thoth, the god of wisdom and writing. Falcons likely evoked the sky-god Horus...And dogs had ties with jackal-headed Anubis, the guardian of the dead.”

“Unlike Greeks and Romans, ancient Egyptians believed animals possess a soul, or ba, just as humans do. “We forget how significant it is to ascribe a soul to an animal,” Edward Bleiberg, a curator at Brooklyn Museum’s Egyptology department, told Live Science. “For ancient Egyptians, animals were both physical and spiritual beings. ” In fact, the ancient Egyptian language had no word for “animal” as a separate category until the spread of Christianity. [Source: Eric A. Powell, Archaeology magazine, March-April 2014]

Animal cults flourished outside the established state temples for much of Egyptian history and animals played a critical role in Egypt’s spiritual life. The gods themselves sometimes took animal form. Horus, the patron god of Egypt, was often portrayed with the head of a hawk; Thoth, the scribe god, was represented as an ibis or a baboon; and the fertility goddess Hathor was depicted as a cow. Even the pharaohs revered animals, and at least a few royal pets were mummified. In 1400 B.C., the pharaoh Amenhotep II went to the afterlife accompanied by his hunting dog, and a decade later his heir Thutmose IV was buried with a royal cat.

Worship of Sacred Animals in Ancient Egypt

According to Minnesota State University, Mankato: “Ancient Egyptian towns usually possessed their own local sacred animal. However, the ancient Egyptians did not practice zoolatry (worship of animals). The animals they considered sacred represented one of their gods or goddesses. They believed that particular species were especially adored by each god/goddess, and that by honoring that animal, they would please the deity. The reason that animals appear regularly in ancient Egyptian religion is because they worshipped gods and goddesses which had an intimate relationship with the animal world, not because the animals by themselves were holy. [Source: Minnesota State University, Mankato, ethanholman.com +]

“The belief that animals share the afterlife with humans resulted in the burial of many animals in family tombs. Some were buried at the time of their natural death because of their special significance, but many were killed and buried as part of funerary ritual or worship activities. +\

“It was thought that some deities represented themselves on earth in the form of a single representative of a specific species. The animal believed to be the incarnation of the god or goddess lived a pampered life in and near the temples and religious centers. Upon the animal's death, another young replacement was found to represent the deity. +\

“The human race was not considered superior to the animal world. Both had been created by the gods to share the earth as partners. These attitudes toward animals are reflected not only in the Egyptian religious beliefs, but also in the general attitudes toward the animal kingdom at large.

These animals were considered especially sacred: 1) cat-The male cat had religious connections with Ra. Kittens were specifically reared for sacrificial/worship uses; cattle-Beef was often used as a sacrificial offering to various deities. 2) scarab beetle-The emblem of a specific goddess, the scarab beetle was associated with the daily birth of the sun, and credited with spontaneous generation of its young. Because of its sacred status, it was widely represented in art. Other animals with religious significance include: ibises, baboons, rams, dogs, shrews, mongooses snakes, fishes, beetles, gazelles, and lions

Herodotus on Sacred Animals

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gazelle mummy
Herodotus wrote in Book 2 of “Histories”: “Although Egypt has Libya on its borders, it is not a country of many animals. All of them are held sacred; some of these are part of men's households and some not; but if I were to say why they are left alone as sacred, I should end up talking of matters of divinity, which I am especially averse to treating; I have never touched upon such except where necessity has compelled me. But I will indicate how it is customary to deal with the animals. Men and women are appointed guardians to provide nourishment for each kind respectively; a son inherits this office from his father. Townsfolk in each place, when they pay their vows, pray to the god to whom the animal is dedicated, shaving all or one half or one third of their children's heads, and weighing the hair in a balance against a sum of silver; then the weight in silver of the hair is given to the female guardian of the creatures, who buys fish with it and feeds them. Thus, food is provided for them. Whoever kills one of these creatures intentionally is punished with death; if he kills accidentally, he pays whatever penalty the priests appoint. Whoever kills an ibis or a hawk, intentionally or not, must die for it. 66. [Source: Herodotus, “The Histories”, Egypt after the Persian Invasion, Book 2, English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920, Tufts]

“There are many household animals; and there would be many more, were it not for what happens among the cats. When the females have a litter, they are no longer receptive to the males; those that seek to have intercourse with them cannot; so their recourse is to steal and carry off and kill the kittens (but they do not eat what they have killed). The mothers, deprived of their young and desiring to have more, will then approach the males; for they are creatures that love offspring. And when a fire breaks out, very strange things happen among the cats. The Egyptians stand around in a broken line, thinking more of the cats than of quenching the burning; but the cats slip through or leap over the men and spring into the fire. When this happens, there is great mourning in Egypt. The occupants of a house where a cat has died a natural death shave their eyebrows and no more; where a dog has died, the head and the whole body are shaven. 67.

“Dead cats are taken away to sacred buildings in the town of Bubastis, where they are embalmed and buried; female dogs are buried by the townsfolk in their own towns in sacred coffins; and the like is done with mongooses. Shrewmice and hawks are taken away to Buto, ibises to the city of Hermes. There are few bears, and the wolves are little bigger than foxes; both these are buried wherever they are found lying. 68.

“Otters are found in the river, too, which the Egyptians consider sacred; and they consider sacred that fish, too, which is called the scale-fish, and the eel. These, and the fox-goose35 among birds, are said to be sacred to the god of the Nile. 73.

“There is another sacred bird, too, whose name is phoenix. I myself have never seen it, only pictures of it; for the bird seldom comes into Egypt: once in five hundred years, as the people of Heliopolis say. It is said that the phoenix comes when his father dies. If the picture truly shows his size and appearance, his plumage is partly golden and partly red. He is most like an eagle in shape and size. What they say this bird manages to do is incredible to me. Flying from Arabia to the temple of the sun, they say, he conveys his father encased in myrrh and buries him at the temple of the Sun. This is how he conveys him: he first molds an egg of myrrh as heavy as he can carry, then tries lifting it, and when he has tried it, he then hollows out the egg and puts his father into it, and plasters over with more myrrh the hollow of the egg into which he has put his father, which is the same in weight with his father lying in it, and he conveys him encased to the temple of the Sun in Egypt. This is what they say this bird does.I have now said enough concerning creatures that are sacred. 77.

Did the Ancient Egyptians Worship Animals

According to Minnesota State University, Mankato: “Some of the most interesting and misunderstood information about the Ancient Egyptians concerns their calendarical and astrological system. Of the greatest fallacy about Ancient Egypt and it's belief in astrology concerns the supposed worship of animals. The Egyptians did not worship animals, rather the Egyptians according to an animals astrological significance, behaved in certain ritualistic ways toward certain animals on certain days. For example, as is evidenced by the papyrus Cairo Calendar, during the season of Emergence, it was the advisement of the Seers (within the priestly caste), and the omens of certain animals they saw, which devised whether a specific date would be favorable or unfavorable. +\ [Source: Minnesota State University, Mankato, ethanholman.com +]

“The basis for deciding whether a date was favorable or unfavorable was based upon a belief in possession of good or evil spirits, and upon a mythological ascription to the gods. Simply, an animal was not ritually revered because it was an animal, but rather because it had the ability to become possessed, and therefore could cause harm or help to any individual near them. It was also conceived of that certain gods could on specific days take the form of specific animals. Hence on certain days, it was more likely for a specific type of animal to become possessed by a spirit or god than on other days. The rituals that the Egyptians partook of to keep away evil spirits from possessing an animal consisted of sacrifice to magic, however, it was the seers and the astrologers who guided many of the Egyptians and their daily routines. Hence, the origin of Egyptians worshipping animals, has more to do with the rituals to displace evil spirits, and their astrological system, more so than it does to actually worshipping animals.” +\

Animal cults existed for a long time at Saqqara. Jo Marchant wrote in Smithsonian magazine: Their roots stretch back to predynastic times, and they thrived especially in the Late Period, during the renaissance inaugurated by Psamtik, perhaps because they were seen as archetypally Egyptian, says Salima Ikram, an Egyptologist based at the American University in Cairo — a symbol of national identity when foreign influence was an ever-present threat. But they became even more popular under the Greeks, with millions of animals bred to order, presumably on nearby farms, and often sacrificed shortly after birth. [Source: Jo Marchant, Smithsonian magazine, August 2021]

Animal Cults in Ancient Egypt

Two kinds of cult animal existed in ancient Egypt: 1) animals associated with a given deity that lived in a temple and were ceremonially interred; 2) creatures killed and mummified to act as votive offerings. The former existed in the earliest times, while the latter date from the Late Period and later. Aidan Dodson of the University of Bristol wrote: “While there continues to be debate over precise definitions, it seems broadly agreed that cult animals in Egypt fall into two distinct groups. The first are specific specimens of a given species that were held to be an earthly incarnation of a particular deity, or at least in whom the deity could become incarnate. Resident in the god’s temple, they would be the subject of a suite of rituals, and would often receive elaborate treatment at death. These will be referred to as “Sacred Animals.” The other group are representatives of a species whose embalmed remains could be offered by pilgrims coming to seek the favor of a deity (“Votive Animals”). There would normally only be one example of the first kind at a time; deposits of the second kind could run into the hundreds or even thousands within a short period of time. Animals were also, of course, employed in temples as sacrificial victims. [Source: Aidan Dodson, University of Bristol, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2009, escholarship.org ]

“Many of the gods and goddesses of ancient Egypt had animal forms. Obvious examples are the cat of Bastet, the ram of Khnum, the cow of Hathor, and the falcon of Horus, which reflected the deities’ iconic theriomorphic forms. However, Amun could also appear in the form of a goose, while a considerable number of deities had a bovine form. It is from the latter that our best evidence for the ritual that might surround a sacred animal comes. On the other hand, while it seems that bulls were allowed to live out their natural lives (although cf. below), other creatures were more ephemeral, for example a new falcon of Horus was installed each year at Edfu.

“A multiple burial-place...has been uncovered for the rams of Khnum on Elephantine, and remains deriving from such an installation have been found for the rams of Banebdjed at Mendes. It is likely that the baboons buried in niches in the walls of the catacombs at Tuna el-Gebel represent a succession of sacred animals of Thoth. However, the latter also contain very large numbers of embalmed ibises, which are clearly representatives of the other variety of cult-animal, the votive creature.

ibis mummy

“Judging by the uniformity of their age at death and standardized treatment, it seems clear that votive animals were bred specifically for the purpose on an industrial scale, killed when they reached a given size, and then mummified for sale to pilgrims at a number of sacred places around Egypt. The range of treatments and elaboration of wrappings suggests the production of something for every pocket. It seems that they were deposited in a temple by pilgrims – perhaps with a prayer to the god whispered in its ear – and when the temple became cluttered, they were taken to an appropriate burial place. At Abydos, ibis mummies were buried within the confines of the 2nd Dynasty Shunet el-Zebib enclosure, but subterranean arrangements are found at Tuna, Western Thebes, Tell Basta, and various other locations. Most important of all, however, are the series of catacombs at Saqqara.

“As elsewhere, the catacombs of the Sacred Animal Necropolis at Saqqara seem to have been begun during the Late Period, and adjoin the aforementioned burial of the Mothers of Apis. They form part of a complex of temples and shrines located some 700 meters northeast of the Serapeum, together with major enclosures on the desert edge, and an as-yet little known set of chapels north and south of the Serapeum. Separate catacombs exist of ibises, baboons, falcons, and dogs, while cats were interred in extensions of New Kingdom tomb chapels on the edge of the Saqqara escarpment. In addition to literally millions of mummified animals and birds, a number of deposits of bronze divine figures were also made in the Sacred Animal Necropolis, clearly also votives brought by pilgrims.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, escholarship.org ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Egypt sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Tour Egypt, Minnesota State University, Mankato, ethanholman.com; Mark Millmore, discoveringegypt.com discoveringegypt.com; Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Discover magazine, Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, BBC, Encyclopædia Britannica, Time, Newsweek, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “History of Warfare” by John Keegan (Vintage Books); “History of Art” by H.W. Janson Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

Last updated July 2024