Pitt Rivers Museum Anthropology and World Archaology

 

Africa

 

Mummified hawk

Egypt

 

Collector not known

Purchased by the Museum in 1897 from W. D. Webster

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Mummified hawk, Egypt

This pair of mummified birds are hawks, associated with the god Horus. Ancient Egyptians believed that their gods and goddesses appeared on earth in the forms of animals or birds. Sacred animals were often kept in the precinct of their deity’s temple. When they died they were mummified and buried with great ceremony.

View database record 1897.65.8