Another archaeological gift, another treasure of history offered by Egypt to enthusiasts: in the luxuriant Kharga oasis, in the New Valley, 200 km west of Luxor, the biggest monumental animal tomb ever found in the country of the Nile has been discovered.
Inside there are 3000 mummified hawks, still perfectly preserved, dating back to the New Kingdom, to the last dynasties, when animal veneration was more than ever practised.

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“This is a discovery that I wish to dedicate to scholars all over the world – is the proud statement made by Bahgat Ahmed, the archaeologist who made this important finding – at a special time when there is a need for unity. I ask enthusiasts to visit the Egyptian oases: they are peaceful and safe; for tourists in search of alternative routes they can represent an agreeable novelty”.
I have worked in the oasis for nine seasons: palm groves, hot springs flowing from the ground, peasants inviting you to have a meal in their unadorned dwellings and many remains from the past, situated in the harsh sandy and rocky desert joining one oasis to another in a semicircle, which goes from Cairo up to Luxor.

Al Mozawaka is the area of the Kharga oasis where the Egyptian mission headed by Bahgat Ahmed has been working for years. It is a burial ground not far from the temple of Hibis, dating back to the Persian period and dedicated to the god Amon.

This is the very area where this sepulchre, made up of various chambers, has come to light and, for a change, it was built neither for a Pharaoh, nor for a noble who might have lived in this region, but for hawks, sacred animals.
Zoolatry, the veneration of animals, is definitely one of the most fascinating and mysterious aspects of Egyptian worship and it continued up to the coming of Christianity.
Crocodile worship was popular, above all in the Fayum oasis: this worship was dictated by feelings of fear and hence reverence towards an animal representing the strength of nature, the primordial forces of creation. Temples were built for it, donations were given; a small specimen was kept in a basin by the priests and was nourished with flat cakes and honey, an extremely unusual diet for such a voracious beast.
An integral part of this veneration was embalming: not far from the temples, a crocodile necropolis was situated and their corpses were stuffed with papyrus no longer in use, which are now a precious booty for archaeologists who dig up these animals.
Other animals (mammals, birds, reptiles) were sacred and consequently venerated: in Menfi a number of underground graves were reserved for baboons and hawks.

And it is the hawk, identified with the god Horus, which has been found everywhere (but never so many were found in the same place as in the tomb that has just been discovered); a brisk activity gravitated around hawks and generally around sacred animals: breeders, embalmers, even veterinaries were generously paid by priests, and hence virtually by the state, to look after venerated specimens.


Materials for enbalming process

The embalming process used for animals was probably similar to that practised on man.
There are two known methods, even though the Greek historian Herodotus (“Histories”, book II, chap. 86) listed three: the first and most expensive method was set aside for important personalities and provided for the careful removal of the viscera, the soft parts and the brain (which was extracted through the nostrils); the second involved the use of juniper oil which dissolved the entrails and eliminated them through the orifices of the corpse. In conclusion, the most important villages were zoological gardens: temples, shrines and cemeteries were built for animals.
There was such a strong veneration by the devotees that it often drove them to extreme actions: the historian Diodoro Siculo reports that he witnessed the cruel lynching of one of the members of a Roman delegation, guilty of having accidentally killed a cat.

Translated by interpres sas