
Ancient Egyptians kept baboons in captivity—and then mummified them
Archeologists exhumed the primates' skeletons from Egypt's Valley of the Monkeys to discover how they lived 2,500 years ago.
Ancient Egyptian society forced captive baboons to spend their life in enclosures without sunlight before mummifying their bodies as a ritualistic offering to the gods, a new archaeological study has revealed.
An analysis of 2500-year-old baboon skeletons, found in Egypt’s so-called Valley of the Monkeys, has revealed that the animals
The Art Newspaper
December 6, 2023
© Bea De Cupere, CC-BY 4.0
suffered from malnutrition and a lack of sunlight, leaving them with bone deformations, though they appear not to have been treated violently.
“We were shocked by the high proportion of deformations and the severity of the pathologies, which seem to be in contradiction with the elaborate treatment the animals received after death, as mummies,” says Wim Van Neer of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Belgium, and lead author of the research paper, published in the journal Plos One.
Related articles
The Art Newspaper
- Napoleonic-era mass grave discovered beneath cellars in the Czech Republic (November 2021)
- Ancient tomb raider murder mystery discovered in China (October 2021)
- Ancient Egyptians who could not afford expensive embalming resin may have used mud instead (February 2021)
- Mummified llamaas, sacrificed to the gods by Incas, uncovered by archaeologists in Peru (October 2020)
- Steep commute gave ancient Egyptian workers osteoarthritis (November 2016)
NewScientist
- Ancient jawbone reveals a 2500-kilometre journey from Sudan to Rome (May 2021)
- Tattoos reveal secrets of man whose flayed skin was nailed to a board (March 2021)
Apollo Magazine
- Have scientists solved a mummy murder mystery? (February 2021)
- Meet the mummies: cultural ambassadors from beyond the grave (February 2019)
Science Magazine
- Human blood, organs and a surprising virus detected in ancient pottery (December 2016)
- Stone-age Italians defleshed their dead (March 2015)
Rawi: Egypt's Heritage Review
- The Curious Tale of King Seqenenre Tao (July 2013)
The Independent
- Egypt's desert whales (June 2012)