"Egypt's Ministry of Antiquities says local archeologists have unearthed the mummy of an unusually large animal, most likely a lion or lioness." Source: Archaeology News Network.
"The ministry said on Monday the mummy was excavated in Saqqara, a town south of Cairo that was a vast necropolis in antiquity and is home to the famed Step Pyramid."
"In ancient Egypt, sacred ibises were collected from their natural habitats to be ritually sacrificed, according to a new study." Source: Science Daily.
"Egyptian catacombs are famously filled with the mummified bodies of Sacred Ibises. Between around 664BC and 250AD, it was common practice for the birds to be sacrificed, or much more rarely worshipped in ritual service to the god Thoth, and subsequently mummified. In ancient sites across Egypt, these mummified birds are stacked floor to ceiling along kilometers of catacombs, totaling many millions of birds. But how the Egyptians got access to so many birds has been a mystery; some ancient texts indicate that long-term farming and domestication may have been employed."
Note: The sacred ibis has long since evolved into the sacred bin chicken.
Notes: The quote above is misleading because it makes it sound like these mummified animals were discovered under the famous Step Pyramid. In reality, the Catacombs of Anubis aka the Dog Catacombs are located under the desert to the northeast of the pyramid.
"The Dog Catacombs, as they are known, date to 747-730 B.C., and are dedicated to Anubis, the Egyptians' jackal-headed god of the dead," according to Live Science (2011). "They were first documented in the 19th century; however, they were never fully excavated."
"According to a new research study, a 5,000 square foot network of underground tunnels are stuffed full of linen-wrapped dogs, along with a few foxes and cats laid to rest thousands of years ago by the cult following of a canine-like deity [Anubis] who Egyptians believed would usher them into the afterlife." (Daily Beast)
"A few of these animals presumably lived in the Anubieion temple at Saqqara, revered as living representatives of the god ... Their mummies might be categorized as those of 'sacred animals' ... who were worshipped during their lifetimes as manifestations of the god, and then mummified and buried with great pomp after their death." -- Killing Man's Best Friend?, Archaeological Review From Cambridge, 2013.
"A scanning project [of Egyptian animal mummies] at Manchester Museum and the University of Manchester has revealed that about a third of the bundles of cloth are empty inside." Source: BBC (2015).
"Researchers believe there was a huge appetite for these religious offerings, and demand for the mummies may have outstripped supply."
Note: Animal mummies were used as votive offerings in ancient Egypt, where many of the gods were represented in animal forms:
"Animal mummies were votive gifts. Today you'd have a candle in a cathedral; in Egyptian times you would have an animal mummy." (BBC)
"You would go to a special site, buy an animal mummy, using a system of barter. You'd then give it to a priest, who would collect a group of animal mummies and bury them."
Unfortunately, it looks like many of the ordinary people who wanted to show their devotion fell victim to a swindle operated by the embalmers. Many of these "mummies" contained no animal parts at all. Instead, they were stuffed with "organic material such as mud, sticks and reeds, that would have been lying around the embalmers' workshops, and also things like eggshells and feathers, which were associated with the animals, but aren't the animals themselves."
Pagan or Christian, religion in general has always been rife with fraud.
"A tiny, 2,100-year-old mummy from ancient Egypt had long been thought to contain the remains of a treasured bird - which would make sense, considering the hawk-themed decorations and small size." Source: Science Alert (2018).
"But researchers conducting a CT scan have found something else entirely - the remains of a severely malformed human foetus, stillborn at no later than 28 weeks."
"Egypt on Saturday unveiled the details of 30 ancient wooden coffins with mummies inside discovered in the southern city of Luxor in the biggest find of its kind in more than a century." Source: Reuters.
"A team of Egyptian archaeologists discovered a 'distinctive group of 30 colored wooden coffins for men, women and children' in a cache at Al-Asasif cemetery on Luxor’s west bank, the Ministry of Antiquities said in a statement on Saturday."
Note: There have been a lot of archaeological announcements coming out of Egypt lately, all part of a stepped-up media campaign designed to show that the country is stable and safe for foreign visitors. According to Archaeology News Network, "Egypt has sought publicity for its archaeological discoveries in the hopes of reviving its tourism sector, which was badly hit by the turmoil following the 2011 uprising [which was apparently carried out with the support of the US government]." The situation in Egypt seems to have improved, but the country is still under a Level 2 (Exercise Increased Caution) travel advisory issued by the Department of State.
"Experts have begun restoration work on the golden-plated coffin of Egypt’s boy-king Tutankhamun for the first time since the discovery of the tomb in 1922, the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities said on Wednesday." Source: Archaeology News Network.
"The coffin and the treasured collection of Tutankhamun’s tomb are expected to be the centrepiece of the new Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) that Egypt will open next year near the Pyramids of Giza."
"'The gruesome mummy of Unknown Man E, also known as the ‘Screaming Mummy’, has long puzzled scholars,' renowned Egyptologist Zahi Hawass told Al-Ahram Weekly, adding that this particular mummy is surrounded in mystery. Although he was re-buried in the royal mummy cache of Deir Al-Bahari, he was not wrapped in the usual fine linen bandages like the rest of the mummies. Instead, he was wrapped in sheepskin, which was considered impure by the ancient Egyptians. His hands and feet were tied with leather thongs. He was not even mummified, but was merely left to dry in natron and then had some resin poured into his open mouth." Source: Archaeology News Network (2018).
Note: There has been speculation that this is the mummy of a 20th Dynasty Egyptian prince known as Pentawar who was "involved in the so-called 'harem conspiracy', a plot to kill his father [Ramesses III] and place Pentawer on the throne," according to Wikipedia. "He either killed himself or was executed following the assassination attempt."
It's possible, I guess, that this man wasn't actually screaming at the time of his death. The drying out process may have caused his mouth to open.
"According to Dr. Janet Davey from the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine in Australia, some ancient Egyptians were naturally blonde or red haired. Her research has brought an answer to an intriguing question connected with Egyptian mummies and the effects of the mummification process." Source: Ancient Origins (2016).
"An article published recently by The Sydney Morning Herald says that the mystery of the red and blonde hair discovered on some ancient Egyptian mummies may finally be solved. The new research was necessary to check the common perception that no ancient Egyptians had hair that wasn’t colored dark brown or black. Until now, most researchers had claimed that the different colors of the mummy hair were a result of the mummification process itself."
Note:According to Wikipedia, the ancient Egyptians used natron, a "salt mixture from dry lake beds," as a drying agent during mummification ceremonies. Until recently, experts believed that this treatment could have changed the color of the mummy's hair, but Dr. Davey, with the help of industrial chemist Alan Elliot, ran an experiment which demonstrated that this wasn't the case:
"Davey and Elliot covered [hair] samples in the salty powder for 40 days. It is believed that this was the same amount of time that was needed in ancient times to dry out the bodies. The donors of the hair were men and women aged from 4 to 92 years old. Most of the samples were dark hair, with one grey, one fair, and one with henna on it for comparison.
"After 40 days, all the hair was removed from the salty powder and they appeared unchanged. Microscopic analysis also showed no change in the hair."
"Egypt has unveiled the 2,500-year-old mummy of a high priest at an ancient cemetery south of Cairo. Egyptologist Zahi Hawass and an Egyptian team opened three sealed sarcophagi from the 26th Dynasty." Source: Archaeology News Network (April 9, 2019).
"One contained the well-preserved mummy of a powerful priest, wrapped in linen and decorated with a golden figure depicting Isis, an ancient Egyptian goddess ... The team also opened two other sarcophagi, one containing a female mummy decorated with blue beads and another with a father in a family tomb."
Note: It looks like the archaeologists dropped the ball on this one:
"In 1927, a huge limestone sarcophagus was found in the area and placed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, but the site was then forgotten [emphasis added] ... But two years ago an unauthorized digger was found at the site and stopped ... That’s what alerted archaeologists and excavation began." (Archaeology News Network)
In other words, archaeologists forgot all about the site for almost a century. If an "unauthorized" digger -- a criminal tomb raider -- hadn't been caught exploring the area, this find might never have been made at all.