LONDON -- There was so much demand for animal mummies in Ancient Egypt that a lot of the offerings didn't contain any animal remains, according to new research by a British university.
Ancient Egyptians, intent on worshiping the gods, drove up demand for offerings, meaning up to 70 million animals may have been mummified from 800 BC onward. However, recent scans of some of the animal mummies has found that a third were just mud and sticks, eggshells, reeds and feathers, with no skeletons found.
The scanning project at the University of Manchester, which was followed by BBC's Horizon programme, looked at more than 800 animal mummies, including cats, birds and crocodiles using X-rays and CT scans, according to BBC News.
Mummified remains of animals wrapped in linen were left by Egyptians at temples as presents to gods and goddesses. Thousands of mummified cats have been found at a temple to the goddess Bastet in the Nile Delta, while others were preserved so that people who died would have companionship after death.
Researchers say they suspect the mummy makers were struggling to keep up with demand.
"We're not entirely sure whether a purchaser would have known what was inside, or whether indeed it even mattered what was inside as long as the outside of the offering looked like something that the god would appreciate as a gift," Dr Lidija McKnight, an Egyptologist from the University of Manchester told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Monday.
"It's more likely that the materials that were used in these mummies were special in some way, that they were found in a sacred environment or they'd come into contact with these animals in their lives."