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Eight million dog mummies found in Saqqara


Big Bad Voodoo

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http://english.ahram...in-Saqqara.aspx

Eight million dog mummies were uncovered at the dog catacomb in Saqqara

Now what I really wonder about is how they counted the mummies?

Think of a cave full of millions (millions!) of dog mummies - how to find out that there are 8 millions?

This must be a very rough estimation ...

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365 days x 10 000 = 3.650.000

Mummy a day.

?

So 8 000 000 means minimum 20 000 years mummy a day.

Edited by the L
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mongoose!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Ugh, they killed dogs so they could pray? :(

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Now what I really wonder about is how they counted the mummies?

Think of a cave full of millions (millions!) of dog mummies - how to find out that there are 8 millions?

This must be a very rough estimation ...

That's why i doubt it.
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My gosh, that's 2000 times more dog mummies than there are holes in Blackburn, Lancashire!

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8 Million??? that is absolute BS...Which also suggests that this is no more scientific an Investigation then simple Nat geo sensationalisation. I have done the math, and this really is BS!!!

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At first I thought ahhh nice Egyptians respecting their dead animals; then I read that they buried them not long after birth; cruel buggers!

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It isn't THAT hard to work out its approximately 8million if you have a team of people..... It takes ONE person a year to count 20K a day but who is to say there wasn't over 150 people working on the site and each were asked to put them into groups of 1,000 each.... thats 150K a day or 9 weeks to count them all out in that fashion, which is not unreasonable!

What I find difficult to understand is not the number but the dimensions required for the storing that amount. Even if you condense it to each mummy is only a cube 12 inches on each side, your looking at 8 million of these foot long cubes, which without doing the maths, must be a massive area!

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Yeah... jeeze, I would challenge anyone to count 8 million of anything.

Someone suggested that it's an estimation. Ok, I know scientists do that all the time, but that is one heck of a large number.

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Wow its obvious there was no R.S.P.C.A around back then.

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thats sad i mean your going to kill animals to these gods!!!?i don't care if they are old or young the point is thats wrong.im more thamn sure than if you just pray and do other things that don't involve killing animals they still listen and etc.and besides i believe that we are gods were part of the creator we are all exntensions of the creator.we are not separate of the creator and im not talking about none of these gods that religions speak of either when i say the creator.god id love and only unconditional love only.as for the animals that were foung well i wish them they are in a better place.mind as well study the animals that are mummified

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thats sad i mean your going to kill animals to these gods!!!?i don't care if they are old or young the point is thats wrong.im more thamn sure than if you just pray and do other things that don't involve killing animals they still listen and etc.and besides i believe that we are gods were part of the creator we are all exntensions of the creator.we are not separate of the creator and im not talking about none of these gods that religions speak of either when i say the creator.god id love and only unconditional love only.as for the animals that were foung well i wish them they are in a better place.mind as well study the animals that are mummified

Your description fits a decent modern religious framework but would not be understood by most ancient Near Easterners. Animal sacrifice was an integral part of worship in many ancient societies. We use the modern word "sacrifice" but it is a concept that was well understood in ancient times: when it comes to beseeching the gods, one must give something to get something. It's become very watered down in most modern Western religions, such as in my own Roman Catholic upbringing where we abstain from consuming meat on Fridays during Lent. This would've been wholly insufficient to the ancient mind.

I'm also skeptical of the figure of eight million but there's no doubting the ancient Egyptians sacrificed and mummified millions of animals. This took place mostly from the Late Period through Roman times, until Christianity supplanted the weakened pagan religion. All sorts of animals were mummified—dogs were actually not as common in this practice as were falcons, ibises, and cats, among others.

The article quotes Salima Ikram, arguably the world's leading scholar in ancient Egyptian animal mummification. However many dogs they've actually found at Saqqara, it's bound to be a hell of a lot. Saqqara was always an important cemetery, and Anubis was always one of the primary underworld gods. The sacrifices of dogs to him only makes sense. I've read of other large deposits of dog mummies at sites like Abydos, so Saqqara is hardly unique in this regard.

In the end it's a matter of understanding (or at least trying to understand) how the ancient mind worked and how ancient religions were conducted. Animal sacrifice was exceedingly common, and not just in Egypt.

I hope they were mostly Chihuahuas.

Chihuahuas would've been a hell of a lot easier and quicker to mummify, that's for sure. Unfortunately for the Egyptians most of their dogs were larger in size. The modern breed known as Saluki is thought to have originated in Egypt, and mummified Salukis are well attested.

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I know chihuahuas originate in south america, I just have a disdain for them after numerous difficulties and issues with an ex's chihuahuas. Never again, lesson learned!

Thanks for the Saluki information Kmt, that was insightful. I've never attempted to place a breed name with the types of dogs depicted in some of the ancient heiroglyphs. Congrats on the mod status. :tu:

Edited by WoIverine
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I am really curious to know, how they came up with the exact number of Eight Million? Was someone actually standing there with their index finger pointing and saying..1...2..3...4 ???? Really now, what's up with that?

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I wonder how many time they spent to make one mummy?

If I'm not mistaken, the mummification process lasted for a period of 70 days.

- 15 days spent on cleansing and purification

- 40 days drying period

- 15 days wrapping, bandaging and paintings

Kmt, correct me if I'm wrong please, since you're more knowledgeable about the subject at hand.

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If I'm not mistaken, the mummification process lasted for a period of 70 days.

- 15 days spent on cleansing and purification

- 40 days drying period

- 15 days wrapping, bandaging and paintings

Kmt, correct me if I'm wrong please, since you're more knowledgeable about the subject at hand.

If so, then they spent much more time for mummifaction then I calculated in post 3.

Ofcourse we can imagine that whey wrapped more dogs at same time, but still. how many Egyptians have had population at that time?

These dogs must have been warpped while Africa was still green, imo.

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