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British scientists have shone a light on an important aspect of ancient Egyptian life. Using 3D imaging, they have shown how the people of ancient Egypt caught and sacrificed large Nile crocodiles for mummification as offerings to the deity Sobek, himself depicted as a man with the face of a crocodile.
They used specialist software in combination with X-ray and CT scanning to show how a 2.2 metre-long (over 7 feet) Nile crocodile was caught from the wild 2,000-3,000 years ago and then killed and later processed for mummification shortly afterwards.
The crocodile had swallowed a fish attached to a bronze hook. It then swallowed a large number of small stones called ‘gastroliths’. Crocodiles swallow these for buoyancy in their stomach.
“The presence of more gastroliths higher up in the digestive tract, say the authors, indicate an attempt to break down the animal’s last meal, and showed it died before they reached its stomach,” a statement by the University of Manchester noted.
It added: “The skeletal integrity of the fish also suggests that it was swallowed whole and had not yet been affected by the harsh digestive enzymes present in the first chamber of the crocodile’s stomach or the abrasive action of the gastroliths.”
Crocodiles have some of the most acidic digestive juices in the animal kingdom.
The researchers also used the 3D images to make a plastic and then a bronze replica of the fishhook that killed the crocodile.
“Whereas earlier studies favoured invasive techniques such as unwrapping and autopsy, 3D radiography provides the ability to see inside without damaging these important and fascinating artefacts,” lead author Lidija Mcknight, research fellow from The University of Manchester, was quoted in the statement.
The mummy of the crocodile is kept at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and known by its accession number, 2005.335.
Nile crocodiles were venerated by ancient Egyptians “as avatars of Sobek, Lord of the Nile and of the primeval swamp from which they believed the earth was created”.
The deity Ammut was a composite creature in ancient Egyptian myth, with the head of a Nile crocodile, the hindquarters of a hippopotamus and the forequarters of a lion. These three animals were the most feared in ancient Egypt as they could kill a human being.
Nile crocodiles, the study notes, were “associated with dichotomous character traits”. On the one hand, their immense power, strength and ferocity meant that they were regarded as “omens of danger to both human and animal life”.
But they were also symbols of fertility. They signified the annual inundation of Egypt by the Nile, on which the nation’s agriculture depended. A healthy crocodile population was thus celebrated in ancient Egypt.
Archaeological research has shown how the ‘cult of Sobek’ was an important aspect of religious life in ancient Egypt. Artistic representations, artefacts representing the animals’ form, and the burial of large numbers of mummified crocodiles have been found at Fayum, an oasis located 100 km south-west of Cairo.
There is also archaeological evidence for ‘crocodile hatcheries’ at Medinet Madi.
Captive crocodiles were kept for religious purposes at Crocodilopolis, Karanis, Qasr el Qarun, Elkab, Esna and Kom Ombo.
The researchers noted that so far, evidence had shown that unhatched eggs and live young were harvested from the wild and raised by temple staff until they were required as cult offerings.
“Rearing juvenile crocodiles presents a reduced danger to humans than when tending adults whose formidable strength would have been terrifying for those tasked with their care. The large number of mummified mature crocodiles suggests that these creatures were likely collected from the wild as and when they were required, rather than being kept for lengthy periods in captivity,” the study said.
Recent research on a crocodile mummy from the Musée des Confluences in Lyon, France suggested that the animal “had been hunted in the wild and killed by a sudden blow to the head before being immediately mummified, as indicated by the identification and intact nature of the stomach contents”.
Another mummy analysed in Manchester also showed that the animal had been killed with a blow to its head.
The use of fishhooks in catching crocodiles was no longer practised in the 1st Century Before Common Era, the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus wrote.
The veneration of the Nile crocodile reached its peak in ancient Egypt during the Ptolemaic Period (332–30BCE), when the descendants of Ptolemy I, the Macedonian general of Alexander the Great, ruled Egypt. Among them was Cleopatra.
Nile crocodiles were still being hunted in Egypt by the time the Romans took over and ruled the nation (30BC-AD395).
Seeing is believing – The application of Three-Dimensional modelling technologies to reconstruct the final hours in the life of an ancient Egyptian Crocodile has been published in Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage.