Unveiling a Dark Ritual: Why Ancient Egyptians Sacrificed Kittens and Cobras Before Mummification
So picture this: scientists, armed not with spades or pickaxes but with ultra-sharp digital lasers, have just “unwrapped” some 2,000-year-old animal mummies from ancient Egypt — without tearing a single bandage! You might be wondering, how do you even do that? Well, thanks to some fancy micro CT scanning tech that’s like X-ray vision on steroids, these researchers from Swansea University have peered deep into the bones and teeth of a cat, a snake, and a bird mummy to crack the ages-old secrets of how these critters lived and, more importantly, how they croaked. Turns out, these weren’t just random pets thrown in a tomb; they were sacrificial offerings, bought and wrapped with care to be sent off to the gods—kind of like ancient Egyptian candlelight vigils. It’s wild to think that through all this hi-tech wizardry, we’re getting the scoop on lives frozen in time—talk about a post-mortem that takes ‘digging up dirt’ to a whole new meaning! Curious for the gritty details? LEARN MORE
Using the latest technology, scientists “digitally unwrapped” 2,000-year-old animal mummies from ancient Egypt and determined their causes of death.

Swansea UniversityMicro CT scan of a mummified Egyptian cobra dating back 2,000 years.
A team of researchers from the University of Swansea in Wales dissected the remains of mummified animals from Ancient Egypt. The examination was carried out without desecrating the artifacts via advanced high-resolution 3D digital scanning, resulting in a “digital unwrapping” of the ancient remains.
According to Gizmodo, the mummified animals date back to 2,000 years ago. Examining their embalmed remains has given researchers a bevy of insight into how the animals may have lived and died so long ago. The study was published in Scientific Reports.
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