A box of cat skulls in a Vienna museum shows researchers how ancient Egyptians raised animals for sacrifice. A Belgian and Italian team studied 131 skulls from Beni Hassan, a burial site along the Nile, and found disease, injury and violence in most of the animals.
The skulls came from cat mummies unwrapped in the 1800s. The Natural History Museum in Vienna purchased them in 1883 for 800 guilders from the brother of the late zoologist Ludwig Jeitteles, the original collector. Letters from the merchant Friedrich Mook in the museum archives cite Beni Hassan as the source. The authors claim that this collection has remained unknown to science until now and call it the largest museum collection of Egyptian cat skulls with documented origin.
Seven skulls belong to jungle cats, a larger wild species. The others vary greatly in size, with skull lengths ranging from 77 to 132 millimeters. Most are domestic cats, although some could be African wildcats or hybrids. Of the 131 animals, 113 were adults, 7 were subadults and 11 were juveniles. X-ray studies of mummies from other collections show mostly young cats, with adults making up less than 23 percent. The authors associate the adult bias in Vienna with a preference for adult specimens among early zoologists.
Health issues stand out, with 81 skulls, or 62 percent, exhibiting at least one condition. Twenty-six animals suffered from gum disease, 24 had lost teeth and 22 had tartar buildup. Dental rates were similar to or lower than modern wild cats. Thirty-five skulls showed pitting and eight had a rough surface. The authors suggest that skin infections in the crowded quarters caused scratches and bone reactions. Nineteen skulls had small holes in the floor of the orbit, which resembles a human condition linked to anemia, but the cause in cats remains unclear because only the skulls survive.
Fourteen skulls, or 11 percent, showed injuries. Eight of them had bite marks from cat fights, and three of them recovered. One domestic cat had healed punctures matching a jungle cat’s canines in size and spacing. The people caused other injuries, and cut marks indicate a sharp metal tool, while fractures or dents in the skull indicate a blunt object, perhaps a thick wooden stick. Two cats died from their injuries, while three or four survived blows to the head. The authors claim that some injuries could be related to discipline or a means of dividing fighting animals, but that fatal wounds were intended to kill.
Six of the seven jungle cats had pathologies similar to domestic cats. The authors see this as a sign that all felids lived together in the same stressful conditions, probably in confined spaces.
The radiocarbon dates come from nine skulls, place eight between 380 and 40 BCE, from the Late Late Period to the Ptolemaic era. A cat dates from around 980 to 820 BCE, in the Third Intermediate Period. No known text reports cat mummies at Beni Hassan so early. The date suggests that mummification began there earlier than expected, unless the skull came from Bubastis.
Chemical tests on four jungle cats and twelve domestic cats revealed a carbon value of minus 16.7 in jungle cats compared to minus 18.5 in domestic cats. The gap adapts to a wetland or river habitat early in life. The captivity was too short to erase the signal, so the authors conclude that the jungle cats were wild-caught and not captive-bred.
Gn Health
