"Our findings indicate a rather different view of the relationship between people and the animals they worshipped than that normally associated with the ancient Egyptians, since many animals were killed and mummified when only a matter of hours or days old," Nicholson said. "These animals were not strictly 'sacrificial.' Rather, the dedication of an animal mummy was regarded as a pious act, with the animal acting as intermediary between the donor and the gods

They estimate the catacombs contain the remains of 8 million animals. Given the sheer numbers of animals, it is likely they were bred by the thousands in puppy farms around the ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis, according to the researchers. The Dog Catacombs are located at Saqqara, the burial ground for the ancient capital Memphis.

At the tomb KV 50 in the Valley of Kings, a mummified dog and baboon were discovered buried together, though the owner is unknown.[10]

Over time, religious cults emerged for the worship of each specific god. Two main types of worship distinguished the cults—the first choosing to worship the god through mass mummified animal offerings and the second selecting a totem animal to represent the god,[4] which was mummified at the time of its death.

Before animal mummification became common, these offerings were usually bronze statues depicting the animals.[9] However, eventually a cheaper alternative to bronze statues—animal mummies—became the most popular form of offering. Literally millions of these mummified animals have been discovered throughout Egypt. Inspection of these mummies, usually done through CT scans which allow researchers to examine the skeletons of the mummies without damaging the outer wrappings, has suggested that these types of animals were bred for the sole purpose of offerings.

Cats were mummified as religious offerings in enormous quantities and were believed to represent the war goddess Bastet. This cult was primarily centered at Thebes and Beni Hasan beginning in the Ptolemaic Period. At Beni Hasan, there were so many cat mummies that at the end of the 19th century, a total of 19 tons of mummified Egyptian cats were shipped to England to be used as fertilize

Originally posted by baddmove
reply to post by Versa

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O.K. makes sense to me...but...

Over 8 million of them...

the numbers are staggering ...

like another poster said...

must have been 100's of puppy farms going all over Egypt....