Bronze statue which entombed a mummified cat on display at new exhibition

Creatures of the Nile explores the position animals held in ancient Egyptian and Sudanese society and culture.

Transcript

00:00Creatures of the Nile at the Victoria Gallery and Museum features more than

00:04250 objects, many of which have never been on public display. Highlights

00:10include one of the earliest known depictions of a domesticated dog, a sheet

00:14from the three and a half thousand year old Book of the Dead and a bronze statue

00:19which entombed a mummified cat. I'm a big fan of cats myself, I have one and this

00:24particular artifact is an absolutely amazing example. It's a bronze statue

00:30but it's actually hollow and would likely have contained an animal mummy. So

00:34animal mummies are of course a really big thing in ancient Egypt. Often I think

00:39people might think oh these are beloved pets that have been you know mummified

00:42after their death. This is very rare, occasionally they are pets but that's

00:46very rare, mostly they're offerings to the gods. Many species of animal called

00:51the Nile their home long before humans settled there. As Nile centred

00:55civilizations appeared these creatures became central figures in society's

00:59depictions of their world. I think what we'd like people to see is that

01:04climate change is complicated but it's something that we should really be

01:09thinking about and thinking through the implications. When one small thing

01:13changes it affects other things and we want to look at the bigger picture. I

01:18think it's that we can learn about both the impact of the environment on some

01:22species of the environment changed as it got drier but also the impact of humans

01:27within that environment. The question being the environment would have changed

01:31was going was changing but how much of an impact additional impacted humans

01:35have. In ancient Egypt and Sudan gods were often represented in the form of an

01:40animal taking on the full or partial appearance of creatures including lions

01:45snakes and baboons. The most difficult thing has been to actually cut it down

01:49and really just try and tell a story with some of the really key pieces.

01:55Creatures of the Nile is on display until Saturday 5th of October.