Ure mummified cat's head

The Ure Museum’s mummified cat’s head is the unwrapped head and neck remains of an ancient Egyptian mummified domestic cat. It has been displayed in a glass jar contemporary with its discovery in the late 1800s.[1]

Detail of the mummified cat's head, clearly showing whiskers, fur and teeth

Front-left of the mummified cat's head, displayed in a late Victorian jar

Description

Only the cat’s head and neck remain, with most of the original wrapping having been removed. The head has been preserved well enough that teeth and whiskers remain clearly visible, and most of the skin remains intact.[1]

The head is sealed in a Victorian glass jar closed with a newspaper-wrapped cork lid. Within the jar, alongside the head, is an invitation card the reverse of which has been used as a makeshift label for the contents, helping to date the jar.[1]

Provenance

The item as-is entered the collection of the Ure Museum, along with a number of other ancient Egyptian items, in 1958 as part of a donation by Professor Henry Bassett, University of Reading Professor of Chemistry from 1912 to 1946 and Dean of the Faculty of Science from 1926 to 1930.[1] How Bassett came to own it and its prior history are currently unknown. It is, however, very likely that the mummy was one of a number saved from being processed into fertiliser in the 1890s.[2]

In February 1890, several tons of mummified cats of varying condition arrived at Liverpool Docks and were auctioned for processing into fertiliser (and fuel). These had been discovered (by accident) in 1889 at Speos Artemidos, close to Beni Hasan, Egypt. Some of the better preserved cats, or parts of them, were auctioned off singly; a number of these are on display at the National Museums Liverpool’s World Museum.[3] The importation and subsequent auctioning of the mummified cats became a media phenomenon, with numerous national and international newspapers reporting on the proceedings; locals and tourists attended the auctions, too, leading to notable crowds at the related events.

A FORTUNATE CAT-ASTROPHE.—In the cat-egory of consignments surely that of twenty thousand mummified cats, recently arrived at Liverpool from Egypt, is the queerest. It impresses the imagination and appeals to the feelines to consider that, after being buried decently for four thousand years, they have been exhumed to furnish manure for a distant land. They were discovered in a cats’ cemetery—a famous cat-acomb in its day, about a hundred miles from Cairo—somewhere about the first cat-aract, isn’t it? —by an Egyptian fellah—lucky fellah this!—who accidentally fell-ah into it and a good thing at the same time. From the locality of the discovery we presume that on this special occasion Cairo did neither kill the cats nor bury them. Manchester Times, 15 February 1890

Modern history

The cat’s head is on permanent display in the museum’s Death section. The object has also played a prominent role in previous marketing for the museum, and is one of the best-known items of the collection.

References

1. "Ure Museum | Database". uredb.reading.ac.uk. Retrieved 2019-07-17.
2. garstangadmin (2014-08-13). "Object Biography: Meet 'Felix' one of our mummified cats". Garstang Museum of Archaeology. Retrieved 2019-07-17.
3. "A Mummy Cat's Tale". Retrieved 2019-07-17.

Further reading

• Ure Museum | Database