Sacred Animals
In the early 1990s I had the opportunity to visit the Falcon Catacomb at North Saqqara with Professor H.S. Smith who had worked at the Sacred Animal Necropolis with Professor Emery in the 1960s and, following Emery’s death, had done important work there himself.

My initial interest was in the pottery vessels in which the mummified birds had been buried, and to this end I made a study of the pots.  This would not have been possible without the expert help for Dr. Nick Fieller of Sheffied University who made a detailed statistical examination of the pots as a way of grouping them.  These groupings, it is hoped, will help to reinforce a floating chronology of the individual galleries within the Falcon catacomb.

As that work continued an interest in the North Ibis Catacomb also developed since this was only discovered during the season in which Emery died, and was not fully explored.  Thanks to Mr. Kenneth Frazer it was possible for Dr. Caroline Jackson and other members of the Egypt Exploration Society team to explore the monument and to supplement the excellent ‘sketch plan’ originally produced by Ken Fraser.

During work at the site in the 1990s a large cache of votive bronzes was unearthed, mostly small vessels known as situlae.  These were badly corroded and conservators from the archaeology section of HISAR at Cardiff University were called in to help stabilise and clean these.  Some of these cleaned bronzes are now on display in the new Imhotep Museum at Saqqara.

Work on the publication of the Egypt Exploration Society’s activities at the Sacred Animal Necropolis is well underway, and Professor Smith and Mrs. Davies have recently produced several volumes dealing with aspects of the site.  That for the North Ibis, and for the metrial study of the Falcon mummy pots is also well underway.

Relevant publications – papers