Feeding the Pharaohs: A Discussion and Object Study of Fowl Victual Mummies from Ancient Egypt

Food offerings were a critical part of ancient Egyptian funerary ritual, as these offerings sustained the dead in the afterlife. Among food offerings placed in tombs were victual mummies: cuts of meat or fowl mummified and wrapped in linen bandages like their human counterparts. This thesis seeks to define fowl victual mummies as an object class through a discussion of their procurement, processing, and production. It addresses the status of victual mummy categorization. This thesis considers the following prompts: are fowl mummies truly mummy in their preparation and presentation? Are fowl victual mummies prepared specifically as food items, ready for long-term consumptions and storage? Or can fowl victual mummies represent a unique hybridization of these trades? X-ray imaging and pXRF analysis were conducted on fowl victual mummy 1981.1.18 at the Art Museum of the University of Memphis, coinciding with an analysis of published victual mummies, to address these questions