Graham Henry
WalesOnline
21 Mar 2013 20:46 

A secret maze of Egyptian desert tunnels packed with the remains of millions of mummified dogs has been unearthed by Cardiff academics.

A team from Cardiff University, led by Dr Paul Nicholson, revealed their grisly findings during ongoing excavations of an ancient catacomb under the Saqqara desert near Giza.

The findings suggest some of the estimated eight million dogs - considered links between ancient Egyptians and the jackal-headed god of the dead Anubis - were killed as newborns.

Archaeologist Salima Ikram examines the mummified remains of an adult dog in a wall niche/Cardiff University

It is thought many puppies could have been drowned, and older dogs poisoned, as part of puppy farms producing stocks of offerings en-masse in nearby Memphis.

Pilgrims may have also paid for the dogs to be mummified as an offering to Anubis, accounting for the staggering number of offerings hidden within the three-metre high tunnels.

It is thought that some of the networks date back as far as 747 BC, the beginning of the "late period" in Egyptian history.

The trove of fragmented remains of the dogs reveal they may have been similar to modern-day Australian dingoes. But the haul also included remains of cats, falcons, jackals, foxes, bulls and a few Egyptian mongooses called Ichneumon.

The team, funded by the university's School of History, Archaeology and Religion and National Geographic and in cooperation with Egyptian colleagues, will be working on the site for the next year.

It is hoped they can map out the lengthy underground maze and better understand the practices of the ancient peoples.

Dr Nicholson said: "The idea was that you, as a visitor to Saqqara, might dedicate a mummy as a thank-you for something good that happened to you, or that you are hoping something will happen. It is tied up in the belief that mummies were the messengers between the people and the gods."

Dr Nicholson added that although the practice could be considered "barbaric" in modern perspectives, it was considered a pious act in Egyptian times.

He said: "It was very important to the Egyptians - and although from a modern perspective killing animals for mummification seems barbaric, the important thing was that you were doing it as a pious act and the animal was the link with the gods."