The Ancient Standard

All Lions Go To Heaven…? Or Maybe Just the Afterlife (ca. 1430 BC)

By: The Scribe on November, 2007

It’s no secret that the ancient Egyptians mummified cats, monkeys, small crocodiles, even things like snakes and birds… but what about larger animals? Say, for example… a lion? Well, it turns out that not only were lions considered sacred in ancient Egypt, but the ancient records that talked about breeding and burying sacred lions weren’t exaggerating! Although no one had previously found a specimen to verify the written record, excavations from a tomb in 2001 certainly changed all that.

A mummified lion – actually one of the largest lions known to the scientific community, and obviously very old when it died in captivity – was found inside the tomb of a woman named Maia, who was the wet nurse to the famed King Tutankhamun. The nurse was buried around 1430 BC at Saqqara in northern Egypt, and was evidently held in very high regard by the royal family.

Analysis on the bones and the teeth of the lion revealed its old age, and that the lion was a captive in the royal household. The association between lions and royalty – particularly the Pharaoh – was nearly as well known as the association between kings and falcons, and plenty of Egyptologists believe that there were probably special animal precincts and sacred cemeteries at various locations in Egypt devoted to the breeding, care, and eventual buried of sacred animals such as lions.

Although none of these ‘sacred lion precincts’ have been found, the ancient Egyptians certainly had a history of setting aside specific areas for animals – for example, the city of Crocodilopolis was specifically devoted to crocodiles and contained a sacred pond for the animals.

The lion inside the Saqqara tomb was found stretched out on a rock, with the body oriented eastward and the head pointing north. Most of the wrappings had been lost, but the positioning and the surrounding context revealed its mummification had been complete at the time of burial – and in terms of the scientific community, the bones represent those of the largest male lion to ever be recorded.

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