Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art · funerary_equipment

Shrew Mummy

Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art, acc. 14.653. Public domain (CC0). Copy archived by egyptianinscriptions.org with attribution; original at the holding institution.

Accession: 14.653
Find spot: Abydos, Egypt, Egypt approx. site location
Period: Early Roman Period
Date: 30 B.C.E. – 50 C.E.
Date range: 30 BCE – 30 BCE
Materials: ['Animal remains (Crocidura flavescens', 'C. nana', 'C. olivieri', 'or C. religiosa)', 'linen']
Height: 3.2 cm
Width: 21.7 cm
Repository: Brooklyn Museum
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Cite & export

Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art, Shrew Mummy (14.653). Egyptian Inscriptions Database. https://egyptianinscriptions.org/object/17919

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Description

Object Label: Shrews and ichneumons both prey on snakes and therefore won the Egyptians’ admiration and worship. Though snakes could turn their powers to protecting kings and queens, serpents also threatened the sun god Re on his journey through the next world. Egyptian religion made room for both the positive and negative aspects of certain animals. The shrew mummy bundle shows that more than one animal was sometimes included in one package. Caption: Shrew Mummy, 30 B.C.E. – 50 C.E.. Animal remains (Crocidura flavescens, C. nana, C. olivieri, or C. religiosa), linen, 1 1/4 × 8 9/16 × 1 3/8 in. (3.2 × 21.7 × 3.5 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Egypt Exploration Fund, 14.653. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)

AI image analysis GPT-5.4-nano

Machine-generated from the object's image on Jul 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.

The image shows a small, elongated, taxidermy-like animal form laid horizontally on a neutral background, wrapped or segmented with dark bands and appears preserved/treated.

A single object is photographed in side view against a plain light background. The subject is a tapered, rod-like body with a pointed end to the right; its surface is segmented into alternating pale and darker longitudinal bands, consistent with preserved animal tissue or binding. No visible hieroglyphs, Greek, Coptic, or Arabic text appear on the surface. No human figures, deities, or cartouches are visible. The object looks consistent with a mummy-like animal specimen rather than a carved sculpture.

funerary Early Roman Period (per catalogue ground truth; exact identification from image is unclear) good

Materials animal remains (tissue/bands)linen wrapping (suggested by fabric-like banding; not independently confirmable from the image)

Connections

Found at Abydos

Deities Ra

Cross-references (2)

BKM-Accession 14.653 tier-2
BKM-Object 8645 tier-2

About this record's data

From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art.
AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.