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

Cat Mummy in Cartonnage

Source of record: Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art — catalogued by the holding institution. View the original record →

Description

Object Label: This large cat mummy was buried much like a human in a cartonnage (a painted plaster coffin). The inscription calls the cat “the Osiris Pa-miu,” using the same title a human would receive as it merges with the god after its death. The mummy itself is wrapped in an elaborate diamond-shaped pattern, as can be seen in the CT scan. This cat’s unusual size suggests it is either a wild desert cat (Felis chaus) or perhaps a mix of wild cat and domestic breeds. Caption: Cat Mummy in Cartonnage, ca. 760–390 B.C.E.. Cartonnage, animal remains (Felis silvestris, Felis lybica, or Felis chaus), linen, pigment, 9 1/2 x 6 x 35 in. (24.1 x 15.2 x 88.9 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 37.1991Ea-d. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum (Gavin Ashworth, photographer))

AI image analysis GPT-4o-2024-08-06

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

A mummified figure with its wrappings and a painted wooden coffin lid.

The image depicts a complete set of mummy wrappings alongside a decorated coffin lid. The lid features vivid colors with traditional Egyptian motif designs, including stripes and possible depictions of deities or symbolic scenes. The mummy wrappings exhibit a well-preserved pattern of linen strips showing intricate, crisscrossing arrangements.

funerary New Kingdom good
Deities unknown
Materials woodlinen

Connections

Found at Egypt
Deities Osiris
Materials WoodLinen

Cross-references (2)

  • BKM-Accession 37.1991Ea-d tier-2
  • BKM-Object 118492 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.