The current issue of Archeology magazine includes the article “Messenger to the Gods: During a turbulent period in ancient Egypt, common people turned to animal mummies to petition the gods, inspiring the rise of a massive religious industry.” It describes 30 boxes which lay for decades completely forgotten in storage at the Brooklyn Museum. Recently opened by a curious curator, the boxes contained elegantly wrapped and for the large part wonderfully intact mummies formed in the shapes of and assumedly containing the remains of animals: hawks, ibises, cats, dogs, snakes and even a tiny shrew.

via A Treasure Trove of Animal Mummies – Ken White.