Because, for instance, jackals and wild dogs roamed near desert burial grounds, “they were seen as protectors of the deceased,” Dr. Barbash said. Their keen senses also led them to be represented as Anubis, the deity who guides the dead into the underworld. (Appropriately, a grand painted wooden Anubis, from the first millennium B.C., stands sentinel at the entrance to “Soulful Creatures.”)

Although such animals enjoyed spiritual equality with humans, ancient Egyptians still ate meat and put domestic beasts to work. Most animal mummies buried with people, like those of ducks and geese, were intended as food for the departed; a smaller number were royal pets. Those interred separately, however, had religious significance, and no creature was considered too small: The show, running through Jan. 21, includes mummified scarab beetles, associated with creation mythology, and even tiny shrews.



“Shrews are actually capable of killing snakes,” Dr. Bleiberg said, “and because snakes threatened the sun god, Re, any animal that killed snakes was seen as a protector.”

The ancient Egyptians also regarded certain individual animals, especially cattle with specific markings, as incarnations of particular gods. After death, these were mummified and buried with great pomp. Egyptologists have interpreted the more ordinary animal mummies, however, as divine offerings, gifts of gratitude. But because all creatures were believed to have souls that could merge with the deities’ souls after death, Dr. Bleiberg proposes a different view: The mummies were pleas for help rather than thank yous.

“We think that if you had a particular request,” he said, “you would arrange with the priests to have an animal mummy made of the proper type to approach the god you wanted to approach.” Inscriptions and ancient letters in animal tombs, asking for favors ranging from good health to revenge, bolster his theory. Dr. Bleiberg asserts that this mummification became an industry, with temples devoted to the animals’ breeding, nurturing and ultimate sacrifice. Wealthy customers could afford bronze mummy fittings and elaborate coffins like some of those in the show.