Stranger than fiction: 8 million dead dogs mummified

8 million dog mummies discovered in Egyptian temple to god of death.

A 48-million-year-old 'sea monster' vertebrate might not even be the strangest thing researchers found in an ancient Egyptian temple built in honor of Anubis, the jackal-headed god of the dead. The award for 'creepiest find' belongs to the eight million mummified dogs also uncovered.

Ancient Egypt's Saqqara was a busy community between about 747 and 332 B.C., with an economy sustained by the animal cults in the region, according to lead researcher Paul Nicholson. Saqqara's newly uncovered temple and catacombs served as the region's burial ground, decked out with mummified hawks, mongooses, cats, foxes, baboons, bulls — and millions of dogs.

Some of the luckier canines might have lived in the temple, but others, Nicholson said, were likely bred solely for the purpose of mummification. Carved out around the fourth century B.C., the catacombs that hold the mummies are "a very long series of dark tunnels," according to Nicholson. "There is no natural light once you've gone into the forepart of the catacomb, and beyond that everything has to be lit with flashlights. It's really quite a spectacular thing."

The spine of a long-extinct marine vertebrae — something like a modern-day manatee — was also uncovered in the catacomb's ceiling, although Nicholson is uncertain the Egyptians knew it was there.

Source: Jeva Lange of The Week