"Soulful Creatures": Mummified Animals Take Over the Berkshire Museum

Now through January 13, 2027 | Pittsfield, MA

The Berkshire Museum opens "Soulful Creatures: Animal Mummies in Ancient Egypt," a touring exhibition on loan from the Brooklyn Museum that brings together roughly 30 animal mummies alongside dozens of related artifacts—coffins, statuary, and other objects tied to the ritual use of mummified.

The scale of the Egyptian practice of preserving animals was larger than most people realize. In the ancient burial ground at Saqqara alone, one animal cemetery yielded over four million individual ibis mummies; a nearby dog cemetery held more than seven million. Additional sites across Egypt held millions more mummified cats, snakes, and other creatures, drawn from at least 31 different burial sites and spanning Egyptian history from roughly 3000 BCE into the Roman period. Animals occupied a central place in the ancient Egyptian worldview—in a rarity among ancient cultures, Egyptians believed animals possessed souls, and mummified animals were thought capable of carrying messages to the gods after death.

Modern CT scans and scientific imaging featured in the Berkshire Museum show have revealed that not every mummy contains what worshippers were told they were buying—empty wrappings, misleading packaging, and what amounts to ancient fraud sold by priests to pilgrims. That combination of archaeology, cultural history, and contemporary medical imaging gives the show an investigative angle .

The exhibition is organized by Yekaterina Barbash, Curator of Egyptian, Classical, and Ancient Near Eastern Art, and Edward Bleiberg, Curator Emeritus, both of the Brooklyn Museum.

Berkshire Museum, 39 South Street, Pittsfield, MA. Tickets at 1646.blackbaudhosting.com.