One of ten pear-shaped pottery vessels used to contain mummified ibis, the bird used in Egyptian religious iconography to depict Thoth, god of wisdom. Each of the pots had a lid cut at the wider end, and they were covered with a thick layer of lime. Each contained a single half-grown ibis wrapped neatly in linen bandages to form a v-pattern. The group was found in the ibis cemetery at Abydos, dated by the excavators to the Roman Period, after 30 BC. The Late Period practice of mummifying millions of specimens of certain species of animals and birds remains mysterious, but may be connected to rituals of renewal at the New Year, named in Egyptian the 'birth of Re' (the sun-god).
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