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For Bubastis cf. 59. 1. A great cemetery has been excavated there, with many bronze figures representing cats, and also cats' skeletons; but they were very rarely mummified there (Naville, Bubastis, p. 54); H. is right that dead cats were transferred, but it is not true that all cats were brought to Bubastis, for similar cemeteries have been found at Sakkara, at Beni Hasan, and elsewhere; the mummied cats at Beni Hasan were brought to Europe a few years ago and sold as manure. Cats were honoured all over Egypt in ancient times as they are to this day. H. makes a like exaggeration as to ‘sparrow-hawks’ (ἴρηκας) and ‘ibises’, the mummies of which have been found in many places besides Buto and Hermopolis; he himself (c. 65 ad fin.). implies that these were sacred birds everywhere. κύνας. Dogs, wolves, and jackals were sacred to Anubis, the dogheaded god, who was (like Hermes) ψυχοπομπός; hence a jackal is often represented as guarding the door of Hades. Mummied dogs have been found at various places, but at Cynopolis, the chief centre of their worship, the great majority of the mummies are of jackals; H. puts the three kinds together. For the worship of ‘ichneumons’ and ‘field-mice’ (μυγαλᾶς) cf. Strabo, 812, 813; it is confirmed by the monuments. ἴρηκας. The ‘sparrow-hawk’ was specially honoured in Egypt; it was sacred to the sun; Osiris also is represented by a sparrowhawk. So, later, its picture stood for ‘god’ in the hieroglyphs. Ἑρμέω = Egyptian Thoth; his chief city, Hermopolis, was near the modern Ashmunên, some 180 miles south of Cairo; there were others of the same name. Many ibis mummies have been found there.
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