‘Fishing’ for Mitochondrial DNA in The Egyptian Sacred Ibis Mummies

Abstract

Ancient Egyptians mummified many kinds of animals for a range of purposes, these included their beloved pets, animals that were sacred representations of specific gods, and ‘votive offerings’ – animal gifts presented to the gods (Ikram 2015a). Many votive offerings were of the Sacred Ibis (Threskiornis aethiopicus). Several million Ibis mummies were offered to Thoth, the god of writing and wisdom (Ikram 2015a; 2015b). Sacred Ibis can no longer be found in Egypt, becoming extinct by the end of the 19th century (Meinertzhagen 1930: 438) Genetic analyses of mummified Egyptian animals have been notoriously difficult due to the warm and, in places, humid climate of Egypt, conditions which are generally detrimental to the survival of DNA (Gilbert et al. 2005). Despite these difficulties, preliminary successes have been achieved with studies of both mummified crocodiles (Hekkala et al. 2011) and cat remains (Ottoni et al. 2017; Kurushima et al. 2012).2 Both studies using the Polymerase Chain Reaction successfully amplified and sequenced a small number of very short fragments of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). The recovered sequences allowed the identification of the species and the establishment of genetic relationships between ancient Egyptian and modern day species (Hekkala et al. 2011; Kurushima et al. 2012). However, subsequent work using second-generation DNA sequencing has been largely unsuccessful in obtaining significant coverage of ancient Egyptian animal nuclear or mitochondrial genomes (Khairat et al. 2013).