The mummy was carefully wrapped in resin-soaked bandages, with the crisscrossed wrappings forming a geometric pattern. The upper part is shaped like a falcon’s head, with all essential details marked. X-ray photography of the mummy did not reveal mummified remains beneath the wrappings; inside are the bones of an animal. The falcon’s skeleton, as paleontologists discovered, is mixed with the bones of a frog and a lizard—presumably the bird’s last meal.

Animals were mummified in Egypt for various reasons. A leg of beef or another animal, salted and wrapped in bandages, was placed in a wooden coffin of an appropriate shape to serve as food for the deceased in the Underworld. Mummified pets—monkeys, dogs, even gazelles and ducks—were sometimes placed in the burial chamber, occasionally inside the coffin with their deceased owner.