Corn Mummies are an interesting part of Egyptian religious practices. While millions of animal mummies have been found at sites all over Egypt ππ ππ, mummies made of grains like wheat and barley have also been found. Corn mummies are found in cemeteries and are usually dated from the Third Intermediate Period through Roman times though they first appeared during the Middle Kingdom. This particular corn mummy is from the Ptolemaic Period (332β30 B.C.E.).
Corn Mummies are meant to be a representation of the god πΉ Osiris πΉπ¨π and Egyptologists came to this conclusion because the βcoffinsβ that contain the corn mummies almost always contain Osirisβ πΉπ¨π name and his titles/epithets. Another reason Egyptologists made the connection to Osiris πΉπ¨π was the cyclic nature of growing grains – in Egyptian religion, anything that was cyclical was related to the birth-life-death cycle humans experience.
Even though the corn mummies are dedicated to Osiris πΉπ¨π, they are almost always found in cases with a falcon head. The falcon head is representative of the god Sokar ππ‘ππ , who is often connected to Osiris πΉπ¨π. Their connection goes all the way back to the Old Kingdom, and The Pyramid Texts are the one of the first instances in which they are shown to have a connection.
Sokar ππ‘ππ was originally thought to be the god πΉ of craftsmanship, but due to his association and worship at Memphis, he became a prominent god πΉ of the afterlife. The combination forms of the gods πΉπΉπΉ, Sokar-Osiris (Middle Kingdom), Osiris-Sokar (New Kingdom) and the most popular Ptah-Sokar-Osiris also emphasizes this connection between the two π».