A University of Manchester project  revealed that one third of the animal mummies in the city’s museum had no trace of animal left, but were only pieces wrapped up in a way to make it look as such.

The project included 800 mummified animals from ancient Egypt, which were scanned with the help of technology.

Around one third contained perfectly mummified animal remains. A big part of the sampled mummies contained some parts of remains from cats, birds and crocodiles. However, one third of the mummies contained nothing!

According to a BBC report, researchers suggest that the need for mummified remains used as offerings to tombs in ancient Egypt was so big, that it overtook their production capabilities. They estimate that around 70 million animals were mummified by Egyptians, especially between 800 B.C. and the Roman period.