Ancient Egyptians viewed native Nile animals as living avatars for deities. In the animals' afterlives they were regarded as messengers with a direct line to the gods. Therefore great care went into readying them for the afterlife. Mummified animals were presented as offerings to gods and deposited at temples. In return, pilgrims asked for blessings in their lifetime.Mummified cats in honor of Bastet were in especially high demand starting around the Third Intermediate Period. Her cult continued to amass followers well into the Greco-Roman periods. To meet demands, priests bred cats for offerings in catteries. Yet many false mummies were created and sold. False mummies contain partial skeletons, sand, fabric, or in this case, nothing at all.

Priests oversaw the rituals, mummifications, funerals, and burials of sacred temple animals. By the mid-1st millennium BC, people were encouraged to pay for the mummification as a sacred offering to the related deity. A cat mummy would be offered to a feline deity, such as Bastet. This was a lucrative business, and "false" mummies were sometimes created to meet the demand. Actually, this is one of those: X-rays show that there is nothing inside the wrappings.