crocodiles were sometimes buried singly, but often in
groups
of five or ten or even more, and with their heads pointing generally to
the
north.” free trial issue subscribe back issues
Athena Review Image Archive
In 1888-90 British archaeologist Flinders Petrie, while excavating at Hawâra and Gurob in the Fayun region, discovered that the paper maché cartonnage used for Ptolemaic-era mummy cases included papyrus scraps with Greek writing.While most were business and personal documents, these also included important literary fragments from Homer, Plato, and Euripides.
When, in 1899-1900, Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt excavated at nearby Tebtunis (Umm el Baragat) in the Fayum, they found a related, yet unique source of papyri from the cartonnage of mummified crocodiles. The practice of burying sacred crocodiles, described by the ancient Greek geographer Strabo, reached its peak during the late Ptolemaic and early Roman periods.
As Grenfell
(1902)
relates, “the pits were all quite shallow, rarely exceeding a
metre
in depth, and the crocodiles were sometimes buried singly, but often in
groups
of five or ten or even more, and with their heads pointing generally to
the
north.”
The 1899-1900 excavations by Grenfell and Hunt at
Tebtunis recovered papyrus documents from three distinct
sources. The largest group, dating from the late 2nd-early
1st
centuries
BC, came from cartonnage or wrappings used in the mummification of
crocodiles
at the shrines of Sobek, the crocodile god (figs.1-3). These include
dozens of accounts, from rents or
leases,
payments in kind, sale of wheat , and banker’s receipts. Also
found were records for state
granaries
or for other crops on crown lands in Herakleopolite, the nome or
administrative
district of Tebtunis, as well as reports on unproductive land. 
[Fig.2: Hieroglyphs for Sobek, the crocodile god. From left to right, the first three glyphs stand for S,B,K (vowels not shown), followed by the determinative signs for crocodile and temple (Budge 1893).]
A
second
source of Tebtunis papyri was cartonnage from human mummies, almost all
dating
from the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. Finally, a number of papyri
came from the
ruins
of the town, mainly from the first three centuries AD. Most of the
overall
collection is in Greek, but there is also a significant body of
material
in demotic script.
[Fig.3: Sobek, the crocodile god, shown holding a staff and ankh. His helmet includes horns, a sundisk, and feathers (Erman 1894).]
Other crocodile mummies are illustrated in the Natural History section of the Description de l'Egypte (1809)..
.