Scene from the Books of the Dead (The Egyptian museum) showing the ibis-headed God Thoth recording the result of the final judgement. (Credit: Wasef et al, 2019)

Ancient Egyptian catacombs stretch for kilometers underground. Branching off the tunnels are rooms, and those rooms are stacked to the ceilings with jars holding more than one million mummified African sacred ibises. 

Egyptians buried millions of these leggy, long-beaked birds as prayer offerings to Thoth, the god of wisdom and w