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Archaeologists have unearthed 2,000-year-old mummies
with golden tongues placed inside their mouths in northern Egypt, the
antiquities ministry says.
An Egyptian-Dominican team working at Alexandria's Taposiris Magna
temple discovered 16 burials in rock-cut tombs popular in the Greek and
Roman eras.
Inside were poorly-preserved mummies.
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It is thought the dead were given gold foil amulets shaped like tongues
so that they could speak before the court of the god Osiris in the
afterlife.
Ancient Egyptians believed that Osiris was lord of the underworld and
judge of the dead.
The god was also pictured in gilded decorations on the cartonnage - a
material made of layers of plaster, linen and glue - that was partially
encasing one of the mummies, lead archaeologist Kathleen Martinez of the
University of Santo Domingo was cited by the antiquities ministry as
saying.
The gilded decorations on the cartonnage around a second mummy's head
depicted a crown, horns and a cobra snake, she added. On the chest, the
decorations depicted a necklace from which hung the head of a falcon -
the symbol of the god Horus.
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Khaled Abo El Hamd, director general of the antiquities authority in
Alexandria, said the archaeological mission at Taposiris Magna had also
discovered the funeral mask of a woman, eight golden flakes of a golden
wreath, and eight marble masks dating back to the Greek and Roman eras.
The antiquities ministry said a number of coins bearing the name and
portrait of Queen Cleopatra VII had previously been found inside the
temple.
Cleopatra VII was the last queen of the Greek-speaking Ptolemaic
dynasty, ruling Egypt from 51-30 BC. After her death, Egypt fell under
Roman domination.
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