13 Mummies with Gold Tongues, Fake Nails Found in Ancient Egyptian Tomb

A team of archaeologists in Egypt has discovered 13 mummies with golden tongues and fingernails in a cemetery at the Oxyrhynchus site. The discovery, which includes mummies placed alongside ritual scenes of deities previously unknown in the region, was made after the team excavated a burial shaft leading to a hall with three chambers.

This means that in ancient Egypt, people placed gold tongues with the mummies to let them speak in the afterlife. Gold is then described as “the flesh of the gods” since its discovery was first released by *Live Science*. Among the features unique with this discovery is the finding of golden fingernails on their mummies.

The mummies have been dated to the Ptolemaic period, that is, between 304 BC and 30 BC. The find is a first of its kind within the Al-Bahnasa archaeological area of Minya Governorate. “The number of gold tongues here is high, which is interesting,” said Salima Ikram, Egyptology professor at the American University in Cairo. “Possibly the bodies belong to higher elites that were associated with the temple and animal cults that proliferated in the area.”

The team also discovered 29 golden amulets shaped like scarabs, with a stunning wall painting in the Egyptian pantheon-including Nut, the starry sky-goddess. “The quality of the paintings is excellent and the freshness of the colors just amazing,” said Francesco Tiradritti, Egyptologist at D’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara, Italy, without taking part in the exploration.

Earlier this year, an Egyptian-American team discovered 11 sealed burials near the South Asasif necropolis, next to the Temple of Hatshepsut in Luxor. It contains skeletons of men, women, and children. The graves likely spanned generations from the 12th to early 13th Dynasty and were meant as a family burial ground.