The team is unsure whether the mummy had a speech impediment in life and why exactly the artificial tongue was made out of gold. If the individual encountered Osiris, god of the underworld, in his domain, they would have needed a way to communicate with the deity, notes Owen Jarus for Live Science.

( Egypt Independent’s Al-Masry Al-Youm reports that researchers at the Alexandria National Museum are now studying two such gold foil amulets, as well as eight golden flakes representing the leaves of a wreath.) 4.Archaeologists conducting excavations at the temple of Taposiris Magna in western Alexandria, Egypt, have unearthed a 2,000-year-old mummy with a gold tongue.Īs Nihal Samir reports for Daily News Egypt, researchers from a dual Egyptian-Dominican mission discovered the golden-tongued mummy while surveying 16 poorly preserved burials encased in rock-cut crypts-a popular form of interment during Egypt’s Greco-Roman period.Ĭrafted out of gold foil, the tongue-shaped amulet was likely placed in the deceased’s mouth to ensure they’d be able to speak in the afterlife, per a statement from Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. 'Atherosclerosis across 4000 years of human history: the Horus study of four ancient populations.' In The Lancet, March 10, p. Miyamoto, Abd el-Halim Nur el-din, Jagat Narula, Caleb E. Cox, Gomaa Abd el-Maksoud, Ibrahim Badr, Michael I. Sutherland, Muhammad Al-Tohamy Soliman, Bruno Frohlich, David Mininberg, Janet M. The Beautiful Burial in Roman Egypt: Art, Identity, and Funerary Religion. 'The Museum's Mummies: an Inside View.' In Neurosurgery, 49, no. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, pp.

Ancient Faces: Mummy Portraits from Roman Egypt. 'The Egyptian Expedition 1923–1924: The Museum's Excavations at Thebes.' In The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol.

Mummy with gold mask