From Mummies to Gold Tongues: Egypt Unearths 16 Burial Chambers In Alexandrian Temple
We live in a gated modern life these days, forgetting the fact that underneath us lie historical treasures, secrets, and a world we are still still coming to understand. Don’t you get this sudden curiosity about what’s beneath us? Well, history repeats itself as they all say and yet, still there seems to be much more to it than we would have imagined. Whether it be about mummies, burial chambers, or other mysterious findings, there is an abundance of life right underneath us! To all history geeks, this is for you. The Egyptian-Dominican mission from the University of Santo Domingo ventured in a joint historical dig at the Taposiris Magna Temple, located in western Alexandria. Their findings uncovered 16 burial chambers dating back to the Greek and Roman eras.
No doubt after all these centuries, some of these mummies were found in bad condition. This fact highlights the contrast between the Greek/Roman era mummification process compared to those of the older Egyptian mummies. When we speak about afterlife, everyone has their take on these ideologies. However, during the mummification process carried out in the Roman and Greek era, their beliefs included the ability to speak in the afterlife before the Osirian court. The specific actions they applied to compliment such a belief included dressing them in remnants of gilded cartonnage, and gold foil amulets shaped like a tongue.
Via Egypt Independent ![]()
Via Egypt Independent
The head of the mission, Kathleen Martinez, explained that among the most important findings in this expedition were two mummies with preserved scrolls, as well as other artifacts found with them. The first mummy contained gilded decorations depicting Osiris, god of the underworld. The second mummy was decorated with horns and a cobra snake centered at the forehead. A gilded necklace on one of their chests showed the head of a falcon, symbolizing Horus, the sky god. Director General of Alexandria Antiquities, Khaled Abul Hamd, listed several major discoveries made by the mission this season. These findings included a woman’s funeral mask, eight golden flakes representing the leaves of a golden wreath, and eight highly detailed marble masks dating back to the Greek/Roman eras.
