A 2000-year-old mummy sporting a tongue made of gold was discovered in Egypt amid the remains of the ancient city of Taposiris Magna.
According to Live Science, a team of archaeologists from Egypt and the University of Santo Domingo, led by Kathleen Martinez from the Dominican Republic, found the mummy at one of the 16 burial sites at Taposiris Magna, a compound that features temples dedicated to Osiris - the ancient Egyptian god of the afterlife - and Isis, the ancient Egyptian goddess who was both a sister and a wife to him.
As the Egyptian ministry of antiquities reportedly explained, the golden tongue was probably placed by embalmers into the mummy’s mouth to allow the person to speak in the afterlife; it wasn’t immediately clear, however, whether that person had some kind of speech impediment in life, or why the tongue was made out of gold specifically.
The other 15 burial sites, which also date back about 2,000 years, reportedly include finds such as a female mummy “wearing a death mask that covers much of her body and depicts her with a headdress while smiling”, and the remains of scrolls that were found buried together with two of the mummies.
Several statues apparently depicting people buried there, which seem to be preserved well enough to allow archaeologists to discern the “individual’s hairstyles and headdresses”, and which portray those interred with “a formal look, with no smiles on their faces”, were discovered as well, the media outlet adds.