Gold tongues found in 2,000-year-old mummies in Egypt

Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered several ancient mummies with gold tongues, which were thought to help transform the deceased into divine beings.

• The remains of a gold tongue found on a mummy from ancient Egypt. (Image credit: Courtesy of the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities)

Archaeologists in Egypt have uncovered the remains of several mummies with tongues made of gold in an ancient cemetery near Quesna, a city located about 35 miles (56 kilometers) north of Cairo, according to Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

Some of the mummies were buried in wooden coffins with grave goods that included necklaces, pottery, and gold artifacts in the shape of lotus flowers and beetles known as scarabs, the ministry reported in a statement posted to Facebook on Nov. 24.

Mummies with gold tongues were popular during the Greco-Roman period, Salima Ikram, a distinguished professor of Egyptology at The American University in Cairo, told Live Science in an email. The Greco-Roman period lasted from roughly 332 B.C., when Alexander the Great took over Egypt, to A.D. 395, when the Roman Empire split in two for the final time. The ministry statement noted that the mummies likely date to different times within the Greco-Roman period.