THE 1972-DISCOVERED ANCIENT TOMBS OF PETOSIRIS AND Sadosiris used to be the main attraction of the Muzawaka necropolis. The cemeteries have been closed for a number of years because the condition of the colorful frescoes within the mausolea has been jeopardized by an excessive amount of fresh air and humidity from the visitors’ breath.
Locals can nevertheless make a visit to the burial site worthwhile (perhaps even more worthwhile), since they can guide visitors to several open rock-cut tombs which are literally littered with various ᴍuᴍᴍɪғɪᴇᴅ corpses.
In every other nation, these us would be proudly exhibited in a museum, but due to Egypt’s abundance of us, the Muzawaka carcasses have been deemed of no significant value to archaeologists and have been left in place.
While many of the rock-cut tombs contain ᴍuᴍᴍɪғɪᴇᴅ corpses, others hold skeletal remains or wildly strewn bones, probably because these corpses may have been dug up by wild animals. Skeletal remains and bones can also be found littering the mountainside of the tabletop mountain, where the necropolis is located.
The ᴍuᴍᴍɪᴇs date from the Roman period in Egypt and are mostly clustered in family tombs. They belonged to non-wealthy residents, hence the undecorated interior of their tomb chambers.
It is one of Egypt’s most macabre “tourist sights,” and one of the very few places in the world where non-scientists have the possibility of getting so close to ᴍuᴍᴍɪᴇs in their original resting places that they can even touch them.
