One had “bandages and parts of cardboard - layers of glued, stuccoed and painted linen fabric that enveloped the mummy - decorated with gilding with the effigy of Osiris”, the Egyptian god of death and the underworld. Two of the mummies were of particular interest to the researchers, mission chief Kathleen Martinez was quoted as saying in the statement. The amulets were placed in the mouths of the dead “to ensure they could speak in the afterlife”, according to the ministry. The tombs contained several mummies that were “poorly preserved” but bore “gold-leafed amulets in the shape of a tongue”. “The mission discovered 16 tombs cut into the rock… in the temple of Taposiris Magna, west of Alexandria” in northern Egypt, the antiquities ministry said in a statement, adding that the burial technique was widespread in the Greek and Roman periods.null A 2,000-year-old mummy with a gold foil amulet inside his mouth uncovered at the Taposiris Magna Temple in western Alexandria. Photo credit: Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities | AFPĪn Egyptian-Dominican archaeological mission working near Alexandria has discovered mummies from around 2,000 years ago bearing golden-tongued amulets, the Egyptian authorities said on Wednesday.
