In the Quwaisna Necropolis in Egypt, archaeologists discovered several ancient mummies with gold ornaments where their tongue should be.

The site is believed to have been occupied during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, which spanned from about 300 BC to 640 AD.

Mummies with golden tongues were found during the expansion of the archaeological complex, where many other bodies were buried in three different time periods in ancient Egypt. "Science alert".

What is the secret of golden tongues? Golden tongues are a bit of a puzzle, although they have been found before. In early 2021, researchers excavating a 2.000-year-old site in Egypt discovered a skull with a gold tongue-shaped ornament.

Those embalming the mummies are believed to have inserted a golden tongue to ensure the deceased could speak in the afterlife, Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said in a statement.

If, for example, a mummy with a golden tongue met Osiris, the god of the underworld, in the afterlife, she must have been able to talk to him, the statement said. It is not clear whether the mummy had a speech defect and why the tongue was made of gold in particular.