Lorelei H. Corcoran, the director of the Institute of Egyptian Arts and Archeology at the University of Memphis, said a golden tongue would not have been uncommon in elite funerals during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods.
“Within an Egyptian funeral context, it refers to Spell 158 of the Book of the Dead, which ensures that the deceased in the afterlife have the ability to breathe and speak, as well as to eat and drink,” said Dr. Corcoran added. . “It can be combined with the Greek funeral practice of placing a coin on or in the mouth of the deceased as payment for the ferry, Charon, which transported the deceased across the Styx River to the Underworld.”
The team of archaeologists who found the 16 tombs at Taposiris Magna was led by Kathleen Martinez, a lawyer who became an amateur archaeologist from the Dominican Republic. The team has been working for years to locate Cleopatra’s grave and has focused their efforts on Taposiris Magna.
But the cemetery of the famous queen, who ruled from Alexandria and according to her died there, has not yet arrived there.
“The stated purpose of the Egyptian-Dominican mission is to find Cleopatra’s funeral at Taposiris Magna,” said Dr. Corcoran said. “However, many scholars believe that Cleopatra’s cemetery is located in a royal tomb complex, which may be related to the palace district, which has now been lost under water in the port of Alexandria.”
Representatives of the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism did not immediately respond to a request for more information on the 16 tombs at Taposiris Magna. The Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm reported that two golden tongues had been found and would be studied in the Alexandria National Museum before being seen in museums across Egypt.
The latest discovery comes when Egypt makes a concerted effort to attract visitors to the country, which is heavily dependent on tourism. In recent years, archaeologists have unearthed more than 100 wooden coffins on fine paintings at the ancient cemetery Saqqara, a 4,400-year-old tomb with rare murals near Cairo, and remains of a colossal pharaonic statue in the Matariya working-class neighborhood.