A cemetery with one million mummies was unearthed by archaeologists in central Egypt.
The mummies were found in a cemetery, known today as Fag el-Gamous, which means "Way of the Water Buffalo" (the name of a nearby road). Researchers from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah have been delving into this cemetery, along with a nearby pyramid, for nearly 30 years, reported Live Science.
This discovery is different from other Egyptian mummy finds, as the mummies in this cemetery were regular civilians - not royalty. These people had very few goods with them to take to the after-life, were buried without coffins, and they didn't have their internal organs removed (an important part of the mummification process), reported Live Science.
It appeared that civilians attempted to mimic the royalty's mummification process, as many of the corpses were still preserved.
An 18-month-old girl, who was among the million mummies uncovered by the Utah researchers, was still wearing a necklace and two bracelets on her arm when she was unearthed.
"This mummy was beautifully wrapped in a tunic and with other nice wrappings," said Professor Kerry Muhlestein, project director of the excavation at Brigham Young University, according to Mail Online.
"There was some evidence that they tried much of the full mummification process," he continued. "The toes and toenails and brain and tongue were amazingly preserved. We found a wonderful necklace and two bracelets on each arm. The jewelery makes us think it was a girl, but we cannot tell. She was buried with great care as someone who obviously loved her very much did all they could to take care of this little girl in burial. Very sad. But they succeeded, it was a beautiful burial. She had been buried with several other mummies, so we are interested in examining them."
It remains unclear as to where all of these mummies came from because the village surrounding the cemetery was believed to be much smaller and the surrounding villages have their own cemeteries.
Among the mystery of where so many mummies came from, the researchers are also looking to learn the story behind an apparent 7-foot-tall mummy and into the burial patterns used by the Egyptians - especially since many corpses with the same hair color appeared to be buried together.
