Last week a group of archaeologists claimed they unearthed one million mummies from Egypt, although that might not actually be the case.
Dr. Youssef Khalifa, head of Ancient Egypt department at the Egyptian Ministry of Antiques, is claiming that the previous preliminary reports on the findings of the mummies are false.
"What was published in the newspaper is not true. There are no million mummies, a mummy definition to begin with means a complete mummified body and there is only one mummy found at the site of Fag El Gamous in 1980 which is at the Egyptian museum since then," Youssef said to Luxor Times Magazine. "In the past few seasons of the mission's work at the site, only poor skeletons were found and some thousands of bone's remains. The mission violated the rules and regulations of the agreement with the Ministry of Antiquities concerning making press statements and that's why the committee of the ancient Egypt department took the decision to stop their permission to work at the site after 28 years of working at the site and the last season finished last March."
The findings reported last week were based off preliminary reports by the team of archaeologists.
Kerry Muhlestein, a member of the team of archaeologists and an associate professor at Brigham Young University, told Newsweek the team has not completely excavated the entire cemetery yet. He said they determined that the number of mummies in the cemetery will be close to one million based on the density of a few smaller areas the team has investigated.
"In a square that is 5 by 5 meters across and usually just over 2 meters deep, we will typically find about 40 burials," Muhlestein explained to Newsweek.
The story is still being investigated. In the meantime Brigham Young University's permission to work on the site was cancelled by the ministry. The university was working on the site for the last 28 years.
Read more: One Million Mummies From Egypt Unearthed
