Archaeologists working at a temple on the outskirts of the Egyptian city of Alexandria have unearthed a mummy with a golden tongue.

They were discovered by the Egyptian-Dominican mission of the University of Santo Domingo headed by Dr. Kathleen Martinez. The government’s ministry of tourism and antiquities in a statement said that 16 human burial chambers that were popular in the Greek and Roman eras, were found.

The mummies there were not particularly well preserved, and dated back to a period more than 2,000 years ago, when Egypt was ruled by Greek Macedonians, and later Romans.

Out of these, one contained a human skull with a golden tongue, made of gold foil nestled in its jawbone. It was placed in the mouth of the mummy in a special ritual to ensure their ability to speak in the afterlife before the Osirian court.

Singling out two significant mummies out of these, Martinez explained that these mummies preserved the remains of scrolls and parts of the cartonnage. The first mummy was preserved with remains of gilding and bearing gilded decorations showing the god Osiris, the god of the afterlife. The other mummy wore a crown, decorated with horns, and the cobra snake at the forehead. "The chest of the mummy shows a gilded decoration representing the wide necklace from which hangs the head of a falcon, the symbol of the god Horus," the statement said.

A funeral mask for a woman, eight golden flakes representing the leaves of a golden wreath, and eight masks of marble dating back to the Greek and Roman eras, were also discovered on the site.