While the boy’s identity is not clear, the vast collection of luxury grave goods discovered by the CT scans indicate that he was born into a family of high socio-economic status. A two-finger amulet was discovered next to the boy’s uncircumcised penis, and the boy’s tongue was capped in gold. The new study published in Frontiers in Medicine explained that the boy was discovered wearing a pair of sandals with a garland of ferns draped across his body.

(Saleem, Seddik and el-Halwagy / CC BY 4.0 ) Prepped for the Afterlife with a Golden Tongue The researcher has revealed 21 amulets in different styles, shapes and sizes placed strategically in and around the Golden Boy mummy.ĬT scans revealed a number of amulets, many of them made of gold, within the mummified remains known as the Golden Boy mummy. Sahar Saleem, a professor of radiology at the Faculty of Medicine in Cairo University, has taken high resolution computed tomography scans, known as CT scans, of the mummy.

Woking the Dead: British Museum Bans the Word ‘Mummy’ for Ancient RemainsĪfter its discovery in Nag el-Hassay in southern Egypt, the mummy was stored in the basement of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo without further inspection where it has remained ever since.

Mummies Scanned to Unravel the Beautiful Mysteries Bound Inside.

And because the deceased’s wisdom teeth had not yet emerged, researchers know the person was about 14 or 15 years old when he died. Laid to rest inside two coffins, an outer coffin inscribed with Greek texts and an inner wooden sarcophagus, the Golden Boy earned his nickname because a fabulous gilded head mask was found in the mummy's sarcophagus. (Saleem, Seddik and el-Halwagy / CC BY 4.0 ) Death Strategies in Ancient Egypt The outer coffin of the Golden Boy mummy on the left and inner wooden sarcophagus on the right, which shows that the boy was draped with a garland of ferns and wore a gold gilded face mask. As such, amulets were deposited on or inside bodies during mummification, which is exactly what happened in the case of the 2,300-year-old Golden Boy mummy.

The ancient Egyptians believed amulets, figurines, and charms held powerful supernatural energies, offering protection for both the living and the dead.

It is believed the amulets were “strategically” placed on the mummy's body to “vitalize the dead body.” CT scans conducted during a recent study of the “Golden Boy” mummy, which was discovered in 1916 in southern Egypt, has revealed a hidden collection of 49 magical amulets, including many forged in gold.

Egyptian mummies gold