Archaeologists working at Al-Bahnasa in Egypt’s Minya Governorate have pulled mummies bearing gold tongue amulets and gold nail coverings from ancient tombs spanning at least two distinct historical periods. A joint Egyptian-Spanish mission tied to the University of Barcelona carried out the excavations at the site, also known as Oxyrhynchus, one of the most document-rich burial grounds in Egypt. The repeated recovery of gold-tongue amulets across separate tomb complexes and eras at a single site raises a pointed question: was this ritual practice a local tradition rooted in Al-Bahnasa’s own workshops, or part of a broader Egyptian funerary custom?
Why gold-tongue mummies at Al-Bahnasa demand fresh attention
Gold tongue amulets placed inside the mouths of the dead were meant, according to ancient Egyptian belief, to let the deceased speak before Osiris in the afterlife. That much is widely accepted. What makes the Al-Bahnasa finds distinct is the sheer concentration of these objects at one location across different centuries. According to the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, a joint Egyptian-Spanish mission from the University of Barcelona and the Institute of the Ancient Near East recovered gold tongues and nail coverings from Ptolemaic-era tombs at Al-Bahnasa. In a separate campaign at the same site, the same Spanish mission from Barcelona University and IPOA uncovered two Saite-period tombs also containing human remains fitted with golden tongues, according to another ministry statement.
The Saite period dates roughly to the 26th Dynasty, spanning the seventh and sixth centuries BCE. The Ptolemaic period began after Alexander the Great’s conquest in 332 BCE and lasted until Rome absorbed Egypt in 30 BCE. That gap of several hundred years between the two tomb groups, both yielding gold-tongue amulets, suggests the practice persisted at Al-Bahnasa far longer than a single generation or ruling dynasty. If the amulets were produced locally, the site may have hosted specialized metalworkers who served its burial complexes across centuries. If they arrived from elsewhere, the question shifts to trade networks and ritual supply chains that linked Al-Bahnasa to broader Egyptian funerary markets.
Neither the ministry announcements nor the university releases have published metallurgical analysis of the gold pieces. Without compositional data comparing the Saite and Ptolemaic amulets, it is not yet possible to confirm whether they came from the same workshop lineage or from entirely different sources. The hypothesis of a localized workshop tradition remains plausible but unproven.
Barcelona mission findings across Saite and Ptolemaic tombs
The excavation at Al-Bahnasa has been led by Maite Mascort and Esther Pons, according to the University of Barcelona. Their mission has operated at the site over multiple seasons, producing results that extend well beyond the gold amulets. The university confirms that the same archaeological campaign recovered a papyrus copy of Homer’s Iliad from inside a Roman-era mummy at Oxyrhynchus, underscoring the site’s long-term occupation and reuse. That literary find places the mission’s work across at least three broad periods at the site: Saite, Ptolemaic, and Roman.
The Ptolemaic tombs yielded not only gold tongues but also gold coverings for fingernails and toenails, according to the ministry. These nail coverings are less commonly reported than tongue amulets in Egyptian archaeology, and their presence alongside the tongues points to an elaborate burial investment for the individuals interred. The gold nail coverings suggest the deceased held enough social standing or wealth to warrant expensive ritual preparation, though no names or titles of the buried individuals have been released in the public summaries.
A direct tension exists between the two ministry reports. One describes the gold-tongue tombs as Ptolemaic, while the other identifies two Saite tombs with golden tongues at the same site. These are not contradictory findings but rather separate discoveries from different excavation phases. The distinction matters because it confirms the gold-tongue practice at Al-Bahnasa was not confined to one era. Readers following Egyptian archaeological news should treat the Saite and Ptolemaic finds as complementary evidence of a long-running local burial custom rather than as competing accounts of the same event.
Unanswered questions about Al-Bahnasa’s gold amulets
Several gaps in the public record limit how far conclusions can be drawn. No primary count of individual mummies or individual gold items from the Ptolemaic tombs has been published. The ministry statements confirm the presence of multiple mummies with tongues and nails covered in gold, but they do not provide a full inventory, photographs of every object, or detailed descriptions of size, weight, and iconography. Without those data, it is difficult to assess whether the amulets were standardized products or bespoke pieces tailored to each burial.
Similarly, the Saite tomb announcement notes that human remains were found with golden tongues, yet it stops short of specifying how many individuals were involved or whether any associated grave goods accompanied them. The absence of information about coffins, shrouds, or inscriptions leaves open the question of whether these were elite burials, middle-status interments, or something in between. If inscriptions naming the dead or invoking particular deities were eventually reported, they could clarify whether the gold tongues were linked to specific cults or theological emphases in the region.
Another unresolved issue is spatial: the reports do not make clear whether the Saite and Ptolemaic gold-tongue burials occupy the same sector of the necropolis or are scattered across different clusters of tombs. If they were concentrated in a single area, that might point to a family lineage, a professional guild, or a priestly group that maintained the custom over centuries. If they are widely dispersed, the practice could reflect a broader community preference in Al-Bahnasa, adopted by unrelated households over time.
The broader Egyptian context also remains underdefined in the available summaries. Gold tongue amulets have been reported from other sites in Egypt, but the ministry and university releases do not attempt a comparative tally. Without a systematic survey, it is hard to know whether Al-Bahnasa is genuinely unique in the density and chronological spread of such finds, or whether it simply benefits from sustained excavation by a long-running mission that reports its discoveries in detail. Future academic publications may yet situate these tombs within a nationwide pattern of late-period and Hellenistic-era funerary practices.
Local workshop or shared Egyptian ritual?
Despite the uncertainties, the Al-Bahnasa discoveries do sharpen the debate over how localized the gold-tongue custom might have been. On one side is the possibility of a workshop or cluster of artisans based near the necropolis, producing gold tongues and nail coverings for generations of clients. That scenario would fit with the repeated appearance of similar objects in tombs separated by centuries. It would also align with Oxyrhynchus’s status as a significant provincial center, capable of supporting specialized craftspeople tied to its cemeteries.
On the other side is the idea that gold tongues formed part of a widely shared ritual repertoire across late-period and Ptolemaic Egypt, with Al-Bahnasa simply preserving an especially clear archaeological record. In that case, the amulets found in the Saite and Ptolemaic tombs might have been imported from distant workshops or acquired through regional trade networks that supplied multiple necropoleis with standardized funerary goods.
For now, the evidence can sustain both interpretations. The chronological depth of the finds at a single site hints at continuity, but continuity alone does not prove a single workshop tradition. Only detailed typological comparisons and scientific analyses, such as alloy composition or manufacturing marks, can demonstrate whether the Saite and Ptolemaic pieces share a common origin. Until such studies are published, the gold tongues of Al-Bahnasa will remain as much a prompt for new research questions as a set of spectacular artifacts.
What is clear is that the joint Egyptian-Spanish mission has opened a window onto a ritual language that Egyptians of different centuries used to imagine the afterlife. Whether crafted in local ateliers or traded along the Nile, the tiny gold tongues and nail covers speak to a persistent concern: ensuring that the dead could appear whole, articulate, and properly equipped before divine judges. As further seasons of excavation and analysis unfold at Oxyrhynchus, the hope is that these glittering fragments will be joined by inscriptions, workshop debris, and laboratory results that can finally anchor Al-Bahnasa’s gold-tongue mummies within the wider story of Egyptian funerary belief.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
