blond - redheaded- 7ft tall mummies...oh my.!!!

[space otter]

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/million-mummy-cemetery-unearthed-in-egypt/ar-BBgX1Hj

Million-Mummy Cemetery Unearthed in Egypt

TORONTO — She's literally one in a million.

The remains of a child, laid to rest more than 1,500 years ago when the Roman Empire controlled Egypt, was found in an ancient cemetery that contains more than 1 million mummies, according to a team of archaeologists from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

The cemetery is now called Fag el-Gamous, which means "Way of the Water Buffalo," a title that comes from the name of a nearby road. Archaeologists from Brigham Young University have been excavating Fag el-Gamous, along with a nearby pyramid, for about 30 years. Many of the mummies date to the time when the Roman or Byzantine Empire ruled Egypt, from the 1st century to the 7th century A.D.
[See photos of the million-mummy cemetery]
http://www.livescience.com/49144-million-mummy-cemetery-photos.html


"We are fairly certain we have over a million burials within this cemetery. It's large, and it's dense," Project Director Kerry Muhlestein, an associate professor in the Department of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University, said in a paper he presented at the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities Scholars Colloquium, which was held last month in Toronto.

This cemetery was not a burial ground for kings or royalty. The people buried here were often laid to rest without grave goods,
http://www.livescience.com/48701-ice-age-burials.html
and without coffins for that matter, the researchers said. The deceased's internal organs were rarely removed; instead, it was the arid natural environment that mummified them. "I don't think you would term what happens to these burials as true mummification," Muhlestein said. "If we want to use the term loosely, then they were mummified."

Despite the low status of the dead, the researchers found some remarkably beautiful items, including linen, glass and even colorful booties designed for a child.

"A lot of their wealth, as little as they had, was poured into these burials," Muhlestein said.

The mummified child was buried with several other mummies. It was wrapped in a tunic and wore a necklace with two bracelets on each arm.

"There was some evidence that they tried much of the full mummification process. The toes and toenails and brain and tongue were amazingly preserved," the researchers wrote on the project's Facebook page. "The jewelry makes us think it was a girl, but we cannot tell."

Researchers estimate the infant was 18 months old when she died. "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," the researchers wrote. It's "very sad, but they succeeded. It was a beautiful burial."

Million mummy mystery

Where exactly these million mummies came from is an ongoing mystery, and one that the team has yet to solve. A nearby village seems too small to warrant such a large cemetery, the researchers said. There is an ancient town named Philadelphia (so named after King Ptolemy II Philadelphus) not far away, but that town has burial sites of its own.
[8 Grisly Archaeological Discoveries]
http://www.livescience.com/13637-8-grisly-archaeological-discoveries.html


While there is a small pyramid nearby, it was built more than 4,500 years ago, which is more
than two millennia before the cemetery was first used.

"It's hard to know where all these people were coming from," Muhlestein told Live Science.

A mummy over 7 feet tall

The stories that these million mummies
http://www.livescience.com/26574-egyptian-mummy-facial-reconstructions.html
tell appear endless. The Brigham Young team has excavated more than 1,000 of the mummies over the past 30 years, and Muhlestein admits the team has a publishing backlog.

One discovery that hasn't been published is of a mummy who is more than 7 feet (2 meters) tall. "We once found a male who was over 7 feet tall who was far too tall to fit into the shaft, so they bent him in half and tossed him in," Muhlestein told the audience in Toronto.

That's an extraordinary height given the generally poor nutrition these people had,
http://www.livescience.com/27569-ancient-romans-ate-millet.html

Muhlestein told Live Science in an interview, adding that "even with great nutrition, it's really unusual" for an individual to reach that height. The great height could be because of a medical condition that caused an excess of growth hormone, but more research needs to be done to determine this.

This surprisingly tall mummy was discovered before Muhlestein became director, and the findings have yet to be published, he said. "We have a large publishing backlog, [and] we're trying to catch up on making our colleagues and the public aware [of the finds]."

Blond and redheaded mummies

While excavating and publishing the discoveries from the cemetery pose daunting challenges, they also provide archaeologists with terrific opportunities.

For instance, the team is in the early stages of creating a database of all the mummies it has excavated. When complete, the database will help the researchers study burial patterns in the area.

While the database is in the early stages, it has already provided some intriguing initial results. Muhlestein said he and the other researchers can use the database to "show us all of the blond burials, and [it shows] they are clustered in one area, or all of the red-headed burials, and [it shows] they're clustered in another area."

These clusters are interesting because they suggest "perhaps we have family areas or genetic groups [in certain areas], but we're still trying to explore that," Muhlestein said.




Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.
The Science of Death: 10 Tales from the Crypt & Beyond
In Photos: Egypt's Oldest Mummy Wrappings
Image Gallery: Egypt's Valley of the Kings

[space otter]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/19/million-mummies-egypt_n_6352698.html








The Huffington Post    |  By  Ed Mazza 
Posted:  12/19/2014 5:03 am EST    Updated:  12/19/2014 5:59 am EST


Million Mummy Discovery Disputed In Egypt

 
A massive cemetery with up to 1 million mummies has reportedly been found in Egypt, but the announcement of the discovery apparently landed a U.S. research team in hot water, and possibly even kicked off the project.

Archaeologists from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, said the bodies date from between the 1st century and 7th century A.D., when Egypt was controlled by the Roman and Byzantine empires. These mummies didn't belong to the Egyptian elite, but to the poor.

"A lot of their wealth, as little as they had, was poured into these burials," BYU Egypt Excavation Project director Kerry Muhlestein said, according to LiveScience.

So far, 1,700 mummies have been found; yet given the size of the cemetery and density of the bodies, the team believes there are many more.

"The cemetery is very large, and so far seems to maintain that kind of burial density throughout," Muhlestein said, according to KSL.com. "Thus the math suggests that there are over a million mummies in the cemetery."

Muhlestein recently described some of the burials at a conference in Toronto.

"We once found a male who was over 7 feet tall who was far too tall to fit into the shaft, so they bent him in half and tossed him in," Muhlestein said, according to LiveScience.

The team also found a number of child burials.

"As a father of six, each time I see one of these children I have to wonder about what that child's family went through as they buried the child," Muhlestein said, per KSL.com. "These children often received such delicate care. It is easy to see that a lot of love was poured into the grave with these little ones."

The story of a million mummies, including a "giant" and mummified children, made headlines around the world. One widely circulated report in Britain's Daily Mail caught the attention of Egypt's Ministry of Antiquities, and officials there were not happy about it. According to Luxor Times, the ministry has ordered the team to stop work at the site.

"What was published in the newspaper is not true," Dr. Youssef Khalifa, head of the ancient Egypt department told the website. "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."

Khalifa described the recent discoveries as "only poor skeletons" and plenty of bones, some wrapped in textiles.

At dispute may be the definition of the word "mummy," as even Muhlestein admitted that these were not what many think of when they imagine mummies.

"I don't think you would term what happens to these burials as true mummification," Muhlestein told LiveScience. "If we want to use the term loosely, then they were mummified."

Muhlestein told Luxor Times he thinks there's been a misunderstanding.

"I would like to work this out with the Ministry, for whom I have the greatest respect," Muhlestein said. His department also appears to have shut down its Facebook page, which had been filled with information and photos about the site.

The ministry, however, appears to be digging in.

"What was published was clearly stating wrong information and I think the Permanent Committee will also approve our department's decision to stop the mission," Khalifa was quoted as saying.

[Pimander]

I can't find anything in the text that suggests the seven foot tall mummy had red hair.  Have I missed something obvious?

[space otter]

no, I don't think youi missed anything
  it doesn't say the 7 ft one was anything but 7 foot

While the database is in the early stages, it has already provided some intriguing initial results. Muhlestein said he and the other researchers can use the database to "show us all of the blond burials, and [it shows] they are clustered in one area, or all of the red-headed burials, and [it shows] they're clustered in another area."



guess I should have put it this way
blond - and - redheaded -and-7ft tall mummies...oh my.!!!
but there wasn't enough space...