A mysterious 2,000-year-old black sarcophagus recently unearthed in Egypt was opened Thursday, revealing three decomposed mummies.
Discovered in the Egyptian city of Alexandria next to an alabaster statue of a man’s head, the black granite coffin is thought to come from the Ptolemaic period (323-30 BC) and is almost 9 feet long, 5 feet wide and 6 feet deep.
Found 16 feet below ground, the sarcophagus is the largest ever discovered in Alexandria and the lid was sealed to the body with a layer of mortar. This suggests that the giant black box hadn’t been opened since it was closed two millennia ago, according to the official announcement from the Ministry of Antiquities.
This statue was found near the sarcophagus.EPABecause of the sarcophagus’ immense size — it weighs an estimated 60,000 pounds according to National Geographic — archaeologists faced immense logistical problems removing it from its burial site.
The first plan, according to Egypt Today, was to lift the entire sealed vessel with a tow truck but that apparently failed so Egyptian authorities implemented their backup plan on Thursday morning.
Breaking the sarcophagus’ mortar seal, the lid was removed first revealing three decomposed mummies, according to Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Mostafa Waziri, who spoke with Egypt Today.
“The sarcophagus has been opened, but we have not been hit by a curse,” Waziri declared, directly addressing internet memes that suggested that the mysterious black box was filled with a Hollywood-style calamity.
As a fan of Brendan Fraser's The Mummy, I say don't open the cursed sarcophagus.
But as someone who saw Tom Cruise's The Mummy, I say do it. We deserve the horrors that await.
— David Milner (@DaveMilbo) July 13, 2018
OK, just before everyone gets too carried away, a giant black sarcophagus has been unearthed in Egypt. Scientists haven't got a clue what's in it. So we should just open it, right? We've all seen the films. What's the worst that can happen…
— (((Dan Hodges))) (@DPJHodges) July 11, 2018
Opening the sarcophagus will make 2018
— Matthew Garrett (@mjg59@nondeterministic.computer) (@mjg59) July 12, 2018
2012: oh no Mayan calendar says the world might end and we could all die
2018: PLEASE let the black Egyptian sarcophagus carry a curse that will collectively put us out of our misery— the winnipeg jorts 🏳️🌈 no justice no peace (@dadvansss) July 18, 2018
Luckily for the world, the sarcophagus wasn’t holding anything evil.
Instead, Waziri noted, it merely housed the three unidentified bodies and no inscriptions or evidence to suggest who they were. Waziri’s point was another shot at internet sleuths who believed that Alexander the Great might have been buried in the box.
