The million mummy question: Why are there a million mummies buried near Snefu's Seila pyramid?

Submitted by owenjarus on Wed, 06/09/2010 - 18:14

Nearly 4,600 years ago a third dynasty pharaoh named Snefru launched one of the greatest construction projects in human history.

He decided, for reasons that are unknown to us, to build four pyramids scattered at different places across Egypt. He constructed two of them at Dashur (the Red and Bent pyramids), one at Meidum and another at a place called Seila. Together they used up more material than Khufu’s pyramid at Giza.

Casing stones were used to give them a smooth appearance – in other words make them into “true pyramids." This was the first time in Egyptian history that this was done.

Today a team from Brigham Young University, in Utah, is investigating these pyramids, trying to figure out why Snefru would build four of them in the way he did.

One of the puzzles the team is trying to decipher involves a cemetery not far from the Seila Pyramid. It’s a 40 minute hike away and research indicates that it has an enormous number of mummies. “We estimate over a million bodies in this cemetery,” said Professor Kerry Muhlestein in an interview with Heritage Key. It’s “very very densely populated by mummies.”

Only a small percentage of them have been unearthed. “We’ve been digging there for 30 years and we could dig there for a hundred more and still have only done a small percentage,” said Muhlestein.

Results indicate that the cemetery was not in use during Snefru’s time. In fact the earliest burials appear to be from the Middle Kingdom – at least 600 years after the Seila pyramid was constructed. Furthermore most of the burials are even later than that.

“For the most part the cemetery is Graeco-Roman period, from the Ptolemaic era down to the end of the Byzantine era,” said Muhlestein. This period started when Alexander the Great entered Egypt in 332 BC.

So the question is why did so many people – who lived long after Snefru’s reign – choose to be buried so close to the Seila Pyramid?

A sacred place

Making this question more enticing is that this wasn’t just a local cemetery. People seem to have come some distance to be interned here.

“It’s such a huge cemetery it’s hard to account for where all these people would have lived – the population centres around there don’t seem to substantiate that many burials,” said Professor Muhlestein.

“Maybe these are people coming from a variety of communities, all around, being buried in this place. We’re not sure what would account for such a large number of burials.”

Could there be a connection to the pyramid? Despite the fact that it was built thousands of years before most of these people were buried? Muhlestein believes that it’s a real possibility – but one hard to prove unless textual evidence is found. “It probably is at least partially responsible for why there’s a cemetery there,” said Muhlestein.

“It seems very reasonable to suppose that the pyramid designated that as a sacred place,” he said. “Once that place is a sacred place it typically will remain a sacred place.”

A family of mummies

In early 2010 the Brigham Young team continued their work. The university has a program that lets students learn field techniques while excavating at the site.

It’s an interesting, and indeed fairly rare, opportunity for students. You won’t find too many field-schools, who accept undergraduates, operating in Egypt. Muhlestein said that they have had an excellent experience with this program and the most recent dig turned up, what appears to be, a family who lived at some point during the early/mid 1st millennium AD, when Christianity was widespread in Egypt.

They found an adult male and female buried close together with an infant at their feet and a toddler on their chest. “We think this might be a family but we’ll have to do some DNA analysis to know for sure,” said Muhlestein.

Each of them was buried with their head facing to the east, “this is probably indicative of the advent of Christianity,” said Muhlestein.

The family does not appear to have been very wealthy. They were mummified, but without all the chemical treatments seen in wealthier burials. “A poor man’s version of mummification,” is how Muhlestein described it.

The only grave goods the team found were palm branches. The mummies were covered with a layer of wrapping, which had ribbons on it, that had badly deteriorated.

Read 96 comments, or leave your own

About The Author

Owen Jarus (follow me: e-mail or

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Last three pieces by this author:

19 New Objects from King Tutankhamun's Tomb Discovered in New York | 'Unique' astronomical object reveals Ancient Egyptians kept close tabs on the Big Dipper | King Tut suffered 'massive' chest injury, new research reveals

Owen Jarus is a freelance writer based in Toronto ,Canada. He has written articles on archaeology for a variety of media outlets including The Canadian Press newswire (CP), U of T Magazine, The Mississauga News and The Guelph Mercury. Education: BA from the University of Toronto in History, Geography and Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations.

owenjarus's blog

Comments

doug0l:

What a fascinating story, and ouzzling mystery. I think we have a hard enough time making sense of recent history where we have written records and even witnesses still alive, so I wouldn't presume to think that we'll ever really know what motivated people tens of centuries ago to decide that some venerable place was holy and some behaviors were essential, having to do with an afterlife, and evidently were following some sort of divinely inspired guidance, but I do find it ironic that Brigham Young University, which is a marvelous institution in many fields, is involved in trying to figure it out, in that BYU itself is the legacy of a sociological phenomenon in which a man, following visions tell him to start a new religion and actually gets millions of people to follow him, literally, into a wilderness, all based on a mystical belief and not a whisker of hard physical evidence for proclaiming a new religious insight. Of course Mohammed did the same, as did Moses, presumably Zoroaster, Siddhartha, come to think of it, so did L Ron Hubbard, and I guess if historically we saw modern Christianity as a proselytizing movement, Saul's conversion following his head injury on the road to Damascus. Mysterious indeed, not only the visions which seem to always take the form of brilliantly illuminated form, but that people will believe it, or rather seem to be inoculated with a shared vision . My guess is that something like this accounts for the sudden compulsion to see one's remains be placed in a holy relationship for the eternal life that pharaohs supposedly were accessing.

Wed, 09-06-2010 18:40

Nuke Diver:

Considering how many mummies there are in his place, it's a pity that the mummy trade hadn't found them, not the royal tombs, whose occupants were of such historic value. Too many were sold as "mummy dust" and parts....

Fri, 11-06-2010 17:36

Ann:

Nuke, or even used as fuel!

Fri, 11-06-2010 18:10

ErnestPayne:

Think of Arlington Cemetery. A few millennium from now archaeologists would probably wonder about its purpose.

Sun, 13-06-2010 01:35

Taseti:

Our African Ancestors (Egypt is in Africa), were great thinkers and believers in God. The reason why the pyramids were built the way they were can be understood by the following statement: "As Above, Also Beneath" (you probably thought this was a saying introduced by the Authors of the Bible but in fact, it has existed in African History thousands of years before the Bible)
Look to the Heavens and you can clearly see that the Pyramids were built in alignment with the constellation - belt of "Osiris" (Orion).

Sat, 26-06-2010 16:11

chris:

I find it odd that you would lump in Moses' divinely inspired mission to Israel with the chicanery of drug addicts (Hubbard), occult worshipers of witchcraft & con-artistry (Smith), prophets falsely claiming to be choked by God's peaceful angel Gabriel in a cave (Mohammed). God had presented too many awesome mind-bending unexplainable miracles to the Hebrews before and during the exodus. Miracles scientists are still trying to explain but failing with modern science. Therefore it is ludicrous to compare Moses with these scoundrels. Then you segway into proselytizing movement of Christ in 1st century CE. Do you think you could show more respect for Moses and early Christianity than to compare them to charlatans and false prophets?

FYI Saul of Tarsus (aka Apostle Paul) did not receive a "head injury" on his journey to Syria. In reading Acts, chapters 9,22 and 26 one could discern that Paul received severe "flash blindness" which may have been so bright to be irreversible as it may have caused corneal damage. Also he probably didn't eat or drink for 3 days afterward due to post traumatic stress. God sent Ananias to heal his eyes but it's apparent from subsequent events that it was not 100% healed probably for a Divine reason (i.e. physical reminder of humility?). Paul later complained of vision impairment that is indicative of cataracts. So not a traumatic head injury more like eye injury.

Regarding this Egyptian mega-cemetery: One must ask themselves why would an entire family ALL die at once and be buried here? A family of Christians? What was the cause of death of each one? Wouldn't it be disturbing if they found out that each one had sharp weapon injuries? Maybe they weren't buried here voluntarily. If none show signs of a shared terminal disease then maybe this was nothing more than a mass grave of slaughtered or executed prisoners of conscious over time. What was Egypt's political/religious standpoint toward anyone dissenting from the national religion? For some reason I don't think Jews nor Christians got a fair break in this region - not even today.

Sat, 17-07-2010 15:29

chris:

TASETI are you one of those wishful thinkers that goes along with what any so-called Afro-Centric book author postulates or suggests is true? Yes Egypt is in Africa but most African Americans are descendants of Western Africans as is now being exposed by DNA research. Egyptians are mainly of Arabic ancestry not the tribes that they kept slaves like Ethiopia, Sudan (Nubia), and others. Moses says that Egyptians are descendants of Noah's great grandson Mizraim not Cush, Canaan, or Put (his siblings). Ham, there father, was obviously the forbearer of SW Asians and some Africans as Cush settled into Ethopia, Put Libya, and Canaan Lebanon and Syria. So it's a stretch to say ALL AFRICA is "black" when it is/was not. It is also ludicrous to believe that mere humans build the 3 pyramids at Giza which are aligned with the belt of the constellation Orion. No human culture EVER (not even today) can build those massive temples with that much accuracy and mass. If we can't do it today with our modern construction technology how can you expect ancient primitives like the Egyptians to do it? The same goes for the Sphinx. I think it is obvious from Moses' writings when and who did build them. There are documented physical signs that they were built Antediluvian. Therefore who did Moses (and Jesus' half-brother Jude) say were the "men of fame" then? The disobedient ben Elohim who fathered the hybrid-demigod-bullies who caused men to fall (i.e. HEBREW: Gibboram or Nephelim). Knowing who their fathers were how could anyone think that humans performed this miracle of construction? I agree with you that many African nations were mighty and proud. African-Americans also have a proud lineage. But you must get your historical facts straight. No humans built these 4 antiquities - by themselves that is. If your looking for Afro-Centric pride look to the REAL black heroes of history not ancient Egyptians. Modern Egyptians like Ari Sawas do not support your Afro-Centric beliefs. He would call them "fantasies" I however call them "wishful thinking".

Sat, 17-07-2010 16:07

chris:

ERNESTPAYNE: Arlington Cemetery has INSCRIPTIONS in stone to identify the purpose of the grave-site and the interned ones. I think it will last for many millennium to come. However THIS mysterious site is pretty much UNMARKED. Unlike the Pharaoh's tombs that are COPIOUSLY marked with hieroglyphs to explain everything. I personally believe this is a mass grave of executed prisoners of some sort. Egyptians have a habit of covering up history as they tried to do with Pharaoh Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti. I think the Palermo Stone sums it up pretty much what the grave was for: “[Reign of] Sneferu. Year ... The building of Tuataua ships of mer wood of a hundred capacity, and 60 royal boats of sixteen capacity.
Raid in the Land of the Blacks, and the bringing in of seven thousand prisoners, men and women, and twenty thousand cattle, sheep, and goats… The bringing of forty ships of cedar wood (or perhaps "laden with cedar wood")…” This is from Sneferu's own historian. How long did this PRISONER taking go on? What to do with their bodies after natural and unnatural death?

Sat, 17-07-2010 16:26

chris:

Owenjarus: Why did you say they must be a Christian family in the picture above? Heads facing east? How is that 1st century Christian method of burial? Anyway your own picture shows that their heads are actually pointing WEST not EAST. See the North marker in the foreground? What's your speculation with this new knowledge?

Sat, 17-07-2010 16:36

owenjarus:

Hi Chris the mummies are facing east. Flip the photo 180 degrees - that makes the direction they are facing clearer. Archaeologists don't know the precise date for the mummies in the first photo. Early/mid 1st millennium AD is as much as they can narrow it down at this point.

Sat, 17-07-2010 22:12

justducke:

Perhaps an epidemic swept into to region taking life in a vastly consuming numbers. A virus that was introduced by the Greeks or any traveler could have been responsible. Unknow in its' orgin, people could have fled to a site that was already considered holy. Just thinking...

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Thu, 14-04-2011 09:03

mivpl:

We estimate over a million bodies in this cemetery,” said Professor Kerry Muhlestein in an interview with Heritage Key. It’s “very very densely populated by mummies. Cheni

Thu, 14-04-2011 14:24

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It’s an interesting, and indeed fairly rare, opportunity for students.

Fri, 15-04-2011 01:51

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Atlanteans used the crystal initially to rejuvenate their bodies and so had a youthful appearance despite being several hundred years old.

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Penetration in the Earth of the Blacks, and the transfer in of digit cardinal prisoners, men and women, and bill chiliad cows, sheep, and goats… The transportation of twoscore ships of conifer club (or perhaps "burdened with conifer actress")…" This is from Sneferu's own historian. How eternal did this Captive attractive go on? What to do with their bodies after natural and eerie modification? hyip monitor|custom cap|t shirt printing

Fri, 29-04-2011 19:30

K. Margiani:

This is an amazing and greatest false ever told!
"Nearly 4,600 years ago a third dynasty pharaoh named Snefru launched one of the greatest construction projects in human history.

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4000 mummies, strange thing

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Paul Parkea:

I would assume that it was some sort of mass grave, perhaps one for slaves that built the very pyramids that we all go to visit today? sat nav Anyway, it is very interesting indeed.

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Sun, 31-07-2011 23:49

Next Spring Break I Visit This:

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