Egyptian Archaeology & Ancient Ritual

Gold Tongues in Egyptian Tombs: Why the Dead Wore Jewellery They Could Not Speak With

Eighteen sealed tombs uncovered at the ancient Mediterranean port of Marina el-Alamein contained 24 small tongues made of gold — ritual amulets placed on the mouths of the dead, evidence that a 3,000-year-old Egyptian belief survived long after the pharaohs had fallen.

• An Egyptian mission announced the find in July 2026: 18 Ptolemaic and Roman-era tombs at Marina el-Alamein on the northwestern coast, including surface burials, a sealed granite sarcophagus and painted reliefs.
• Among the burial goods were 24 golden tongue-shaped amulets, small plates of gold placed over the mouth or in the mouth of the deceased during mummification.
• The site was abandoned in a single catastrophe: the ancient city of Leukaspis was destroyed by a tsunami in 365 AD, generated by an earthquake off Crete, which sealed the tombs and left them untouched for nearly two millennia.

To an archaeologist a gold tongue amulet is one of the most recognisable objects in ancient Egypt. The tongue was not meant to be a decorative piece; it was functional magic. Egyptian belief held that after death the heart would be weighed against the feather of Ma'at, and the mouth was the organ through which a person defended themselves at the trial. A tongue made of gold — the indestructible metal of the gods — was meant to ensure the dead could still speak in their favour when they could not otherwise.

The discovery at Marina el-Alamein is unusual because of its timing. Golden tongue amulets are most common in New Kingdom tombs, about 3,000 years ago, and largely disappear after that. Finding 24 of them in Ptolemaic and Roman tombs shows that the practice did not die with the pharaohs. Under Greek and Roman rule, Egypt's elite blended their inherited funerary customs with Mediterranean styles: the tombs at Marina el-Alamein contain both Egyptian reliefs and Hellenistic elements, a fusion made all the more vivid by the tsunami that ended the city in 365 AD and sealed the graves intact.

What makes the find genuinely readable is that it is not just gold. It is a belief preserved in its packaging. The city perished, the tombs were sealed by sand and sea, and when archaeologists opened them 1,600 years later the amulets were still in place — gold tongues waiting, as intended, for a trial that had not yet happened.