ARCHAEOLOGISTS say they have uncovered an ancient cemetery in the Egyptian desert with more than a million mummies varied around 1500 years ago.
Live Science reports the archaeologists are baffled as to where the million mummies came from.
Project director Kerry Muhlestein said a nearby village appears too small and that another ancient town nearby had its own cemetery.
“It’s hard to know where all these people were coming from,†Dr Muhlestein said. “We are fairly certain we have over a million burials within this cemetery. It’s large, and it’s dense.â€
Archaeologists have determined that the rich were not buried in the cemetery, referred to as Fag el-famous, which means “Way of the Water Buffalo.†The name comes from a nearby road.
They have however recovered artefacts like linen and glass.
“A lot of their wealth, as little as they had, was poured into these burials,†Dr Muhlestein said.
Some of the mummies were too tall to even fit in the graves.
“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,†Dr Muhlestein said.
Archaeologists from Brigham Young University in Utah 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.