More than two thousand mummified rams’ heads dating from the Ptolemaic era – the last in pharaonic Egypt – have been discovered in the mortuary temple of Ramses II in the ancient city of Abydos, located 435 kilometers south of Cairo , Egyptian authorities announced on Sunday 26 March. Other animal mummies (sheep, dogs, goats, cows, gazelles, mongooses) were also unearthed during these excavations. According to Sameh Iskandar, who directs the archaeological mission of the University of New York at the origin of this discovery, these are offerings testifying that the cult of Ramses II was still “celebrated a thousand years after his death”. The team of archaeologists also discovered the remains of a palace with walls 5 meters thick, much older than the temple: while Ramses II was a ruler of the XIXe dynasty and reigned in the XIIIe century BC, the palace in question dates back to the VIe dynasty, a millennium earlier.
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