- Egyptian officials opened the giant black sarcophagus they discovered earlier this month.
- Despite fears of a curse that would usher in a thousand years of darkness, all seems well.
- "The sarcophagus has been opened, but we have not been hit by a curse," Mostafa Waziri, the head of Egypt's antiquities ministry, said.
- Three mummies were found inside, but researchers say they don't appear to be from royal families.
Egyptian officials opened the 2,000-year-old massive black marble sarcophagus found earlier this month and have not unleashed a curse that would usher in a millennium of darkness, according to Egypt Today.
"The sarcophagus has been opened, but we have not been hit by a curse," Mostafa Waziri, the head of Egypt's antiquities ministry, told the publication (although it's possible that's something someone under a curse would say).
Instead, officials found three decomposed mummies who have yet to be identified; Waziri said the sarcophagus didn't have their names inscribed. Archaeologists also concluded that they likely did not belong to a Ptolemaic or Roman royal family since the sarcophagus did not include silver or gold masks, small statues, amulets, or inscriptions that would normally accompany royal families. An alabaster bust was found nearby the sarcophagus, but it has degraded beyond recognition.
Since the sarcophagus — the largest ever discovered in Alexandria — was discovered earlier in July, some superstitious people have sounded the alarm. A sarcophagus that has remain shut for two millennia, they argued, should be left undisturbed. Opening it, they said, could potentially unleash a plague on humanity, turning rivers to blood and the seas to boil — just as suggested by every mummy movie ever made.
But curses aren't real and that was (probably) never going to happen. Opening the sarcophagus would be a worthwhile pursuit of knowledge, others argued. Now those people have been proven right.
