A sealed black sarcophagus, the largest ever found in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, was opened Thursday amid heavy speculation about whose remains were inside – and just as much lighthearted worry about a curse being released. "The sarcophagus has been opened, but we have not been hit by a curse," declared Secretary-General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities Mostafa Waziri on Thursday, Egypt Today reported. via GIPHY ​While officials at Egypt's Ministry of Antiquities told National Geographic they were "exasperated" by all the questions and speculation about who and what lay inside the sarcophagus found July 1, the actual result turned out to be rather anticlimactic. There were no inscriptions, no cartouche and no objects found inside the coffin that would suggest the bodies inside belonged to members of an ancient royal family — or indeed suggest who the bodies belonged to at all. That's right: bodies, plural. Archeologists found three mummies in an advanced stage of decay inside, with little more than their bones left. ​In photos obtained by the Luxor Times, the bones and wrappings float in a brown, murky fluid. Waziri explained to the press that the reddish liquid was sewage water that had leaked inside the coffin through a crack, destroying the interior despite the lid being sealed with mortar, indicating it had never been opened since its burial. ​ The sarcophagus was found July 1 in a construction site about 5 meters deep on Al-Karmili Street in the Sidi Gaber district of Egypt's coastal metropolis of Alexandria. The sarcophagus, made of black granite, has a height of 185 cm, length of 265 cm and width of 165 cm, and weighs an astonishing 30 tons. Officials also found an alabaster bust, which they believe belonged to the owner of the tomb. The three weeks since the tomb's discovery have been full of speculation about who was inside. The size and location of the sarcophagus suggested to some that it could belong to Alexander the Great, the 4th century BC Macedonian general-king who conquered the Persian Empire and founded the city of Alexandria at the mouth of the River Nile as the capital of his new empire. Alexander died in 323 BC in Babylon near modern-day Baghdad, but his body was displayed in Alexandria after his death. What happened to it after that, though, is not recorded in history. Speculation by historians places Alexander's final resting place either in the city of his namesake, or perhaps in Babylon (meaning the public display story is a lie); or maybe he was transported back to the Macedonian city of Pella and buried next to previous Macedonian kings. Nobody knows for sure. After Alexander died, his empire was divided up by his leading generals, and Alexandria came under the rule of the Ptolemies, who set themselves up as the latest dynasty of Egyptian pharaohs. Scientists also thought the sarcophagus might belong to one of their line, since there was no settlement in the area before Alexandria was founded. However, others told National Geographic that it might have been an older tomb that was transported from the south and reinterred, perhaps from the much older capital of Memphis. Another Egyptologist told the outlet it might have been a later burial, from the time when Egypt was known as Aegyptus, a province of the Roman Empire, since the tomb was found away from the old city and thus unlikely to belong to an Egyptian royal. So who were the folks inside? They were soldiers once, it appears. ​The skulls belong to three men. One skull has multiple fractures, indicating it had been hit by a sharp object and belonged to a warrior. The other two skulls are intact, the Ministry of Antiquities said. The ministry speculated in a Facebook post Thursday that they were probably military officers. They will use x-rays and other equipment to reconstruct the men's' faces and determine their ages. The governor of Alexandria, Mohamed Sultan, told Egypt Today that the three mummies will be moved to the Alexandria National Museum and the coffin to the Military Museum. Meanwhile, the military is trying to remove the massive sarcophagus with a bulldozer and has cleared the area around the construction site to prepare for the endeavor. In an interview with Egypt Today, Waad Abul-Ela, head of the projects sector at the Ministry of Antiquities, suggested they would remove the coffin by surrounding it with protective fill dirt and then lifting it with a bulldozer.<doc-sep>Discovered amid construction work in Egypt’s northernmost city at the beginning of July, the sarcophagus is believed to date back to the early Ptolemaic period, which began following the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. A layer of mortar remained beneath the lid, suggesting it had not been opened since it was buried.<doc-sep>Photo : Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities It’s been quite the month for Indiana Jones-inspired madness, after a sealed 2,000-year-old sarcophagus was discovered in Alexandria, Egypt, on July 1. Nobody knew what was inside, but some feared that the black granite coffin might be cursed. Those fears were put to rest on Thursday, when the sarcophagus was finally opened. It was full of human bones and sewage. Advertisement More specifically, archaeologists from Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities found three male skeletons in a reddish-brown slop. The ministry believes the men interred there may have been warriors since one of the skulls showed signs of an injury caused by an arrow. The sludge, they think, leaked into the sarcophagus from a nearby sewage trough. There were no immediate signs of a curse, although maybe it was just the smell. Photo : Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities To internet sleuths, learning the true contents of the mysterious sarcophagus must be a bit of a disappointment. Since it had been undisturbed for thousands of years, many believed that the burial site held some sort of curse, and opening it could release apocalypse scenario, like that depicted in The Mummy Returns, a 2001 thriller starring Dwayne Johnson, Brendan Frasier, and Rachel Weisz. After all, a grotesque-looking alabaster sculpture of a man’s head was also found near the tomb. Some even thought that the sarcophagus might contain the body of Alexander the Great, whose grave has never been found. Photo : Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities But the sarcophagus contained none of those things. There was no curse, no apocalyptic scenario, no Alexander the Great. There were just a bunch of human bones soaking in sewage. Nevertheless, the skeletons will be sent to the National Museum of Alexandria to be studied. The Ministry of Antiquities will also lift the sarcophagus from the ground and move it to Egypt’s Military Museum. As for the internet-based archaeology enthusiasts who have missed another chance to witness some sort of world-changing spiritual invasion or, more enticingly, the discovery of an ancient Egyptian artifact that proves to be a portal to a parallel world in another galaxy, as seen in the 1994 sci-fi classic Stargate—well, those folks will have to wait until the next mysterious artifact to come along. Advertisement [Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities]<doc-sep>
Egyptian archaeologists on Thursday pried open a mysterious 30-ton black sarcophagus and found three skeletons, including one that had suffered a blow to the skull. Legends abounded about the sarcophagus, which construction workers found earlier this month more than 16 feet (5 metres) below ground in a residential area of Alexandria. Some observers thought it might contain the corpse of Alexander the Great, as the sarcophagus dates back to the early Ptolemaic period (about 323 BCE), which began after his death. Despite warnings of an ancient curse to those who would open the 2,000-year-old sarcophagus, archaeologists went ahead on Thursday, enlisting the help of Egyptian military engineers. "The sarcophagus has been opened, but we have not been hit by a curse," Mostafa Waziri, the secretary-general of Egypt's antiquities ministry, told Egypt Today, which published live updates of the sarcophagus opening. (Mohamed Abd El Ghany) Waziri added that the sarcophagus was unusual for its size; it's the largest ever discovered in Alexandria. What the archaeologists found inside the sarcophagus was grisly - but it was not the earth-shattering discovery some had hoped it would be. The three skeletons found in the sarcophagus were most likely soldiers, according to Egypt's antiquities ministry, and one skull showed signs of fractures caused by a sharp instrument. Beyond the skeletons, the sarcophagus was inundated with sewage water, which accelerated their decomposition. The skulls will be further analyzed to understand their age, the cause of death, and where they came from. Alexandria was the capital of Ptolemaic Egypt after Alexander's army conquered the region and deposed the old pharaohs. The Ptolemaic dynasty famously ended with Cleopatra's suicide during the Roman conquest of Greece and Egypt around 30 BCE. This article was originally published by Business Insider. More from Business Insider: