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Photo courtesy of Zahi Hawass

More than a hundred exquisitely decorated, Roman-period (30 B.C.–395 A.D.) mummies have recently been found in Egypt’s Bahariya Oasis—many of them gilded, like the one shown here being extricated from millennia of debris. The first mummy tomb was discovered in 1996 by accident, when a donkey knocked in part of its ceiling. Three other tombs are now being excavated. Who knows how many hundreds or even thousands of mummies await discovery beneath the desert’s sands?