Well, horny old rams’ heads, to be more precise. The photographs in the linked article are quite curious, I must say, even for a longtime Egyptophile. I smell something slightly suspicious but reserve judgment and attempt to render a quick summation of the scene. Obviously, archaeologists discovered the remains of thousands of mummified rams’ heads—supposedly buried in a precinct of a funerary temple dedicated to Ramses II (or Ramses the Great) in the hallowed ancient city of Abydos.

Abydos was one of the most renowned burial sites (and thus a gateway to eternal life) for Egyptian Pharaohs since the very earliest recorded historical periods of ancient Egypt. The site’s patron deity was originally a jackal-headed deity named Khenti-Amentiu, or “Opener of the Way” i.e. the path to everlasting life with the setting sun in the West, leading to resurrection with the rising sun in the East. Later on, the god Osiris, a deity who represented every dead and mummified human Pharaoh himself, absorbed the responsibilities and personality of the jackal deity and became Lord of this sacred burial site. Numerous Pharaohs from all periods built temples or tombs in this Upper Egyptian city and one of them was indeed Ramses II. The powerful king established a funerary temple on the site so that a religious cult might be maintained long after his death, ostensibly assuring his eternal worship, even though he had passed—as a divinity himself—into the Duat, the great beyond.

Typically, however, even the most powerful and beloved Pharaohs who built funerary temples for themselves were unable to guarantee longterm cultic worship in such sanctuaries as new kings came into power and their prerogatives were given precedence, along with the costliness associated with maintaining the upkeep of huge funerary structures dedicated to the cult of any particular long-dead and largely forgotten king. In this scenario, older royal funerary temples were often repurposed as devotional places for subsequent Pharaohs, fell into ruin with the changing fortunes of Egyptian politics and economy, or continued to serve as “burial grounds” for votive offerings left by pilgrims to Abydos (and elsewhere). These pilgrims left their offerings, usually in the form of statuary or mummified animals associated with a particular funerary deity, in an attempt to associate themselves with the holiness of such a sacred spot related to the attainment of eternal life in paradise.

Archaeologists figure that the thousands of rams’ heads in this instance were deposited in the Ramses II temple during the Ptolemaic Period, when Greece had conquered Egypt and established its own line of non-native rulers. It seems unlikely that the funeral cult of Ramses II was still “in business” over a thousand years after his demise, as famous as that king was, but the site of his temple may still have been employed as a depository for pilgrims and their offerings. Rams’ heads, in this case and at this late juncture of ancient Egyptian history, could have been associated with any number of gods connected to funerary concerns—and almost all gods could somehow be connected to funerary concerns. It is doubtful that these mummified heads were left to gain the favor of Ramses II himself, so long after his era. More likely, the rams’ heads were left in honor of Amun-Re in his aspect as the solar deity who “died” nightly in the West and who was “reborn” daily in the East; this was a potent metaphor for eternal life and renewal.

Too, the heads might have been deposited to honor the Nile river-god, Khnum, the ram-headed deity who created all human life on a potter’s wheel and who was popular in the region around Abydos. In this regard, Khnum’s power over the Nile itself symbolized regeneration a la the annual flood. More likely, however, is the possibility that these rams’s heads were buried in honor of Osiris himself, who could be assimilated easily to Re (the solar god) and to creator gods like Khnum, Harsaphes, etc.

Whatever the case may prove to be, this is quite an unusual find for Egyptologists. One is inevitably compelled to question why such a tremendous cache of horny skulls was not found until recently; excavations have been going-on in all the main funerary temples of Abydos for a couple of centuries, at this point. And the location of these offerings in a key precinct of the Ramses II temple is especially odd—given that they were not found before now and yet are clearly dated to a later period in Egyptian religious history. Most unusual, I say. It will be interesting to see what Egyptologists discover and conclude as they study this strange scenario in the coming years.

And believe me: it will take them years to reach—or at least publish—any conclusions. If you think it takes awhile for the sands of time to erode Egyptian monuments, wait’ll you see how long it takes for archaeologists to interpret the sands (and horns!) of time.

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