00:00Why would ancient Egyptians place a tongue made of gold inside a dead person's mouth?
00:05Archaeologists discovered tombs more than 2,000 years old containing strange golden objects shaped like human tongues.
00:13But they weren't decorations.
00:15Ancient Egyptians believed that after death, a person would enter the underworld and stand before the gods to be judged.
00:22And during that judgment, they needed to speak.
00:26There was just one problem.
00:28The real tongue would eventually decay.
00:30So some families gave the dead a replacement made from gold.
00:35Gold was considered a divine material that would not rot or lose its shine.
00:40The idea was simple but powerful.
00:42Even after the body disappeared, the dead would still have a voice to defend themselves before the gods.
00:48A tiny piece of gold made to speak for eternity.
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