Decorations along the middle of the coffin on the right show what might appear underneath the black soot covering the one on the left: four gods that will protect the entrails removed during mummification.

"You had to protect every single part of a person," said Fayza Haikal, a professor of archaeology who was not involved in the Lahun discovery. "[Even when] you take it out of the body, it has to be protected by a divinity."

The mummy on the left was probably a more significant person, the archaeologists note, because it has at least one extra sarcophagus. The black soot over the body might be remnants of materials mixed for mummification, while the black paint on the face was associated with fertility and birth.