All Photos: Spiegel.de
A bizarre mystery arose this week when ten-year-old Alexander Kettler, while exploring the dark and dusty corners of his grandmother's attic in the German town of Diepholz, stumbled upon three mysterious boxes which had apparently been stored there for many decades. When Alex's family pried open up the boxes, they discovered what appeared to be an Egyptian burial sarcophagus... complete with a mummy inside.
According to German news agency Spiegel, the other two boxes contained an elaborate burial mask and a Canopic jar containing the mummy's preserved internal organs. How the boxes got up there is still a mystery.
Apparently the boy's grandfather had gone exploring in North Africa during the 1950s, but had not told his family much of what went on there. “I do seem to remember him mentioning having been to the city of Derna in Libya,” his son Lutz Wolfgang Kettler, a local dentist, told Spiegel.
One theory is that the grandfather had been caught up in the “Egyptomania” trend of the early 20th century, when people would often host parties to open burial artifacts from ancient Egyptian tombs. It's possible he planned on throwing one of those parties himself.
The family is now taking the sarcophagus to Berlin to have it x-rayed by an archaeologist, so they can determine its authenticity. "You just don't get the feeling that's something you could buy at a shop around the corner," Kettler said.