Located in modern-day Sudan, Old Dongola was once the capital of Makuria, a Christian kingdom that was established in the 4th century and collapsed in the 14th. A Polish excavation of the medieval kingdom's capital has been going on since 1993, when archaelogists uncovered a crypt that has only in more recent years been explored and documented. A true tale from the crypt, it has wound up revealing.
As reported by The Huffington Post, seven naturally mummified male bodies were found in the crypt along with hundreds of inscriptions on the walls. The mummies range in age but none of them is younger than 40, and one of the bodies is believed to be that of Archbishop Georgios, who is thought to be the kingdom's most powerful religious leader.
As for the inscriptions, researchers believe they were hand-written on the walls to protect the deceased against evil powers, and they include excerpts from the Bible as well as a strange prayer from the Virgin Mary, wherein death appears to her "in the form of a rooster."
Written in Greek and Sahidic Coptic, the inscriptions are still in the process of being documented, and the plan is for a complete record of the texts to someday be detailed in a book.
Other crypts were discovered in the same monestary, but only this one had the unique writings on the walls.