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 Egyptian Mummies Buried under McDonalds 

 

 

The mummies of two ancient Egyptians are buried deep within the foundations of a McDonalds restaurant in Tamworth (Staffordshire), England, according to Tamworth historian John Harper.

McDonalds converted Tamworth's Palace movie theater into a restaurant, inheriting two mummies that had been entombed there 70 years earlier when the theater was built.

McMummies in the basement?

THE FACTS:

Around 1935, local Tamworth resident Reverend William McGregor needed to dispose of some Egyptian mummies. He had traveled to Egypt, gathering many artifacts (including mummies), and planned to begin a museum in his home. Whether he actually opened a museum isn't clear; what is clear is that he decided to bury a few of the mummies he collected in his garden. When he realized that the conditions of the garden were causing the mummies to decompose, he decided to look for an alternative burial site. 

At the same time, the Palace Theater was under construction. According to the Harper, McGregor thought that the theater's foundation looked "like the kind of burial sites he had seen in Egypt, so he asked the foreman if he would mind if he deposited a couple of his mummies in the foundations." The foreman agreed.

Recently McDonalds learned of the mummies in the foundation. A McDonalds spokesman said, "We understand they are well within the foundations so an excavation is out of the question unfortunately."

No one knows the identity of the mummies. As historian Harper explained, "During the 1920s and 30s there was a craze for [mummies] and people were shipping mummies over here by the boatload."

 

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Source: theage.com.au (12/19/01) 

 


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