“The finding of the burnt royal human remains was a total surprise,” says archaeologist Christina Halperin of the Université de Montréal in Canada, lead author of the research published in the journal Antiquity. “Although it would not be surprising to find a royal tomb within a temple pyramid, we were not expecting to find a thick deposit of fine soot, carbon, burnt bone, and thousands upon thousands of burnt, fire-cracked, and spalled ornaments.”