Medicinal Mummies

The ancient Egyptian methods of preserving the dead for an active afterlife has peaked people’s interest across the ages. However, the creepiest of mummy related notions has to be medicinal mummies. Take one mummy. Grind it into powder known as mumia and create a tincture with this revolting substance. Give to sick patient to cure bubonic plague, a headache, or an ingrown toe (okay I made that last one up). Such was a common cure for many ailments on a medieval apothecary’s shelf.

Mummy abuse didn’t stop after feeding it to the sick stopped. The Victorians had “unwrapping” parties. Perhaps they should have stuck to seances, another popular Victorian after dinner treat.

I suppose some of the shows we watch now are more bizarre than finding entertainment in the gradual exposure of the very dead. But none of the shows I watch involve destruction of archaeological artifacts and desecration of the dead. People, at pretty much any point in human history, certainly show a profound lack of good judgment when it comes to the dead.

I enjoyed reading this discussion in LiveScience “Why did people start eating Egyptian mummies?” It presents the quirky history of European mummy abuse in a factual but entertaining way. Why cannibalism didn’t seem like a profoundly prohibited proposition mystifies me, but real life is often weirder than anything I could make up.

For another post on a mummy that was unwrapped and then investigated for murder, go here.

(Photo at top of reproduction of Tut’s sarcophagi, photo by Nerve Net, Wiki)