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For hundreds of years, Europeans ground up Egyptian mummies to use them as paint . . . and swallow them as medicine.
How were they able to do this, and how different are we today? I tried to answer these questions for @aeon: https://aeon.co/essays/when-we-lived-with-death-mummies-were-medicine-and-paint
How were they able to do this, and how different are we today? I tried to answer these questions for @aeon: https://aeon.co/essays/when-we-lived-with-death-mummies-were-medicine-and-paint
Thanks to @samhaselby for streamlining this, & to @ElizMarlowe for helping to convince me a couple of years ago that I should write something on Mummy Brown.
The Aeon format doesn't allow for extensive linking or citation, so I want to highlight a few works here.
First, @photograph_tut's Unwrapping Ancient Egypt was a main source for describing the embalming process, & for learning about some of Europe's treatment of mummies over the last several hundred years. https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/unwrapping-ancient-egypt-9780857856777/
This was a really helpful look at the Body Worlds exhibitions by @Angela_stienne https://www.mummystories.com/post/body-worlds-london
I also want to highlight 3 books that include significant discussion of mummy medicine, published over the last 15 years:
Philip Schwyzer, Archaeologies of English Renaissance Literature (2007)
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/archaeologies-of-english-renaissance-literature-9780199206605?cc=us&lang=en&
Philip Schwyzer, Archaeologies of English Renaissance Literature (2007)
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/archaeologies-of-english-renaissance-literature-9780199206605?cc=us&lang=en&
Louise Noble, Medicinal Cannibalism in Early Modern English Literature and Culture (2011)
https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9780230110274
https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9780230110274
And Richard Sugg, Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires: The History of Corpse Medicine from the Renaissance to the Victorians (2011; 2nd ed. 2015)
https://routledgetextbooks.com/textbooks/9781138934009/
https://routledgetextbooks.com/textbooks/9781138934009/
As you can see, the trend is to look at mummy medicine in the context of medieval & early modern cannibalism (specifically medicinal cannibalism) in Europe.
These books draw on an extensive set of medieval/early modern texts discussing mummy medicine . . .
These books draw on an extensive set of medieval/early modern texts discussing mummy medicine . . .
And suggest interesting ideas:
They note that mummy medicine reaches a peak right around the time that Europeans are exploring/beginning to colonize other parts of the world & claiming cannibalistic practices there.
They note that mummy medicine reaches a peak right around the time that Europeans are exploring/beginning to colonize other parts of the world & claiming cannibalistic practices there.
Similarly -- once Europeans started to turn against mummy medicine in the late 16th & 17th centuries -- there were many attempts to scapegoat Jews for having convinced them of its value or tricked them with fake mummies.
I discussed that in this thread: https://twitter.com/MichaelDPress/status/1258120910256701440
I discussed that in this thread: https://twitter.com/MichaelDPress/status/1258120910256701440
On one level, looking at mummy medicine in the context of cannibalism makes sense: people were literally eating other people -- or at least they thought they were, since they couldn't really confirm what the mummy powder (or liquid) they took was made of.
But on another level, it runs into a major problem:
Even when they turned against mummy medicine, Europeans were rarely disgusted by it. They don't criticize it because it's cannibalism!
(Here, Schwyzer)
Even when they turned against mummy medicine, Europeans were rarely disgusted by it. They don't criticize it because it's cannibalism!
(Here, Schwyzer)
Instead, they criticize mummy medicine for a number of other reasons:
The mummy in use was by then fake mummy because all the Egyptian mummies were supposedly already used!
(Alexander Ross, Arcana Microcosmi, 1652)
The mummy in use was by then fake mummy because all the Egyptian mummies were supposedly already used!
(Alexander Ross, Arcana Microcosmi, 1652)
Some did philology & pointed out that when medieval Arab physicians prescribed mumia ("mummy") they didn't mean dead people!
"Serapion & Avicenna knew no other Mummy than pissasphalt" (a form of bitumen)
(Ambroise Paré, Discours de la Mumie, 1582 (9th ed, 1633)
"Serapion & Avicenna knew no other Mummy than pissasphalt" (a form of bitumen)
(Ambroise Paré, Discours de la Mumie, 1582 (9th ed, 1633)
Pierre Pomet (chief druggist of Louis XIV) agreed: "This is very different from what the ancient Physicians imagined"
But noted there were still widespread "Abuses committed by those who sell this Commodity"
(A Complete History of Drugs, 4th ed., 1748)
But noted there were still widespread "Abuses committed by those who sell this Commodity"
(A Complete History of Drugs, 4th ed., 1748)
There was obviously not too much squeamishness about using mummies, because Europeans would continue to grind them up into a powder to use in their paintings, for centuries after this. https://twitter.com/MichaelDPress/status/1255967862931574785
Much of the analysis of mummy as cannibalism fails because it avoids a central fact: there was little disgust with mummy medicine, even when it was rejected.
Looking at it as disgusting cannibalism is more a 21st-century approach than an early modern one.
Looking at it as disgusting cannibalism is more a 21st-century approach than an early modern one.
So, from a historical question, we are left with a basic question:
Why did people in Europe (& ultimately America) eventually come to be disgusted by this use of dead bodies?
This is the question I try to answer--or get us to think about--in my essay. https://aeon.co/essays/when-we-lived-with-death-mummies-were-medicine-and-paint
Why did people in Europe (& ultimately America) eventually come to be disgusted by this use of dead bodies?
This is the question I try to answer--or get us to think about--in my essay. https://aeon.co/essays/when-we-lived-with-death-mummies-were-medicine-and-paint
