Egyptian mummies are world-famous, and now they are also very precious cultural relics in Egypt, only in museums, and a few places can be seen, however, in fact, mummies in the Middle Ages, not so rare things, today will become rare cultural relics, a large part of the reason is that it is eaten by Westerners, you read correctly, there are indeed people who eat mummies, they even use mummies as a elixir, think that they can cure all diseases, how did such a recognition come about, let's take a look at it today.
Mummies are the Egyptian way of disposing of the remains of the dead, in order to prevent corruption, the ancient Egyptian mummified craftsmen, will be hollowed out everything in the body, and then washed with a mixture of salt and baking soda, and then completely dried, coated with spices, fat, essential oils and other antiseptic raw materials, and then wrapped in linen cloth, after a period of time, these remains will become mummies.
In the 7th century AD, but after the Arab invasion of Egypt, the mummy was found here, because it looks like asphalt, so the Arabs called the mummy called mumiy, since then, the name of the mummy has been spread to all over the world, it was first transmitted to Europe, after it was transmitted to Britain, it was called mummy, it was transliterated as a mummy after it was introduced to China, and the first time that the mummy was recorded in China, it was in the "Nancun Drop-out Cultivation Record" written by the literati Tao Zongyi of the Yuan Dynasty, and the book recorded that mortals damaged limbs, ate daggers, and li healed. This means that after eating him, he can be reborn with a severed limb, and in the "Compendium of Materia Medica", there are also records that mummies can cure diseases, but in fact, this recognition was transmitted from the West to China.
From the 14th century to the 16th century, the European region entered the Renaissance period, and all fields began to admire antiquity, including ancient Greek medicine.
In the ancient Greek medical system, there is a blind called asphalt, yes, is the asphalt we see today, it is also called mummy, this medicine can treat arthritis and hemostasis, at that time the asphalt is still natural asphalt, the number is very rare, so the price is very expensive, some European merchants found Arab merchants, saying that they want more mummy, the Arabs heard that he wanted to be mummy, so he was very happy to go to Egypt to transport mummies, at that time, this thing was all over Egypt, The Arabs bought from Egypt at a low price and sold it to European merchants at a high price, and the European merchants saw that it was similar, so they did not think so much, and since then, the mummy has become a case of medicinal materials.
And europeans at that time believed that the ancient Egyptians could keep the corpse for so long, must have used some magical medicine, there must be some powerful power contained in it, if the mummy can be turned into a medicinal material, it will be able to maintain eternal youth and eliminate all diseases.
Therefore, European businessmen began a lot of publicity, saying that the mummy into powder, can cure all diseases, do not say what headache brain fever small disease, even if the broken hands and feet can also be broken limbs and rebirth, doctors also added fuel to the fire, not only did not go to study whether there is an effect in the end, but added the mummy to chocolate, honey, made into their own special drugs, said that the data stroke, epilepsy, tuberculosis has a miraculous effect.
In this way, the mummy soon became the object of everyone's pursuit, especially those nobles, in the eyes of these rich and powerful nobles, the most feared thing is that the money has not been spent, they have gone ahead of time, so they are even more fond of the mummy, they directly carry the mummy powder on their bodies at any time, the French king François I, and the British philosopher Bacon, are convinced of the medicinal effect of the mummy.
In the 17th century, the endorsement of a scientist, let people further deepen the understanding of the efficacy of mummies, his name is Robert Boyle, is a famous physicist and chemist at that time, he discovered the role of litmus reagents, but also found the sensitivity of silver ions, found Boyle's law in physics, such a great scientist, believe that mummies can treat bruises and bleeding and other diseases, naturally make many people believe that the mummy thus entered the Western high society.
At this time, a large number of mummies were transported to Europe, and the locals even because of insufficient quantity, the mummies of various domestic animals were pretended to be mummies to sell, and European merchants did not care about those, anyway, they would eventually be ground into powder, the merchants made a lot of money, and the number of mummies began to decline.
At that time, mummies were not only used as medicinal herbs, but also mummies were made into pigments, mummies were crushed and mixed with white asphalt and other herbs, which could form a beautiful brown color, known as mummy brown, in the European Middle Ages until the Renaissance, painters often used this mummy brown as a rare pigment, many preserved famous paintings, have added this pigment, and even been used until 1964. In fact, until the 19th century, there were still people who believed that mummies worked.
Even if it is consumed in this way, the number of mummies is still huge, especially during the first industrial revolution, because of the construction of railways to dig out a large number of mummies, which also led to the price of mummies plummeting, because the price is cheap, many mummies are burned as wood, mummies are scourgeed for centuries, the number finally began to decrease, but, when this is realized, it is already the end of the 20th century, with the development of archaeology, people finally discovered the cultural value of mummies, this time to protect the mummies, It wasn't until 1980 that Europe enacted a law banning the sale of mummies, but it didn't really work much, and there were still many people smuggling mummies at the time, and now, mummies have become precious cultural relics.