How crazy The Europeans were in the 19th century were, and mummies were "doing their best" without wasting anything. Europeans used Egyptian mummies as fertilizer to make an art pigment, "mummy brown", as a tourist souvenir, and even sold on the streets of Egypt, and eaten as a cure for all diseases!
During the Victorian period in the 19th century, Napoleon's expedition to Egypt opened the door to Egyptian history for Europeans. At the time, mummies did not receive the respect that European elites deserved, and in fact, mummies could be purchased from street vendors (pictured).
A street vendor selling mummies in Egypt in 1865
In the 18th century, it was used as a major event for gatherings and social gatherings. The elites of that era often held "mummy unpacking parties," and as the name suggests, the theme was that mummies were unwrapped in front of a noisy audience, while cheering and clapping.
Medicinal value
During that time, well-preserved remains of ancient Egyptians were often ground into powder and eaten as medicine. In fact, smashing mummies was so popular that it even instigated the counterfeit trade to meet demand, in which the meat of beggars was mostly counterfeited as ancient Egyptian mummies. Mummies in ancient Egypt often used asphalt (Persian: mumiya) as an ingredient that, once the organ was removed, could fill the empty body cavity.
Since the 12th century, Europeans have been consuming Egyptian mummies as medicine. In ancient West Asia and the Mediterranean, asphalt was not only a building material, but also an ingredient for a variety of medicines. Ancient Roman writer Pliny the Elder and medical master Claudius Galen both wrote about the medicinal value of asphalt and believed that asphalt from the Dead Sea region was most suitable for medicinal use, and the Roman naturalist Pliny Sr. also suggested that asphalt be eaten with wine to treat chronic cough and dysentery, or mix it with vinegar to dissolve and remove coagulated blood. Other uses include treating cataracts, toothaches and skin diseases. The ancients also used asphalt to protect tree trunks and roots from insects, which thickened when heated but hardened when dry, and could be used to stabilize fractures and make ointments for rashes.
These practices, no matter how strange, are just some of the many ways people derive useful things from death.
A 18th-century medicine bottle containing mummified powder
Serious misunderstanding
By the 16th century, the consumption of Egyptian mummies had reached its peak in Europe. Mummies can be found on the pharmacist's shelf, and their bodies are broken down into pieces or ground into powder. Why do Europeans believe in the medicinal value of mummies? The answer may boil down to a series of misunderstandings.
In the 11th century, Avicenna, a physician from Persia, referred to mummies as asphalt for medicinal purposes. Because the black hard shell on the surface of the ancient Egyptian mummy resembles cooled asphalt. Since then, the mummy has formed an indissoluble relationship with asphalt.
In the middle of the 12th century, the famous translator Gerald, when translating Arabic literature, directly said that mummies were asphalt-like substances, the result of a long-term reaction between the resin applied to the corpse and the human body fluids. When Europeans first saw the black material covered in these ancient remains, they thought it was this precious bitumen. Because asphalt is expensive, some doctors simply steal the concept of asphalt directly into the mummy body. Just as the so-called no adultery and no merchant, mummies are everywhere in Egypt, and some merchants collect mummies and sell them to Europeans at high prices.
Mummies are eaten to store medicinal asphalt, which may seem extreme, but there is still a little rationality for this behavior. People eventually began to believe that mummies themselves (rather than the sticky substances used to embalm them) had the ability to heal.
Scholars have long debated whether asphalt is a practical ingredient in Egypt's embalming process. For a long time, they thought that the asphalt that looked like it was applied to a mummy was actually resin, which became wet and blackened with age. A study published in 2012 by British chemical archaeologist Stephen Buckley showed that asphalt was not used as a preservative until 1000 BC, when it was used as a cheaper alternative to resin. It is the first choice of some ordinary people. This was the period when mummies became mainstream. Asphalt can be used for preservatives for the same reasons as it is valuable to medicine. It protects the flesh of a corpse from moisture, insects, bacteria and fungi, and its antibacterial properties help prevent decay. Some scholars believe that asphalt also has a symbolic meaning in mummies: its black color is associated with the Egyptian god Osiris, a symbol of fertility and rebirth.
As fertilizer
As the Industrial Revolution advanced, Egyptian mummies were used for more practical purposes: large numbers of human and animal mummies were crushed and shipped to Britain and Germany for fertilizer.
Drawing pigment - "mummy brown"
Other mummies are used to make a brown pigment, mummy brown. Mummified brown was originally made in the 16th and 17th centuries from the remains of white asphalt, myrrh (a dry resin) and Egyptian mummies (humans and felines). Due to its good transparency, it is expressive beyond ordinary brown pigments and can be used for glazes, shadows, flesh colors and shadows. Artists believe that when asphalt and mummified flesh are used for oil painting, it does not crack or dry. From the 16th century to the 19th century, many painters loved the pigment, and even if the supply was reduced, it could still be used until the 20th century. In 1915, a London paint dealer commented that a mummy could be enough to produce pigments for his customers to use for 20 years. In the late 20th century, when the supply of available mummies ran out, "mummy brown" eventually stopped production.
French painter Michel Martin Rodlin's Inside the Kitchen makes extensive use of this pigment. Two young women in hats sat by a pottery shelf and an open window. Warm yellow light spilled into the room and we saw only a hint of blue sky. Most of the colors inside are brown, tan and ochre. The first woman's dress: brown. The shadow on her skirt: dark brown. Table against the wall and copper pot above: light brown, medium brown and dark brown.
Inside the Kitchen, Martin Drolling, oil on canvas, 1815.
It is said that the British painter Bern-Jones was shocked to discover the source of the paint, and despite the persuasion of others, Bourne Jones insisted on a solemn funeral for his two tubes of paint. He first heard about the origin of this pigment, known as "mummy brown." What makes the Oxford graduate in the United Kingdom feel difficult to accept is that this rich and full-colored pigment, as the name suggests, is made of mummies. So he respectfully held a funeral for the paints around him in his garden, burying his mummy brown.
Other uses
Or it was stripped of its packaging and then exported to the United States for use in the paper industry. Author Mark Twain even reported that mummies were used as locomotive fuel in Egypt.
As the 19th century progressed, mummies became valuable displays, and many wealthy European and American private collectors purchased them as souvenirs of their travels. For those who can't afford an entire mummy, they can buy intermittent remains — such as heads, hands or feet — on the black market and smuggle them home.
Mummies to Europe were so active that even after the looting of tombs and catacombs, there were not enough ancient Egyptian corpses to meet the demand. So, the bodies of executed criminals, the elderly, the poor, those who died of terrible diseases were buried in the sand, or stuffed with asphalt, and then exposed to the sun, and a fake mummy was made.
Mummified hand details