Mummies have been the subject of countless stories, true or false, throughout history. There is no end to the spooky stories about them. But perhaps one of the scariest ones is the work of living people with blood, not mummies who are dead bodies.
We are talking about a tradition of eating mummy, which became widespread in Europe in the 12th century. Europeans, who sought help from the ‘healing’ of dead bodies preserved for thousands of years, bought ‘mummy’ from pharmacies as medicine.
The mummies are ground up, a panacea…
Imagine a world without painkillers and antibiotics. Physicians, who sought solutions to resist diseases, pains and epidemics, found the remedy by grinding mummies into medicine and giving them to people.
For this, mummies from Egypt and skulls were stolen from ancient cemeteries. The idea that the human body and blood was good for diseases was so strong that ‘fresh’ blood also had special prescriptions. For example, making jam from human blood and eating it or drinking it directly. For this reason, the blood of the people who were executed was taken before their bodies cooled down.
Using every cell of the human body and offering this cannibalism as a medical solution, ‘doctors’ were also producing ‘medicine’ from the fat of the human body and applying it to wounds.
Grinding and eating the skull for headaches or ‘head’ related diseases in general, grinding mummies to stop internal bleeding and preventing diseases such as epilepsy, consuming blood for blood related diseases. All of this continued as legal and ‘real’ medical practice for hundreds of years.
Scammers sold fake mummies, cemeteries looted
Of course, this common habit of consuming mummies and dead bodies has also turned into a huge fraud case. Fake mummies allegedly from Egypt and belonging to the pharaohs were used to hunt the wealthy. Royal families needed the mummies of the pharaohs as they were claimed to be of ‘better quality’ and ‘more effective’…
For this reason, cemeteries were looted and the fake mummy trade was on the rise. Moreover, since bringing mummies from Egypt was no longer sufficient on its own, these were also tolerated after a while.
In the 19th century, the tradition of eating mummies turned into mummy-opening entertainment like box-opening.
Finally, at some point, some sane real doctors were able to understand and explain that eating a mummy or any part of a dead body, drinking blood does nothing. But Europe’s relationship with mummies did not end directly, it even became more troubling; mummy opening parties…
After Napoleon’s expeditions to Egypt, Europeans’ interest in Egypt increased. Travellers brought mummies on their way back from Egypt. It was opened with enthusiasm as the subject of a dinner party. These parties, which were initially held in the mind of a ‘medical cadaver examination’, started to be held for entertainment purposes after a while…
Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4
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