The 16th-century medicinal craze for ground Egyptian mummies

For a couple of centuries, the peak of European medical sophistication was literally eating dead Egyptians. If you had a nasty bruise or a headache, your apothecary would happily sell you "Mumia"—a fine powder made from ground-up mummies. It was the ultimate historical smoothie.

This craze was born from a spectacular linguistic car crash. Doctors actually wanted bitumen, a natural mineral resin used for healing. Since mummies looked dark and waxy, everyone assumed they were soaked in the stuff.

Consequently, the European elite spent generations seasoning their meals with stolen ancestors, all thanks to a massive translation error. Talk about a stiff drink.

Wait, how did they source enough mummies to feed an entire continent?

The supply chain for "vintage" corpses was a logistical nightmare. Once the actual Egyptian tombs were picked clean, the industry resorted to the 17th-century version of "fast fashion"—counterfeit cadavers.

Unscrupulous merchants began snatching up the bodies of executed criminals, drying them in the sun, and treating them with bitumen to mimic that authentic "ancient" texture.

Imagine the irony: a wealthy nobleman bragging about his exotic Egyptian remedy, while actually seasoning his soup with a local pickpocket who’d been swinging from a gallows just last Tuesday.

Did nobody notice they were swallowing a local thief instead of a Pharaoh?

Honestly, the placebo effect is a hell of a drug. If your physician—who likely still believed your health depended on the alignment of Jupiter—told you this bitter, tarry gunk was "Royal Egyptian Soul Juice," you didn't exactly ask for a certificate of authenticity.

The "mummy" flavor was primarily the bitumen and herbs used to treat the body. Since the counterfeiters soaked their fresh corpses in the same nasty resins, the fakes tasted exactly like the "real" thing: absolutely wretched.

Medical science back then was less "peer-reviewed study" and more "if it tastes like a damp basement and costs a small fortune, it must be working."

When did doctors finally realize that eating people was a terrible idea?

It wasn't a sudden epiphany, but a slow, grumpy retreat into common sense. By the late 18th century, the Enlightenment forced physicians to swap "ancient dust" for actual chemistry.

The charm vanished when scientists realized bitumen could be sourced directly from the earth, sans the corpse. It turns out, a mineral is much more appetizing when it hasn't spent three millennia inside someone’s ribcage.

The practice finally died out in the 19th century, though the Victorians merely traded eating mummies for the equally bizarre trend of "unwrapping parties." A lateral move for dignity, really.

Hold on, they actually hosted parties just to watch a corpse get unrolled?

Imagine the most awkward dinner party ever, but with more dust and ancient bandages. These "unwrapping parties" were the Victorian version of a high-society gender reveal, except instead of a baby, you got a leathery, dead Egyptian.

Aristocrats sent formal invitations for these "scientific" demonstrations in their parlors. It was essentially a morbid striptease. The host peeled back linen while guests sipped tea and hoped to find a gold amulet.

Usually, they just found a crumbling body smelling like a damp library. It was the height of sophistication, though today we’d call it "desecrating a grave for a story."