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*pained smile* stop saying the victorians ate all the mummies because:
- no they didn’t (that shit took hold on tiktok last year and oh my god why)
- the practice had largely died out by that point
- most of it happened during the Medieval period
- that’s largely confused by them consuming ‘mummiya’ in their medicine which is bitumen, that was part of mummification but not actually the mummy itself
- 90% were fake using animals or fresh corpses anyway
- you guys are not gonna like the practice of corpse medicine throughout various cultures in history because a lot of cultures used corpses in medicine
stop getting your history through tiktok memes *finger guns*
#I didn’t know this #BUT #DOESNT change thr white pppl ate a lot of the mummies
Actually it does. Mostly because that notion is vastly exaggerated, and as I said above the ‘mummies’ was by and large bitumen (which was called mummiya and thus people got confused because the word ‘mummies’ comes from the arabic mummiya and thought they were eating actual mummies when the records were found), and fake mummies made from animals that the Egyptians and Europeans sold to various apothecaries. They’d even make them from fresh corpses, as fresh corpses were vastly preferred for corpse medicine rather than mummies (they wanted the oils which you can’t get from dry bodies). As I said in the post, the practice of eating corpses for medicine is a worldwide thing not a ‘white people’ thing.
#huh #it still seems bad to steal mummies to use for medicine?
they weren’t stealing them, they were buying them from Egyptian sellers who were selling fakes made from camels, cats, and straw. The fresh corpses were European and done by grave robbers who also stole them for people to practice medical procedures (using corpses for that was banned at the time). As with every trade of ‘unusual and rare items’, most sellers were peddling fakes on their shelves to unsuspecting customers. This led to the practice of grave robbing from fresh graves of Europeans in order to supply the demand or just using animals like camels or cats. Indeed, Guy de la Fontaine, a doctor to the king of Navarre, on a visit to Egypt in 1564 asked an Alexandrian merchant about ancient embalming and burial practices. The merchant laughed and said he had made the mummies he was selling. Europeans were mostly, unknowingly, cannibalising themselves….and fake mummies made from camels.
Op I’m gonna need you to cite your sources on this one. Because I can absolutely pull out my old Horrible Histories magazine and show you where it says that Victorians ate mummies, as well as doing things like having unwrapping parties and selling off limbs
Ok, let’s do this
- Terry Deary is a children’s author not a historian. He was an electrician and a drama school teacher before he quit to become a children’s author.
- Horrible Histories isn’t infallible and has been wrong on a fair number of occasions (I read and owned all the books as a child and do you know how disappointing it was to get to study the things I’d read in these books and find it to be wrong? The answer is a lot)
- Horrible Histories I’m sad to say isn’t a viable academic source. It’s a popular one but it doesn’t mean it’s 100% correct.
- No source is to be quite honest
- I’m an Egyptologist, so this is my field of research and study, which is why I have the following:
- Here’s an ask where I’ve answered this question before and provided sources
Pyramids Are Just Really Elaborate Jenga
But for sake of ease and quick access:
https://www.mummystories.com/single-post/mummies-in-medicine-museums
Angela Steine is an Egyptologist who specialises in mummies, their history and their display.
Mummies and the Usefulness of Death
The Science History Institute is a Science and Research museum based in Philadelphia.
Several people have also left book recommendations for finding out more on this in the notes so please do go and check them out 🙂
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