Europe's Bizarre Mummy Obsession: From Cure to Pigment

Imagine living in Renaissance Europe, plagued by a terrible headache, chronic cough, or perhaps a sudden onset of the plague. Your local apothecary had an array of potent remedies, from traditional bloodletting to swallowing crushed beetles or applying animal dung poultices. But if you had a bit of extra money and desired the era's most elite medical treatment, the apothecary would reach for a special jar. Inside, a dark, brittle powder awaited, ready to be mixed into hot tea or wine and consumed. This miracle cure, you were assured, would banish your ailments. What you likely did not spend much time pondering, however, was the fact that you were drinking the ground remains of an ancient Egyptian human who lived 2,000 years ago. For approximately 500 years, the European elite engaged in a widespread and socially acceptable form of medical cannibalism: they ate mummies.

The Renaissance "Miracle Cure"

The widespread belief in mummy medicine originated from a colossal historical misunderstanding. In the ancient Middle East, natural asphalt or bitumen was known as “mumia” in Persian. For centuries, ancient physicians in Persia and the Islamic world used this black, tar-like substance as a highly effective topical treatment for wounds, bruises, and bone fractures. It was a well-documented and respected medical material. When European doctors began translating these ancient Arabic and Persian medical texts into Latin during the 11th and 12th centuries, they learned of mumia's miraculous healing properties.

However, natural bitumen was rare in Europe, leading to a disastrous translation error. Ancient Egyptians embalmed their dead using various resins and oils that, over thousands of years, turned black and solidified. To European explorers and traders visiting Egyptian tombs, this blackened flesh looked exactly like the dark, tar-like bitumen known as mumia. They assumed the Egyptians had embalmed their dead using this miracle substance. Consequently, they concluded that the preserved bodies themselves were thoroughly infused with mumia. By the time the word reached European apothecaries, its definition had completely changed. "Mumia" no longer meant geological asphalt from a Persian mountain, but literally the flesh of a mummified human corpse.

Royal Consumption and Medical Endorsement

The European medical establishment swiftly decided that the best way to obtain the healing properties of mumia was simply to grind up mummies and consume them. Overnight, a massive international trade network sprang up to supply European doctors with dead Egyptians. Mummies were pulled from the desert, boxed, and shipped across the Mediterranean to ports in Venice, London, and Paris. Once at the apothecaries, the bodies were disassembled, and skulls, femurs, and rib cages were crushed into a fine powder.

This gruesome medicine was not a fringe treatment. It was considered the pinnacle of medical science, endorsed by the greatest minds of the era. The 16th-century Swiss physician Paracelsus, widely considered the father of toxicology, was a proponent of mummy medicine. He believed that such perfectly preserved bodies must retain some form of essential life force, and by consuming it, a patient could absorb that power to heal their dying body. Doctors prescribed mummy powder for almost everything, from stopping internal bleeding and curing epilepsy to treating poisoning and soothing stomach ulcers.

Europe's kings and queens readily embraced the trend. King Francis I of France famously carried a small pouch of mummy powder mixed with rhubarb wherever he went, taking a pinch whenever he felt unwell or feared assassination by poison. He claimed it was the only medicine that truly worked. Across the English Channel, British aristocracy was equally obsessed. Sir Francis Bacon, a renowned philosopher and scientist, wrote extensively on the benefits of mummy powder for treating bruises and bleeding. Decades later, King Charles II of England took this obsession to a new level. Fascinated by alchemy and chemistry, he purchased a highly secretive and expensive recipe for "the King's Drops," a liquid concoction made by crushing human skulls and distilling them into a potent alcoholic elixir. Though not exclusively Egyptian mummies, the medical philosophy was identical, and nobles rushed to purchase their own distilled human skull bottles to emulate the King.

The Rise of Fake Mummies and Fresh Corpses

A major logistical problem soon arose: ancient Egyptian mummies were a finite resource. By the late 16th century, easily accessible tombs had been thoroughly plundered. The supply of original pharaohs and priests began to run dry, but European demand for "mumia" was at an all-time high. Apothecaries paid enormous sums for bodies, and where there was money, capitalism found a way. Suddenly, the market was flooded with fake mummies.

In 1564, French physician Guy de la Fontaine traveled to Alexandria, Egypt, hoping to investigate the source of this miracle drug. He met a prominent local merchant who supplied the bulk of Europe's "mumia." The merchant, boasting, took the doctor to his warehouse and showed him an enormous stockpile of bodies. These were not ancient Egyptians. They were the corpses of executed criminals, slaves, and recently deceased individuals who had succumbed to diseases like leprosy and the plague.

The merchant laughed and told Guy de la Fontaine that he had made over 40 fake mummies in the last year alone, and he had no idea who the bodies he was sending to Europe actually were.

The merchant explained his highly lucrative business model: he acquired fresh corpses, slit them open, stuffed their cavities with cheap pitch and asphalt, bound them tightly in cloth, and left them under Egypt's scorching sun. In a few weeks, the intense heat and harsh chemicals dried the flesh, making it dark, hard, and brittle. To the untrained eye of an English or French apothecary, these sun-dried modern corpses looked exactly like ancient mummies. De la Fontaine returned to Europe and published a report of his findings, hoping to warn the medical establishment. You might think knowing they were eating fake, plague-ridden corpses would stop Europeans from consuming "mumia." It did not.

In fact, some doctors argued that fresh corpses were actually superior. The twisted medieval medical logic was that an ancient mummy's life force had likely faded over centuries, while a fresh corpse still contained plenty of vital energy trapped within its flesh. This led to a brief, horrifying period where European apothecaries stopped relying entirely on Egyptian imports and simply began making their own "mumia" from local bodies. The ideal candidate, according to medical texts of the time, was a healthy young man who had died a sudden, violent death, preferably by execution. A sudden death was believed to trap the spirit and healing power inside the body before it could escape. The body would be left in moonlight, treated with spirits of wine, and then hung to dry.

Victorian Egyptomania: Unwrapping Parties

Though the medical use of mumia slowly faded by the 18th century, Europe was far from finished with mummies. With the dawn of the 19th century, the Victorian era brought a massive cultural obsession with all things ancient Egyptian. Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt sparked a wave of Egyptomania across Europe. Wealthy industrialists and curious Britons began traveling to Egypt as tourists, and the ultimate souvenir to bring home from a Nile journey was a real ancient Egyptian mummy. Bodies were sold in Cairo’s streets like cheap trinkets. If a tourist could not afford a full body, they might purchase a severed hand or a detached head to display on their mantelpiece in London.

This influx of mummies into England led to a very common and disturbing social phenomenon: the mummy unwrapping party. Wealthy Victorian hosts would send out printed invitations to friends, inviting them to an evening of drinks, dinner, and human desecration. Guests would gather in the living room, sipping sherry while the host placed a mummy on a large table. Slowly and dramatically, the host would begin peeling away layers of ancient linen, searching for amulets, jewelry, and scarabs hidden within the bandages. Sometimes the body would collapse into dust; other times, a preserved face from someone who lived 3,000 years ago would appear before the stunned crowd.

The reigning king of mummy unwrapping parties was a London surgeon named Thomas Pettigrew. Pettigrew was a respected medical professional but also a legendary showman. In the 1830s, he began hosting public unwrapping events that were more theatrical performances than scientific investigations. He filled lecture halls and theaters with hundreds of paying spectators, skillfully dissecting the resin-soaked bandages, providing continuous commentary on the body’s condition while the audience applauded. Pettigrew unwrapped dozens of mummies over his career, contributing some actual knowledge to the burgeoning field of archaeology, though his methods were entirely destructive.