Most people have only ever seen a genuine Egyptian mummy in a museum ; fictional mummies , of course , are all over moving picture , literature , andHalloweencostume stores . But in century yesteryear , mummies were put to a variety of inventive uses : for art and commerce , science and amusement , and peradventure even to provide theme .
Many of these uses and abuses stemmed from theEgyptomaniathat fascinate Europe and America throughout the nineteenth one C , set off by Napoleon ’s encroachment of the nation in 1798 and nutrify by a string of awesome archeological uncovering . By the 1830s , upper - grade Western Europeans and Americans began flooding Egypt in hunt of treasure , and mummies became a chief loot — treated as a symbolisation of the total country ’s alien allurement , and the “ secret of the Orient “ more mostly . The mummy rabidness march on to the point where , Egyptologist Beverley Rogers notes , in 1833 a monastic named Father Géramb point out to the then - swayer of Egypt , Mohammed Ali , “ it would be hardly goodish , on one ’s return from Egypt , to salute oneself in Europe without a mummy in one hand and a crocodile in the other . ”
study on for some object lesson in just how disturbingly imaginative these tourists could be .
1. People used mummies as medicine.
Strange as it may seem , multitude in early forward-looking Europe frequently practice a kind ofcannibalism for wellness . concord tohistorian Richard Sugg , “ Up until the recent 18th century , the human body was a widely accepted therapeutic factor . The most popular intervention require flesh , ivory , or blood , along with a variety of moss sometimes found on human skull . “
Mummy , often sold as “ mummia ” ( a confusing Scripture that also cite to the bitumen with which mummies were embalmed ) , was applied to the skin or powdered and meld into drinks as a treatment for bruising and other complaint . The opinion may have make out from ancients such as Pliny the Elder , who wrote that the bitumen used to embalm mammy offered healing force . Sugg says that disciple include the Gallic King Francis I , as well as Francis Bacon , who wrote that “ mummy has enceinte personnel in staunching of parentage . ” Mummia became such adult business that there was a trade in fake mummies — made from action criminals , slave , mendicant , and camel — just to keep up with demand , much like today ’s market for counterfeit pharmaceutical .
2. People used mummies at parties.
Need a theme estimation for your next get - together ? Why not take a page ( or a tag end ? ) from the Victorians and contain a mummy unrolling party , which is just what it sounds like . While the craze is sometimes overstated — it ’s not like every aristocrat watched Tutankhamen ’s first cousin unwrapped over sherry in his drafting elbow room — these company were a not - uncommon characteristic of nineteenth 100 British life , specially among those who envision themselves the more scholarly sort .
According to Rogers , mummy unwrapping as a social event really got going in Britain starting in the 1820s , thanks to a circus performer - turned - antiquities salesman namedGiovanni Belzoni , who had made a name for himself in Egypt - obsessed circles after set up for the removal of several massive Egyptian artifacts on behalf of British consul to Egypt Henry Salt . In 1821 , he bear a public mummy unwrapping as part of an exposition of Egyptian antiquities near Piccadilly Circus . The event proved an tremendous achiever — over 2000 people hang on spread out day alone . One member of the audience was London operating surgeon and scholar Thomas Pettigrew , who was so enamored of the spectacle he began holding his own public , ticketed unrollings , unremarkably with an incidental lecture .
While there was occasionally an element of serious science ( Pettigrew conk out on to compose the first book on mummy study , A History of Egyptian Mummies , in 1834 , and earn the nickname “ Mummy Pettigrew ” ) , the gawk - factor was usually a magnanimous attractor . Not only were the mummies themselves engrossing ( if a bit acrid ) , their wrapping often contain valuable talismans and amulets lying in and around the organic structure .
Members of the upper class re-create Pettigrew , and the idea spread , with unwrapping events held both at large venue and in private menage . According to Rogers , “ Often the mummy come from the horde ’s own collection and invitations were such as those issued by Lord Londesborough in 1850 , who promised a ‘ mummy from thebe to be unrolled at half - past two . ’ “ Consider it the priggish variation of unbox .
3. People used mummies as paint pigment.
It sound like an urban myth , but it is n’t : starting around the sixteenth one C , a paint called mummy brown , made from flat coat - up mum , was a popular choice for European artists . Delacroix used it , as did British portraitist Sir William Beechey , and it was a special ducky of the Pre - Raphaelites . allot toscholar Philip McCouat , in 1712 “ an artist provision shop class rather jokily called ’ A La Momie ’ open in Paris , sell paint and varnish as well as pulverized mummy , incense and sweet cicely . “ To be clean , not everyone knew what they were painting with . When artist Edward Burne - Jones plant out , heheld a little funeralfor a electron tube of paint in his back garden .
4. People used mummies as interior decor.
Trips to Egypt were so popular among the upper classes of the 19th hundred that mamma were often displayed back home as token , commonly in the draft way or study , and occasionally even inbedrooms . Rogers notesthat mummy hand , feet and oral sex were frequently displayed around the family , often in ice domes on chimneypiece . ( The writer Gustave Flaubert was even known to keep a mummy ’s animal foot on his desk . ) mom were expose at business , too : One Chicago confect shop reportedlyattracted customer in 1886by show up off a mummy articulate to be “ Pharaoh ’s daughter who discovered Moses in the bulrush . ”
5. People may have used mummies for paper.
This a disputatious government issue among those who study the history of papermaking , butaccording to some assimilator , paper Robert Mills on the East Coast of the United States import mummy swathe as source textile during the mid 19th century . ( It ’s not quite as crazy as it might sound : A roaring in print materials immensely increase America ’s appetency for paper in the early 19th century , and wood pulp magazine was only put in after arag shortfall in the 1850s . mummy , meanwhile , were comparatively bountiful . ) The chronicle is disputable : source are vague , and while historians have find newsprint and broadsides thatclaim to be printedon mummy wrappings , the claim is n’t hummer - proof : It could be a prank , or , as often the case with mom , a crafty packaging thingmabob .
By the mode , a relate story that mommy were burn for railroad fuel isalmost certainly a jokedreamed up by Mark Twain . InThe Innocents overseas , distich described Egyptian railroad company using fuel “ frame of mama three thousand years old , buy by the ton or by the graveyard for that purpose , ” and report that “ sometimes one learn the profane engineer call out pettishly , ‘ D — n these pleb , they do n’t bite deserving a cent — pass out a King ! ’ ”
6. People used mummies as stage props.
Mummies are a intimate symbolisation of romanticistic ghastliness inliteratureandhorror moving-picture show , of course , but their enjoyment in stage thaumaturgy is less well known today . Yet the same sense of exoticism and dread that made them mould so well onscreen also made them effective as point props . It did n’t even matter whether they were existent .
In the 1920s , an elaborate fake known as “ The Luxor Mummy “ appeared in stage shows with a magician named Tampa . According toThe New York Times , the mummy earlier belonged to vaudeville theater of operations owner Alexander Pantages , “ who claim that it was a seer and seer refer Ra Ra Ra . “ When the mummy “ performed “ with Tampa , it would serve questions communicated through a telephone - like machine . ( No Good Book on how an ancient Egyptian was capable to speak English . )
7. People used mummies for fertilizer.
animal weremummified by the millionsin ancient Egypt to put up offer for the gods and goddesses . Ibis and baboons were hallowed to Thoth , raptors to Horus , and cats to the goddess Bastet . Cat mummieswere particularly plentiful — so plentiful , in fact , that in the late nineteenth century , English companies bought them from Egypt for agricultural purposes . Byone story , a single company purchased about 180,000 cat ma weighing 19 tons , which were then powderize into fertiliser and spread on the field of England . One of the skullsfrom that freight now resides at the raw history section of the British Museum .
8. People used mummies as fake relics.
After Joan of Arc was burn at the wager in 1431 , her public executioner were determined that no tincture of her would rest — they burned her torso a second meter , then dumped what was leftin the Seine . But in 1867 , a jar label “ clay happen under the bet of Joan of Arc , virgin of Orleans , “ turn up in the bean of a Paris pharmacy . It was recognize by the church as genuine , and afterwards put on display at a museum run by the Archdiocese of Tours . However , in 2007 , examination conduct byforensic scientist Philippe Charlierrevealed that the contents of the jar predated Joan by M of years : They were in reality a human rib and a cat femur , both from ancient Egyptian mummies .
9. People used mummies for fundraising.
Massachusetts General Hospital was the web site of the first public surgery using modernistic anesthetic , which look at home in 1846 in an amphitheater that became known as theEther Dome . But the stead is also home to something you do n’t usually see in a infirmary — an Egyptian mummy .
The well - preservedPadihershefarrived at Massachusetts General in 1823 as a gift from the city of Boston . The mummy had in the beginning been given to the metropolis by a Dutch merchandiser in the early 19th C ( he reportedly purchasedit to impress his in - laws ) , and the city gave it to the then - fledgling Massachusetts General Hospital to help it prove funds . Padihershefwas put on exhibit at Mr. Doggett ’s Repository of Arts in Boston , where citizenry paid $ 0.25 to see the one of the first complete human Egyptian mummies in the U.S. Padihershef then start on a year - long East Coast tour to raise even more cash for the hospital , before taking his place in the Ether Dome in time to witness the history - making surgery on October 16 , 1846 . He ’s still there today .
A adaptation of this story primitively escape in 2015 ; it has been update for 2022 .
