
American Drugs in Egyptian Mummies (2005) - Petiver
http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~legneref/ethnic/mummy.htm
======
dzdt
The article "Rameses II and the tobacco beetle" (PC Buckland, E
Panagiotakopulu Antiquity, 2001) has a more probable take. In the century-plus
these mummies were in museums, they were subjected to various insecticide
treatments. Among these was almost surely nicotine applied as an insecticide.
Cocaine may have been introduced similarly or accidentally in this timespan.
19th century and early 20th century museums did not document anything and had
by modern standards extremely poor conservation approaches.

[1]
[http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.490...](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.490.846&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

~~~
stinos
Accprding to other articles and some comments here, nictoine could only be in
hair if it was ingested and cannot get there by external application, if I
understand it correctly. That, plus there being 9 different mummies from
different museums, at least does raise some questions about the insecticide
treatment theory.

~~~
jcranmer
I don't know the historical context of those mummies, but if they correspond
to a wide range of historical time periods, it increases the likelihood that
the explanation is contamination. A wider time period would imply that the
contact would have been more sustained, which makes it harder to explain why
there's no _other_ evidence of contact.

~~~
api
Where did mesoamerican people get the idea for pyramids?

It's possible that it is just a logical easy to build structure, but I've
always wondered. There are other similarities too.

I seem to recall an attempt to cross the Atlantic with modern replicas of
Egyptian style vessels but I don't recall if it was successful.

~~~
jcranmer
One mistake people commonly make is that they assume independent discovery is
difficult. When you look at the seminal inventions of prehistory, independent
rediscovery is the norm, not the exception: agriculture was developed no fewer
than 9 times, writing about 3-5 times, urban civilization at least 6.
Pyramidal structures themselves are evident in most ancient urban
civilizations without much evidence of direct transmission to or from Egypt.

It's not sufficient to just say "this looks similar." You have to explain how
the designs were transmitted, what else was or wasn't transmitted, why
evidence is or isn't present in supporting records such as contemporary
accounts. There is very strong presumption against pre-Columbian trans-oceanic
contact (based in part of our knowledge of ancient shipbuilding techniques and
maritime practices), so you need a very high burden of proof here. Vikings and
Polynesians are exceptions to the rule here because we know they were both
able to make the journey, there's corroborating evidence that's multifaceted,
there's explanations of why the contact was ultimately transient in nature,
etc.

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pvaldes
The history seems speculative, but I'll speculate a little more anyways. Lets
suppose that those mummies wheren't fake, is not probable, but lets assume
that. Could we theoretically find nicotine in an old egyptian mummy?.

In theory is possible. There is one species of Nicotiana native from Africa
(Nicotiana africana). The problem is that this plant is a Namibian endemism,
in the other coin of Africa. For people mastering the complicated process of
embalm a body, with a trading area that extends to the entire Mediterranean
sea, and taking a lot of precise steps and hassles to be sucessful, a local
plant able to stop insect damage would had been noticed and treasured. We can
speculate that the current Namibian populations are relict populations of a
much wider distribution area, and that this is another white rhino. Maybe the
north populations were wiped by the old Egyptian empire?, then the flower must
appear painted somewhere or some obscure text should talk about such treasure.

And in any case, there is still the Cocaine issue. There are also some members
of the family Erytroxylaceae native from Africa, but If you find three of the
most popular drugs when putting a sample of a mummy in a machine, you should
suspect that either the mummies were fake, or where real but used later to
smuggle drugs, or that the drugs were into the machine previously (the
laboratory has been used before for analyze drugs).

~~~
ericd
Could they have gotten the plant you mention via trade?

~~~
pvaldes
Namibia was probably too far to have links with old Egypt. The egyptian empire
documents show that they were very aware and informed about people living in
the current Italy and Greece at north, Irak/Syria at east, and make war with
Lybia at west and Sudan at South.

They were a bureaucratic society. To cross the central rainforest and the
Kalahari desert to trade with South Africa and do not reflect it in their
documents seems unlikely to me (but I'm not an expert in this field).

This said, finding a wild Nicotiana in Egypt today is a childs game. Nicotiana
glauca, an escaped american species appears everywhere in all Mediterranean
countries. Could easily slip into any local plant mix aiming to give some good
ol' autenthicity to a modern mummy.

~~~
ericd
I would have figured that it would have been primarily independent traders
that handled most long distance trade, and that this wouldn't have been a
particularly high volume trade good, so there would be a good chance that the
fraction of records we've recovered don't contain any mention. I have very
little education in this area, though. Thanks for all the info!

~~~
cfadvan
The concept of independent traders and a merchant class uncontrolled by a
central palace system of government really didn’t emerge until after the Late
Bronze Age collapse circa 1170’s BCE. Before that, it was all about central
control through the sovereigns, their (hugely extended) families, a system of
“gift exchanges” that look a lot like commerce to us today, and control
through priesthoods. It just wasn’t an option to get up and be a merchant on
an international scale without your god-king giving you the rights at that
time.

~~~
ericd
Wow, thanks! That's super interesting. I have to redo some of my mental model
of the ancient world.

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daodedickinson
Weird that my first guess isn't considered, that it could be from a now
extinct plant, perhaps harvested to extinction like the abortifacient plant
used in ancient Rome or destroyed in after the plant drew the ire of someone
powerful. Or maybe the plant is still out there.

Unlikely to be related, but possibly, Tramadol was thought to be naturally
produced by a root in Cameroon but then found to be in high levels in the
soil, water, and other plants because people and their animals were consuming
high quantities.

------
macawfish
Why is it so hard for some people of European descent to believe that non-
European people may have crossed oceans in non-European ways, without
Europeans ever hearing about it? For goodness sake, look at the pyramids.
European people still aren't totally sure how those things were built. There
are theories, but you don't know what's possible/impossible.

Essentially that's what's going on in this conversation.

By the way: [http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/09/02/did-chinese-
civilization...](http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/09/02/did-chinese-civilization-
come-from-ancient-egypt-archeological-debate-at-heart-of-china-national-
identity/)

And: [https://www.nature.com/news/mummy-dna-unravels-ancient-
egypt...](https://www.nature.com/news/mummy-dna-unravels-ancient-egyptians-
ancestry-1.22069)

For the record, I'm someone of various European ancestries, but I'm not hung
up on some kind of European superiority complex.

 _" Consider the Earth's history as the old measure of the English yard, the
distance from the King's nose to the tip of his outstretched hand. One stroke
of a nail file on his middle finger erases human history."_

~~~
jcranmer
> Why is it so hard for some people of European descent to believe that non-
> European people may have crossed oceans in non-European ways, without
> Europeans ever hearing about it? For goodness sake, look at the pyramids.
> European people still aren't totally sure how those things were built. There
> are theories, but you don't know what's possible/impossible.

Well, saying that Norte Chico gave the Ancient Egyptians a hand with skycrane
techniques is pretty impossible. There's a wide gap between "we're not sure
what the answer is" and "this wild theory is equally well-supported by the
evidence."

I gave some details in another comment, but the shipbuilding technology simply
didn't exist before around 700 or so to cross the Atlantic Ocean--not in
Europe, nor in the Americas (It did exist in Asia, but the Polynesian
expansion and experience strongly limits the space for Asian trans-Pacific
contact). That creates a very strong prior against pre-Columbian trans-oceanic
contact, one that requires more persuasive evidence than "I can interpret this
as a New World relic in the Old World." The only theory that comes close to
meeting that standard is the Polynesian contact theory.

~~~
throwaway413
> simply didn't exist before around 700 or so

You say that with such certainty as if _you were there_.

~~~
opportune
Well, there is no evidence for it aside from things like the article, which
have simpler explanations. I can't be certain that the sun isn't a smiling
baby when it's not being observed either

~~~
throwaway413
There’s a big difference between a blatantly improbable conclusion in the
present vs concluding something about the entirety of the situation here
before 700.

All I’m saying is that a small bit of doubt is healthy.

------
daddosi
If you look at the ways these substances are transported today it seems prety
obvious people would find a way shortly after first introduction. Even if
death is more likely than succes people will do it. You can also spend any
amount of money trying to stop the drug trade without accomplishing it.

iow the real story is probably weirder than we can imagine.

------
anoncoward778
Maybe just maybe, what "Egyptologist" have been telling you all these
years....has been garbage.

------
zeckalpha
> For teaching purposes only, do not review, quote or abstract

------
walrus01
see also: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian_trans-
oceanic_co...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian_trans-
oceanic_contact_theories)

Most are sketchy at best, or have been proven spurious.

------
GW150914
_In a one-page article appearing in Naturwissenschaften, German scientist
Svetla Balabanova (1992) and two of her colleagues reported findings of
cocaine, hashish and nicotine in Egyptian mummies. The findings were
immediately identified as improbable on the grounds that two of the substances
were known to be derived only from American plants - cocaine from Erythroxylon
coca, and nicotine from Nicotiana tabacum. The suggestion that such compounds
could have found their way to Egypt before Columbus ' discovery of America
seemed patently impossible._

Meanwhile contamination or even a prank/hoax is quite likely. In fact if a lab
tech had a big night and didn’t wash their hands properly, or one of their own
hairs contaminated the sample, there you have it. Contrary to popular
perception, one outlier result isn’t a breakthrough, replication is key.

~~~
mabbo
> one outlier result

> Of the nine mummies evaluated, all showed signs of cocaine and hashish
> Tetrahydrocannabinol), whereas all but one sampled positive for nicotine.

While I'm not saying you're incorrect- contamination seems so likely that I'd
start investigating if this lab put anyone in prison over these sorts of
tests- the article clearly says there were nine different mummies tested.

~~~
GW150914
I don’t mean one test, I mean one set of findings from the same source. Even
if we’re to believe some ancient traveler made it to the Americas and back,
they would have had a hell of a time finding those three things in the (likely
one unplanned) trip. Besides, cocaine is the result of modern chemistry!
Tripanone is the base alkaloid, from which cocaine is derived.

So not only would these people have had to identify the narcotic value of
cannabis, tobacco _and_ coca, they’d have to figure out how to press hashish,
_and_ process large amounts of coca leaves for tripanone, and then process
that into cocaine base. In practice getting significant quantities of cocaine
from coca without the intermediate chemistry isn’t feasible.

No.

~~~
spraak
It's not all or nothing. These resources were most likely disparate and
funneled from various sources until they reached Egypt. You think a grocery
store needs to grow it's own wheat? The complexity is what you're not seeing.

