Dark History - 59: Cannibalism as Medicine?? The Wild trend of Mummy Powder

Episode Date: October 19, 2022

Welcome to the Dark History podcast. Mummies, we know em, we’ve love em. And they are quite exclusive. Really rare. I mean everybody loses their minds whenever we find a new one. But would you believe at one time, there was a whole bunch of these bony bois lying around? Oh yeah, and what’s the reason why there are so few now? In today’s episode, we get into just that. And the reason…not exactly what you may think. Let’s just say…it involves cannibalism. Episode Advertisers Include: Squarespace, Apostrophe, Best Fiends, ExpressVPN

Hello my beautiful friends welcome to Halloween 2022. I was hoping there would be lightning and thunder but you know, okay, hi friends, my name is Bailey Sarian and it's that time, it's the best time of the year. Oh, let me tell you, this month we're gonna be talking about all things spooky, lookie, like Satan, of course, clowns, mommies, and of course, witches, but not just any old witches, like witch hunts. So what I need you to do is sit back, relax, and let's talk about that hot, juicy history, Gus. If you're listening to this on the podcast, let me just tell you really quick,

hop over to the YouTube when this goes live on Thursday, because me, Joan, and my friend Paul, were all dressed up as mummies. I know it's, we look so good. I called Paul, and I was like, what are you going to wear today, girl? And Paul was like, I'm going to be a mummy, and I was like, same.

And then Joan just showed up. And here we are, great. So Halloween. I know we love Halloween, don't we? Do you wanna know what my favorite Halloween movie is? Can you guess? No, it's not the shining or the nightmare on Elm Street. And no, I know what you're thinking.

No, it's not Sharknado. Very close, though. My favorite three-star 1997 Disney Channel original movie? Under wraps. Yeah, do you remember? No, okay, let me tell you. It's known for its famous line that I'm sure you all remember. Let's say it together now.

Wow, that's so mommy. Cool. See? that's a mummy. Cool. See? Yeah, you see. Remember, I knew you would. Come on. Now, this movie is what planted my fascination with mummies, but I never really thought about it.

I mean, have you ever like, really sat and thought about a mummy? Yeah, me neither. But I thought about it the other day. I was like, why do they do that whole wrapping them up thing for decor? Or did they just like happen to die in that? So whenever I don't have an answer to something, what do I do? I get to googling, of course. And as I've said before, my Google history is filled with nonsense.

But not this time. Listen, it directed me to something I had never heard before. And that's rare, okay? Listen, if anything involves cannibalism, maybe I'm there, I'm there all day. You know, I'm right there. I just like, I know everything about cannibalism. I don't, but like, it fascinates me. Don't come from me.

I'm curious. So when I learned about something called mummy powder, it opened up a can of worms. Another great Disney Channel original movie, the puppetry in that movie impeccable, the little alien in that movie, wow, Oscar worthy, he was snobbed. But anyways, what if I told you that cannibalism was actually considered medicine for hundreds of years just across the pond in Marriott, England. Hmm? Hmm? Now this wasn't just some one-off thing a few serial killers

did, nay nay. Cannibalism was a hot new trend everyone was trying to get into in the Western world. This happened as recently as 200 years ago. Oh yes. And the Victorians had a very specific type of person they wanted to eat. It couldn't just be any old peasant down the street.

Of course not. They had a big time appetite for mummies. Yeah. So you better watch out Joan. They might eat, yeah. Or whatever. So when I think of mummies, I think of going on like a field trip to the museum as a kid and seeing those big gold

Egyptian coffins and you assume like, hey, this is in a museum because it's like very rare and old Which yes very fair, but it turns out mummies originally Not that rare in fact there were a lot of mummies for thousands of years wealthy Egyptians and royals like Pharaohs were mummified. So if we're talking about multiple people being mummified for centuries- of on centuries, there has to be, or how to be a lot of them, right? And there was. That is. Until the Europeans came into the scene and decided to snatch up everything they could, get their hands on.

I'm talking about jewelry, artifacts, and yes, even bodies that they could eat. People were obsessed with mummies, and honestly, let's be honest, like we still are. Look at me. So let's talk about what mummies are and what makes them so special. Now, you can't talk about mummies without talking about ancient Egypt. And I mean ancient. If you don't know, Egypt is located in Northern Africa on the Mediterranean Sea. And the year we are talking about is the year 3000 BC. Isn't that a Jonas Brothers song, the year 3000? I think it is.

I never really liked the Jonas Brothers that much, but you know, that was a bobb. The Egyptians invented pretty much everything, okay? Like the calendar, math, but they even did some fun stuff, like I make up in breathments. Where would you guys be without breathments, right? I think about when you're doing the walk of shame,

you're on your way home, and you're like, oh, thank God I have this breathment and this waterproof eyeliner. Thank you Egyptians, doing the Lord's work. So Egyptians believed in multiple gods and the Egyptians believed if you died, don't sweat it girl, because we're gonna preserve your body the right way.

And because of that, you'll come back in the afterlife. Ancient Egyptians called your personality Ba and your spirit Ka. So Ba is your personality Ba and your spirit, ka. So ba is your personality, ba and your spirit, ka. Great. And they believe that these could be reunited

in the afterlife. If your body went through a process called mummification. Now some of you might be familiar with mummification and you might be thinking like, Bailey, doesn't that just mean someone wraps up the dead body before burying them? No, honey, this isn't your murdered husband you're trying to bury in the backyard.

Get some class. There are a few different processes of mummification, but one of the more popular ones takes about 70 days. That's a long-freaking time if you didn't know. So step one, if mummification, someone's gotta die, right? Now it's probably a horrible death because it's the year 2600 BCE. I can't imagine anything good is happening. I can't imagine you're having a pleasant death.

Maybe they fell off a pyramid. Step two, you need a priest. Now what's next? What's next? Well, it's not like just anyone off the street could do this. They would need a special priest. Ah, yeah. The thing about human bodies.

If you didn't know, there's a bunch of fluids and organs inside of us. It's wild. They would need a special priest. Ah yeah, the thing about human bodies. If you didn't know, there's a bunch of fluids and organs inside of us, it's wild. The priest would take a bigel hook, stick it up the nose and just scoop out the brain through the intestines, and each of these got put in their very own special jars, like very organized people.

But the one organ that they left untouched was the heart because I love this. Egyptians believed the heart and not the brain was the center of intelligence. So once most of the organs are out of the body and in jars, these would be buried along with the mummy in the coffin. So when they went to the afterlife, they'd have their organs.

Because I think you need those, right? That's, I don't know, never been, gonna find out, you know? Step four, you gotta dry. So the priest would put the body into a big old tub of salt. And the reason is because the salt would dry out the body and cure it. Not from like diseases or something. This was essentially how people would preserve meat before refrigerators existed.

And technically, humans are meat, so it makes sense. The body would stay in there for a couple of days until all the fluids were absorbed. Honestly, at this point, the body would look like one big dried up raisin. Step five, the priest would cover the body in perfumant oils. Why? Well, imagine if you died, okay? You're dead.

And you're gonna go meet God. And you're stinky. That's rude! God's not gonna let you in. He's gonna be like, no, I'm good. We like to smell clean up here. So you gotta get all dressed up. You gotta smell like, you know I'm good. We like to smell clean up here. So you got to get all dressed up. You got to smell like, you know, a daisy to go meet the Egyptian god of the afterlife. It's

just the polite thing to do. Nobody wants a stinky friend showing up, sitting on your couch. You're like, oh my god. Yeah. And now we're on the final step. After that, they put this layer of tar on the oily, raisin body because it has all the perfumes and stuff. So it was believed by many people that this tar was partially made of a substance called bitumen. Now, what is bitumen? Well, it's a sticky substance that was used to treat all kinds of things back in the day.

Yeah, very vague, but that's what it was. It was a very popular ingredient, and honestly, very expensive. They would use this tar to preserve the body to keep the whole raisin body together as one whole. Make sure everything was secure and just really sealed a deal. And then of course you had to finish it off with the iconic mummy fit, the OOTD mummy outfit, post,

post, we're rocking in hungrel. Yeah, we look good. We look good Which is you know the body being wrapped in the layers on layers on layers of linen I mean we're talking hundreds of yards of linen. They would use a linen to stick to the layer of tar like glue Yeah, kind of makes sense. They had that shit on lock because if you weren't wrapped up your body would rot and break down And you wouldn't be able to get into the afterlife. That's what they believe. So ta da, that's how you make a mummy. You're welcome. Good luck on your journey. I'm sending you free. Go make your mummy. You learn something new every day. And this whole mummification and burial process was sacred to ancient Egyptians.

I mean, this was a very big deal. The Egyptians covered up their tombs with the expectation that no one would ever dig them up. I mean, would you expect someone to go down your grandma's grave and start digging it up? And then I think that's illegal. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Grave robbers or whatever?

Yeah. I mean, maybe if theyve robbers or whatever. Yeah. I mean, maybe if they need to collect further DNA for like a crime or something, right? But it doesn't matter. What are you doing? I'm not supposed to do that. Anyways, you get it. You're not supposed to do that.

So how do we know all this about mummification if the bodies were never meant to be disturbed? Fair question. Well, it turns out in their unending quest to expand the empires, Europeans came across Egypt, saw the great pyramids, and they were like, ooh, I call dibs, you know, that one's mine, no touchy, Paul, no mine. At first, these excursions were said to be educational. They were like, down there in Egypt, just trying to learn.

You know, they're like, we're just trying to learn, no big deal. But naturally, people got greedy. They broke into the tombs under the pyramids, cracked open the coffins, but instead of bodies, they saw dollar signs. Where's space? Europeans started to get a little curious

about the world around them. Tons of people were quote unquote, exploring far away countries and sending archaeologists to investigate those cultures. But remember, this is dark history, so words like exploring are usually code for taking whatever the hell they want because they can. I roll. And in the late 1500s, that's exactly what these Europeans did when they made a stop on their journey to Egypt. I mean, think about how crazy that must have been for someone from Europe, right? And they're traveling. There's no internet. There's no books. There's nothing. They get to Cairo. And they're like, what the fuck? What is this? Seeing pyramids and stuff? Sand?

What? Heat? Gigantic pyramids, breathments, eyeliner? I mean, this was mind-blowing. And they were ready to get as much as they could, the Europeans. I want this shit. Think about all the cool stuff they must have found in Egypt or Nate statues, unique clocks,

ancient manuscripts with the history of their world Cool ass weapons they used and oh yeah the foundation of math languages and different sciences It was literally all whole new world to the Europeans. I want to sing Aladdin, but it's like come on Bailey It's like every time a whole new world comes up. I go into my Aladdin song and it's like we get it It's like every time a whole new world comes up, I go into my Aladdin song and it's like we get it. I just have to. And not only were they making these grand discoveries, they were also finding some pretty shiny treasures down there.

People were buried with their wealth. So all these incredibly valuable discoveries are being made. Everybody wants a piece of it and they're willing to get a little shady to get a piece of the pie. Talking about bribery, baby. So we don't know exactly how this went down, but come with me on this journey.

Let's use our imagination. We're gonna paint a picture, Bob Rossett. One day an archeologist was doing his thing, digging shit up, dusting it off, you get it. Then he looks further and sees a giant building made of stones with ancient markings on them. All my buddies have been like fun in this crazy shit, Ted said he found a clock, and I can't let Ted be the coolest in the group, you know, like I got to get out there and see what I can find. But he's not familiar with this specific

Gary Pyramid, so he calls for some help. They had already hired a local guide to help on the expedition, but now he needed to ask for a little more help. So he's like, hey man, I'll give you a crisp, clean $20 bill. If you show me around that pyramid. And the guy does like, no, wait, man, like, you know, no, I'm supposed to protect this pyramid, get lost. And the other guy's like, please, it's for education, like, please, what about $40? Eventually, the guide caves in and agrees. And when he opens up the heavy stone door, inside is one of the most incredible things

anyone has ever laid eyes on. First of all, this space is huge inside. Not only that, it's super tall, wide, and seems to be going on forever. He finds out that this is a place where tons of bodies have been buried for thousands of years. This guy is like, damn, this is some next level shit. So this guy isn't used to it because he's used to like bearing bodies underground, tombs, new concept, a little different. He approaches a coffin and out of his own curiosity opens it up and ooh he struck gold because it's a mummy baby. In addition to finding the

mummy's themselves, the researchers found out a lot about the mummification process. So as this is happening, the Egyptian language is being translated and people started to pick up on something. They're looking at the mummies, they see this tar, they see the steps, and they have a light bulb moment. Like, wait a second. This looks like bichumen. It smells like bichumen. It must be bichumen. I mentioned a bichumen a little bit earlier, but let's break it down more here to explain why this is such a great fight. Back in the day, especially in the 16th century, medicine was an ideal. It was still very experimental. I mean, they were drilling holes in people's heads for epilepsy. They were doing bloodletting and putting leeches on people.

It's just a wild time. And there was one thing that medicine considered the cure all. Bitchesman. Doctors would give out bitchesman for everything. And I mean everything. If you had a toothache, bitch-um-man. Skin disease, bitch-um-man, fever, leprosy, gall, brain aneurysms, stubbed your big toe, bitch-um-man. And that's just to name a few. It's just fun to say. Bitch-um-man, bitch you men. Bitch, you men. Bitch, you men. So everyone's really wanting this stuff

and it's actually very rare and hard to find. So people are thinking, well, when they go into this tomb, they're like, oh my God, we found bitch, you men. Like, baby, we're about to make a lot of money. Okay, so they're like, we see the bitch, you men in this tomb, but how are we going to get it from the mummies and take it back home to ingest it?

Because I need to do have a stomach ache so I need to take some bitumen right now but how am I gonna do that? Because it's on this mummy. You know? Okay, so this sounds really creepy and uncomfortable but look, that's history, right? So these people, they would end up stealing these mummies.

They would take them back home, they would unwrap them and then they would crush it down, crush the mummy down into powder, and then wouldn't just it for health benefits. Basically the same reason people drink bone broth today. So they crushed it up and got the bitumen, but they got all the other bits and pieces of the mummy as well. I'm talking the bones, the skin and the muscle, all of it. And yes, all of that was powdered down, and people were eating it. So all of this was going on, and this ends up getting the attention of the king of England, who then decides to step in. Whoa, uh, have a great day.

Bicherman was a hot ticket item. I mean, everybody wanted their hands on it, especially when it fell in front of one of the most influential people in Europe. King Charles II. So King Charles had a doctor named Nicholas Lafeith, I think. But anyways, Nicholas, he was a bit of a unique character. For example, one of his favorite remedies for a headache was to grind up a human skull and to powder. Yes, human, hopefully done, makes it with a little bit of cocoa or chocolate. So it's kind of like they're making their own little cocoa powder with head.

So, I don't know. So this doctor is introduced to this new innovative shall we say alternative medicine called mummy powder. And you already know if he was into skull in his hot cocoa, he was going to get in on this mummy powder craze It was right up his alley. So the King's doctor again was like a very influential guy So once he gives mummy powder its stamp of approval. Oh, everybody now wants to get their hands on this powder

I mean if the King was eating it using it for whatever we should too, right? Everyone's like I saw King Charles drinking skulls and mummy powder, so I got skulls and mummy powder too. So the doctor is telling people like, hey, you don't need to just be eating mummy powder, but you need to be getting it from the right kind of mummy. But what qualified is the right kind of mummy. He said that the ideal mummy would be

from Egypt or Libya, now on top of that, the way the person died made a big difference in terms of quality. A quicker death would produce a better powder. That's right, according to this doctor, the best mummies were young, healthy people who had died quick, sudden deaths. Ideally, suffocation would be a great one,

or if they got hit by a cart, ideal. If the person had been healthy right before they died, and if they were mummified the right way, their spirit was perfectly preserved. And according to the doctor, the youth and the strength of the perfect mummy would be absorbed by the person who ate it. So eating the body of a young healthy mummy was like eating organic chicken. It was just better for you. But King Charles and his doctor weren't the only influential people into this stuff. Like most weird trends and diets, the mummy powder fad started as something with the rich and powerful. I'm imagining it being like a very expensive

goop product. You know, someone like one of the paltryo would have been all about just like steam your vage, then snort some mummy powder. One huge fan of mummy powder was Leonardo Da Vinci. He said, quote, we preserve our life with the death of others in a dead thing life remains which when it is reunited with the stomach of the living, regain sensitive and intellectual life." Is anyone checking up on these Ninja Turtles? They seem to be all throughout history just making some wild shots, right? Like, they're always around.

So yes, this whole crushing up a dead body and eating it becomes the latest and greatest fad. But there was something that even the King's doctor didn't know about this fabulous medicine. The street name for mummy powder was actually mummyia, which is a translation from the Arabic word resin. Oh, that all goes back to that tar-like substance from the mummification process that all these people believed was actually butchumon. So what archaeologists has spoken around a tomb?

On the walls is some riding an airbick. Now one guy who can read it is like, hey, I think that says mummyya. It says mummyya right here, you guys. Should we just call mummy's? And a second archaeologist might have said like hold up mummyya as in like the ancient word for bichyman. And then another guy is like, you guys are all crazy, but this is gonna make us rich. I guess there was a translation error. Mm, that's unfortunate.

Years later in 1597, John Gerard, a well-known herbalist and author of at the time, took a look at Mamiya, and he was like, lol, wait a second. I know Butchumin, this is not Butchumin. So he went back through all of the information he could find to figure it out. It turns out he was on to something the tar used on mummies was not but you mean but a similar substance known as piss asphalt. I'm not kidding. It's

literally called piss asphalt. Piss asphalt. Yeah we could just sit and talk about this all day. I'm saying, piss ass fault? Piss ass fault. I was like, are you sure that's how you pronounce it? Piss ass fault. I don't know you guys. What is up? I don't know.

This world is just weird. So you're probably thinking piss ass fault is probably when someone pisses on ass fault, right? Cause that's what I thought. Piss ass fault, that makes sense. It's not that. It's not pissing on asphalt, right? Because that's what I thought. Pissed asphalt, that makes sense. It's not that. It's not pissing on asphalt, I learned. It's actually just a tar-like substance that does nothing good for you.

I know how boring. With that name? Come on. Weirdly, no one really cared. You would assume when people found out that they were eating dead bodies with no actual benefits, instead eating pure tar, that maybe they would stop. But oh no, the ball was rolling down the hill already and all the cool kids were doing it. It's trendy, people think it's healing. It's not like they were calling it human dust. It has a cool name, mummyya. Mummyya felt cool. It didn't have

a negative connotation. So the Europeans were still going ham for Mamia. Mamia pieces or powder could still be found in shops all over Europe. Nobody gave a shit if it was good for you. They were essentially like those boner pills that you could buy at 7-Eleven. You know, they advertise them, right?

They don't work. That's why I heard. But people still buy them. I mean they didn't give me a boner. Did they work for you, Paul? Exactly. They didn't work for Paul either. He isn't... Well, he is a bone. He is a boner. Paul is a boner. Anyway, your local corner store, even your doctor, would have mummy on hand because there was still a bit demand. But getting mummy is out of Egypt and it wasn't even easy. I mean technically it was still illegal so it required a lot of planning, a lot of being shady, a lot of scheming, a lot of lying, just too much work. Let's pretend

we're all gonna steal a mummy together. So we get together, we're like, hey guys, we're gonna Egypt. We hire our guides, we get to the pyramid and we're like, show me the mummy. Right? So step one, find a tomb, which is, you can imagine. Maybe it's not that easy. Find a tomb. Then you have to climb down something called the shaft, which sometimes went 100 feet underground.

Mm, hot. It was super dark and you could easily just fall and die. So it's dangerous. And I like to imagine that they were booey traps, but we weren't there. So I'm imagining. Finally, if we're still alive and got down to the coffin, you had to figure out how to freaking open it.

Now, if we could pull all that off, that's when the robbing truly begins, which shiver hands in there, rip off a arm or a foot. Yeah, if they couldn't or if you couldn't get a whole body, a whole mummy, you could just take like a finger, a big toe, a leg, a femur, you know, you could just take what you want. After that, you got to get back out of the tomb, hot back on our boat back to Europe and celebrate like we just robbed a bank because essentially you did. I think a lot of people forget that mummies were people who lived lives who had loved ones, right? And I mean, someone loved

them enough to pay for them to have the right kind of burial so they could be resurrected again in the afterlife. Their families weren't expecting a bunch of Europeans to come into town, rip them apart, and sell them. So yeah, not only was it wrong to sell mummies, it became technically illegal. And once the Egyptian government caught onto this, they were like, first of all, what the hell's wrong with you people?

Second of all, no, no. Get your nasty paws off my mummy, no. But did that stop people from stealing mummies? Of course not. So they got to bribing. They bribed tomb guards to basically look the other way. Then they'd pay off government officials to let them smuggle the bodies out of the country.

It's just a lot of work, right? I mean, I'd be like, look, can I just show you a titty? I could give you this, I could take this mummy? No, what about both titties? Two titties for mummy? You know, getting Egyptian mummies to Europe so people could eat them was getting more difficult,

more expensive, and people were paying attention. There were people watching these tombs to make sure that nobody was stealing from them. But demand wasn't going anywhere, so what does that mean? There are people watching these tombs to make sure nobody was stealing from them. But demand wasn't going anywhere, so what does that mean? Every body wants to get mummy powder. So everybody wants to get mummy powder, but it's getting harder and harder to come by. So what do we do to fix this?

Well, at some point, someone goes, hold up. Wait a minute. We're just eating old powdered up bodies, right? Well, we got bodies here. We can dry them out, grind them up, throw some cinnamon in them or something. You know, what's the difference? Once they're powder, who can even tell? No one will know. Who's gonna know? Nobody will know. Who's gonna know? Nobody will know. Who's gonna know? Nobody will know. What's gonna know? Nobody will know. Who's gonna know? Nobody will know. I mean, you know how it goes.

Whenever there's demand and money being made, what happens? Knock off, start gonna show up. Think designer handbags. It's not Gucci, it's Gucci. Mamiya, this is the brand Nanya. Nanya Business, what it's made of. Just eat it, you it's made of. Just eat it.

You little ther slut. And there was even DIY mummy up powder. Oh yes. Health experts had recipes to make your own at home, Miracle Mummyya. Q Campy Cooking Show Music. Hi, welcome to the Dark History Cooking Show. A plaz. A plaz. God, you guys are so big, aren't you doing anything around here? The Dark History Cooking Show. A applause. A applause.

God, you guys are so big. I think you do anything around here. Are you suffering from heartburn, gout, mesothi- mesothi- Uh-oh. Are you suffering from heartburn, gout, mesothi-lioma? Well, I'm Chef Serian, and I'm gonna teach you how to make your very own MAMIA.

To cure anything that's ailing you. With a little creativity and some elbow grease and actual elbows, you too can wow your guests with some homemade MAMIA. For best results, start with one carcass. AKA dead body. That's right, we're going grave to table with this one. Be sure to check first that this body is male preferably red-haired It's spicy and if possible, I highly suggest it be a virgin more tender more pure

Just pulls right off the bone this way then virgins Also, if you can check first to see how they died. You want your body to be fresh and young, no more than 24 years old, and ideally killed from something quick. You know, hanging, cart, suffocated, etc. So you've got your body. Next what you want to do is cut it into tiny little pieces, a sharp knife works best. Step 3. Sprinkle your chopped carcass with mer,

some aloe, and then let it soak in wine overnight. This may be a lengthy process, but we all know good things take time. In the morning, dry it out, and repeat this process of soaking and drying until your carcass pieces become smoky and fragrant. Mm, bone apple teeth. Your mummy is ready to be ground up, baked into brownies,

eaten on a skewer, maybe with some peppers, whatever you want to do, really. But for real, this was a legit recipe, and people did this all of the time, and it wasn't the only recipe, either. A simpler version involved getting the body of a hanged man. Honestly, low key, it was seem like a,

don't ask, don't tell, kind of vibe. Like, I don't know if you're out on a walk, and you're like, hey, dead body hanging from a tree, let me just take that really quick. I don't know. People weren't asking questions, okay? But you're gonna grab the body, right?

Okay, and then you're gonna dry it out in a oven and then cure the whole the whole body with salt, kind of like the salt tub the Egyptians had. It made the biasing more authentic, you know? I mean, at this point, people were just eating people. They were, these were just people eating people. No special pharaohs, no special process, just whatever dead body you could get your hands on, you can essentially grind it down and make it to mummy powder and just say hey it's a mummy. You know, I mean that's just what they did. It made sense to them. It makes no sense to us, but it made sense to them. And I'm sure in a thousand years people are going to be laughing at us for putting charcoal in our toothpaste. I guess it's like that, except it's dead bodies in your toothpaste.

So with the standards being dropped to any old dead body, as you can imagine, this leads to a lot of grave robbing. And maybe even murders, we don't fully know, again, some people just go missing and you're like, they must have died. And who could really taste a difference between like a peasant and a fero, but somehow this story gets even grosser

because you know where else people were sourcing their bodies from? Bog. Okay, we're back. So it's the 16th century. Listen, cannibalism is in. It's the new black baby. Man is the new chicken.

And they're looking for them in box, which, okay, look. Now, take a second here because when I was looking into this, I was like, okay, but what's a bog? It can't be what I think it is. Turns out it kind of was though. A bog is kind of in the same family as swamps and marshes, but the difference is bogs are so acidic, you can actually pickle a body in one of them. Yeah, so I guess if you're trying to murder someone, don't put them in a bog because they won't,

they'll be just be pickled. All the evidence will be there. Just looking out for you guys. So, whoops, okay. I'm rooting for the wrong team sometimes and I forget. Okay, so people were putting bodies in bogs and then pulling them out because they thought that this pickling process was similar to mummifying. Both of these methods were preserving the bodies, right? So we're just pickling bodies in bogs and eating them now,

which is cool, but let's take a few steps back to how we even got here in the first place. So this whole thing started again with people eating mummy powder. And their justification for that was like, hey, we're ingesting bichuman, which we all know is super healthy for us, which good, fair, great intentions. I'll give it to you, but also plot twist, you guys. There's no record of bichuman actually healing anything.

Yeah, the only records you can find out there was that Butchement really just gave people bad breath and stomach aches. That's it. It did nothing. It's like those boner pills. That's what I'm saying you guys. That's why I brought it up. You were all looking at me like, what the hell? Boner pills. Butchement, same thing. But somehow, we got to the part where ordinary everyday people are getting stolen out of their graves and being cooked up like beef jerky. I mean, we all fall victim to some kind of like crazy trends. I remember when I had a thigh master,

but this is a whole new level. Thankfully, the mummy trend starts to decline. Medicine is getting more advanced and people are starting to move on. But there was still a fascination with ancient Egyptian culture. In fact, it was so popular for the wealthy Victorians to host parties where they did mummy unboxings.

Like unboxing videos you watch on YouTube, but make it a mummy. That. The whole party, so you can invite your friends over. Hey girl, come on over. We're gonna have some wine. We're gonna play Scategories and we're gonna unbox a mummy. If you're the host of the party, you tell everyone to gather around because you're gonna unwrap the mummy Show off just buying mummies on the Victorian black market dragging them home and unraveling them in front of their friends. All right

That's what they did and because of all this mummy theft, they're incredibly rare today. Why were they all doing this? So at this time, people could not get enough of ancient Egyptian culture. They were taking their ancient artifacts, their literature, obviously their jewelry, their valuable sculptures, you name it, everything about Egyptian culture swept Europe.

And this became known as Egyptomania. Yeah, it sounds like a bad movie. It sounds like Charcnato, but that's actually what this was called, Egyptomania. And let's be honest here, it really never ended. I mean, it got me thinking like no wonder why there are so many unanswered questions about Egyptian culture because everyone freaking ate them.

And then I was thinking, this is just a thought I had. I was like, I wonder if this is what happened to Cleopatra. Is that why I like no one can find her? Did she get eaten? I don't know. Just asking the real questions. So much was taken from ancient Egyptian culture. Why would the European explorers stop there? How many other crazy things like this have happened?

That history has just glossed over. So you know when you hear that rich people have these say-on-says or weird parties, eat people, it's probably not a conspiracy theory. I mean, it's based off of something because we just learned that it happened before with mummies. People have been eating people for many many years and probably more to come. It wasn't just some two-year phase mom. I'm eating people forever mom but the thing is it's

not over. Mums are still available on the black market today. They cost millions of dollars. And if they're available, that's got to say, like, people are asking for them or trying to buy them, right? I don't know. Obviously, if they cost millions of dollars, you can take a wild guess as to who can afford that. Google the Sacklers.

They seem like the type that would have a mummy in the corner of their living room, but not really. Well, maybe. You know, I want to know. But cool news. Over in Cairo, Egypt, there's a very much anticipated museum about Egyptian history opening this fall. Now, there's gonna be recreations of temples, statues of pharaohs, and other artifacts. It's going to be called the Grand Egyptian Museum, aka the Gem. Great name, whoever came up with that, we love that. And as of right now, they're opening it on November 4th, 2022, which will be exactly 100 years after the original discovery of King Tut's tomb in 1922. Oh my god, iconic moment in global history. So if you're planning on checking out the

grand opening of the gem, here's what I'm asking. If you could just do me a little favor, can you like take some pics and send them to me? I want to see what it looks like. What the chances I'm going to be in Cairo, you know, like I would like to, but if you could just send some pictures my way. And if you happen to be working at the gem, you know know you could always invite me, I'll come. Okay, great! And given what we learned today, I hope that this museum has top-notch security because your pians cannot be tamed god damn it. Well everyone, thank you so much for learning with me today. Remember, don't be afraid to ask questions and to get the whole story because you deserve that. Now I'd love to hear your reactions to today's story, so make sure to get the whole story because you deserve that. Now, I'd love to hear your reactions to today's story, so make sure to use the hashtag dark history

over on social media so I can follow along and see what you're saying. And be like, what? I know. Join me over on my YouTuber. You can watch these episodes on Thursday after the podcast airs, and while you're there, don't forget to catch my murder mystery and make up.

I hope you have a wonderful day today. You make good choices, and I'll be talking to you next week. Goodbye. Dark history is an audio boom original. This podcast is executive produced by Bailey Sarian, Kimberly Jacobs, Junior McNeely from Three Arts, Kevin Grush, and Claire Turner from Made in Network. Writers, Katy Burr's, Alison Filoboz, Joey Skluzzo, and me, Bailey Sarian. Shot and edited by Tafadzwa Nema Rune Dway,

special thank you to our expert, Dr. Rose Lynn Campbell. And I'm your host, Bailey Sarian. Woo! Oh, mommy's not talking to you, then. Well, I'll see you later. Bye! I'm, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh