59: Cannibalism as Medicine?? The Wild trend of Mummy Powder
38:09 Share

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner and more.

So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24, 7, 365 days a year. So you're protected no matter what. Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.

This is an ad by BetterHelp. What?

What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better, even when it's impossible to make time for them. Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow.

Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?

BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere, and the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash darkhistory today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash darkhistory.

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 going to be talking about all things spooky, ooky, like Satan, of course, clowns, mummies...

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, we look so good. I called Paul and I was like, what are you gonna wear today, girl? And Paul was like, I'm gonna 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? Ugh. 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 a mommy. Cool. See?

Yeah, you see, you 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, baby, I'm there. I'm there all day.

Nom, nom, nom, nom. You know, I'm right there. I just like, I know everything about cannibalism. Well, 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 snubbed.

But anyways, what if I told you that cannibalism was actually considered medicine for hundreds of years just across the pond in merry old England?

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 ya 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 isn't a museum 'cause 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 upon centuries, there has to be or had 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 bop. The Egyptians invented pretty much everything, okay? Like the calendar, math, but they even did some fun stuff like eye makeup and breath mints. Where would you guys be without breath mints, 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 breath mint 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 going to 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. Great. And they believed 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 of 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. The priest would take a big old hook, stick it up the nose, and just scoop out the brain through the nose. Like, just scoop.

scooping it out. Then they would cut open the body, get right on in there, take out the organs, the liver, the lung, the stomach, 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. Going to find out, you know. Step four, you got to 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 perfume and 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 going to let you in. He's going to be like, no, 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 the deal. And then of course you had to finish it off with the iconic mummy fit, the OOTD mummy outfit.

Pose. Pose. We're rocking it, huh girl? 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 the 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 setting 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 to 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 they need to collect further DNA for like a crime or something, right? But other than that, what are you doing? You're 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. ♪

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner and more.

So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24, 7, 365 days a year. So you're protected no matter what. Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customer surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. This is an ad by BetterHelp. What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better even when it's impossible to make time for them.

Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow. Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?

BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere, and the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash darkhistory today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash darkhistory.

Europeans started to get a little curious about the world around them. Tons of people were quote unquote exploring faraway 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't.

Eye 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. Right? There's nothing. They get to Cairo. And they're like, what the fuck? Like, what is this? Seeing pyramids and stuff? Sand? What? What?

Gigantic pyramids, breath mints, 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. Ornate 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 a 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.

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 going to paint a picture. Bob Rossett.

One day, an archaeologist 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 finding 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 gotta get out there and see what I can find. But he's not familiar with this specific area and 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 guide is like, no way, 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's like, damn, this is some next level shit.

So this guy isn't used to it because he's used to like burying 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 'cause it's a mummy baby. In addition to finding the mummies 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 bitumen. It smells like bitumen.

It must be bitumen. I mentioned bitumen 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 wasn't 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, bitumen.

Doctors would give out bitumen for everything. And I mean everything. If you had a toothache, bitumen. Skin disease, bitumen. Fevers, leprosy, gout, brain aneurysms. Stubbed your big toe, bitumen. And that's just to name a few. It's just fun to say. Bitumen, bitumen, bitumen, bitumen, bitumen, bitumen.

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 bitumen. Like baby, we're about to make a lot of money. Okay. So they're like, we see the bitumen in this tomb, but how are we going to get it from the mummies and take it back home?

to ingest it, 'cause I do have a stomach ache, so I need to take some bitumen right now, but how am I gonna do that? 'Cause 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 would ingest 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, the muscle, all of it. And yes, all of that was powdered down

and people were eating it. So all of this is going on and this ends up getting the attention of the King of England who then decides to step in. Whoa.

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner, and more. So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24, 7, 365 days a year so you're protected no matter what.

This is an ad by BetterHelp. What?

What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better, even when it's impossible to make time for them. Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow.

Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?

BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere, and the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash darkhistory today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash darkhistory.

Have a great day. Bitumen 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 Lefebvre.

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 dead, mix 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 and 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 as the right kind of mummy? He said that the ideal mummy would be from Egypt or Libya. And 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 the 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 Gwyneth Paltrow would have been all about. She's like, steam your vag, 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, regains sensitive and intellectual life, end quote. 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 mumia which is a translation from the arabic word resin

That all goes back to that tar-like substance from the mummification process that all these people believed was actually bitumen. So one archaeologist is poking around a tomb. On the walls is some writing in Arabic. Now, one guy who can read it is like, hey, I think that says mummia. It says mummia right here, you guys. Should we just call them mummies? And a second archaeologist might have said like, hold up, mummia, as in like the ancient word for bitumen?

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. That's unfortunate. Years later in 1597, John Gerard, a well-known herbalist and author at the time, took a look at Mumia and he was like, "LOL, wait a second.

"I know bitumen, this is not bitumen." So he went back through all of the information he could find to figure it out. It turns out he was onto something. The tar used on mummies was not bitumen, 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 damn day. Piss asphalt? Piss asphalt. I was like, "Are you sure that's how you pronounce it?" Piss asphalt.

I don't know you guys, what is up? I don't know, this world is just weird. So you're probably thinking piss asphalt is probably when someone pisses on asphalt, right? 'Cause that's what I thought. Piss 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, Mumia. Mumia felt cool. It didn't have a negative connotation. So the Europeans were still going ham for Mumia. Mummy 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 what 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 doesn't have- Well, he is a bone. He is a boner. Paul is a boner. Anyway, your local corner store, even your doctor would have mumia on hand because there was still a big demand. But getting mummies out of Egypt 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 going to 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 as you can imagine, maybe it's not that easy.

Find it, too. Then you had to climb down something called the shaft, which sometimes went 100 feet underground. Mmm, 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 booby 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. We'd shove our hands in there, rip off an 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, gotta get back out of the tomb, hop 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 steal mummies, it became technically illegal. And once the Egyptian government caught onto this, they were like, first of all, what the hell is wrong with you people? Second of all, no, no. Get your nasty paws off my mummy. No. No.

But did that stop people from stealing mummies? Of course not. So they got to bribing. They'd bribe 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? And I could give you this, I could take this mummy? No? What about both titties? Two titties for a mummy?

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? This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner and more.

So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24-7, 365 days a year, so you're protected no matter what. Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customer surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. This is an ad by BetterHelp. What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better even when it's impossible to make time for them.

Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow. Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?

BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere, and the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash darkhistory today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash darkhistory.

Everybody 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. I mean, you know how it goes. Whenever there's demand and money being made, what happens? Knockoffs are gonna show up. Think designer handbags. It's not Gucci. It's Coochie. Mumia, this is the brand Nunya. Nunya business what it's made of. Just eat it, you little thirst slut.

And there was even DIY Mumia powder. Ah, yes. Health experts had recipes to make your own at home miracle Mumia. Cue campy cooking show music. Hi, welcome to the Dark History Cooking Show. Applause.

God, you guys are so embarrassing. Do you do anything around here? Are you suffering from heartburn, gout, mesothelioma, mesothelioma? Uh oh. Are you suffering from heartburn, gout, mesothelioma? Well.

I'm Chef Sarian and I'm going to teach you how to make your very own mummia 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 mummia.

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. Spicy. And if possible, I highly suggest it be a virgin. More tender, more pure.

Just pulls right off the bone this way, them 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, 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 three: sprinkle your chopped carcass with myrrh, 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. Mmm, bone apple teeth.

Your mommy 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 seemed 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 going to grab the body, right? Okay, and then you're going to dry it out in an oven and then cure the whole body with salt, kind of like the salt tub the Egyptians had. It made the body seem more authentic, you know? I mean, at this point, people were just eating people. 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. 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've died." And who could really taste the difference between like a peasant and a Pharaoh? But somehow this story gets even grosser because you know where else people were sourcing their bodies from?

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner and more.

So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24, 7, 365 days a year. So you're protected no matter what. Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.

This is an ad by BetterHelp.com.

What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better, even when it's impossible to make time for them. Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow.

Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?

BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere, and the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash darkhistory today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash darkhistory.

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 bogs. 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.

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 bitumen, which we all know is super healthy for us. Which, good, fair, fine.

great intentions. I'll give it to you. But also, plot twist, you guys. There's no record of bitumen actually healing anything. Yeah. The only records you can find out there was that bitumen 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. Bitumen. Same thing. But

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 mummia 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.

the whole party so you'd invite your friends over. "Hey girl, come on over. We're gonna have some wine. We're gonna play Scattergories 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 and show off. Just buying mummies on the Victorian black market, dragging them home and unraveling them in front of their friends. Alright, 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 Sharknado, 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, 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, you know? 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 seances or like 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. Mummies are still available on the black market today. They cost millions of dollars and if they're available, that's gotta 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, but maybe.

But cool news, over in Cairo, Egypt, there's a very much anticipated museum about Egyptian history opening this fall. Now there's going to 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

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 are 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 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 Europeans 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 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 YouTube where 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 makeup. I hope you have a wonderful day today. You make good choices and I'll be talking to you next week. Goodbye. Bye.

Dark History is an Audioboom original. This podcast is executive produced by Bailey Sarian, Kimberly Jacobs, Junia McNeely from 3Arts, Kevin Grush, and Claire Turner from Maiden Network. Writers, Katie Burrs, Alison Filobos, Joey Scaluzzo, and me, Bailey Sarian. Shot and edited by Tafadzwa Nemarundwe. Special thank you to our expert, Dr. Rose Lynn Campbell. And I'm your host, Bailey Sarian.

Mummies don't talk, do they? I'll see you later. Bye!