Pharaohs of Egypt tested positive on marijuana
The German toxicologist Dr. Svetlana Balabanova has tested mummies of the Ancient Egypt for the drugs, and it’s positive as she demonstrates in her work the clear traces of cocaine, nicotine and marijuana (THC in particular) are present in tissues of the mentioned mummies.
Another funny fact: none of nicotine or coca originates in the Old World, but both things are truly American.
It’s okay, that the known history record asserts the trade with America has been established (or re-established?) some time in the 1500s-1600s, except that the old guys of the Ancient Egypt have been already entirely packed with the exclusively American ‘controlled substances’ thousands years before any columbuses, corteses, and walters raleighs. Who’s the plug?
Frankly, scientists constantly thirsty for the things like Ancient Egypt as well as any other Ancient Something-else. This time they have realized the chemical contents of the bodies, so well-preserved for almost a myriad years, may lead to greater discoveries like pointing out who crossed the Atlantic for the drug trade long before pirates of the Golden Age of Piracy did it.
So, they start digging it humbly rather far ago, in the 19th century, suggested there are certain political barriers for doing it freely. They really rush in 1924, continue in 1948, and finally the most of discoveries in the field belong to the 1989-1995, scored by Dr. S. Balabanova and the team.
Yay, the Pharaohs were the dudes!
All points to that the Pharaohs of the Ancient Egypt and their Ancient Egyptian high priests religiously or for-health were the dudes, and that’s why we call them “high priests,” hahahaha, kidding.
Provided, a king or a queen, and their retinue consuming marijuana and hashish all the way being stoned AF make no actual surprise. Of course, they are hilarious, no doubt, yet they are not any unique occurrence of the continuously impaired rulers, no matter with what.
The real question, however, arises from the naughty fact that neither cocaine nor nicotine is present in the plants of the known Old World, while either nicotine and cocaine are only found in the plants of the New World also known as America. Egyptology? Anyone?
Pharaohs smoked Marijuana, while Cocaine and Nicotine they consumed as edible
STUDY “Presence of drugs in different tissues of an Egyptian mummy” by Franz Parsche and Andreas Nerlich, published in “Fresenius’ Journal of Analytical Chemistry (1995)”, states that levels of THC suggest an inhalation of marijuana or hashish, while cocaine and nicotine are found mostly in the liver, so the latter two were eaten as edible. Where, the nicotine must not be necessarily a tobacco because, for example, eating tomato and potato through all life shows nicotine in the body as well. Here is the quote:
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By use of radio immunoassay systems and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, significant amounts of various drugs were detected in internal organs (lung, liver, stomach, intestines) as well as in hair, bone, skin/muscle and tendon. These analyses revealed a significant deposition of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), nicotine (and its metabolite cotinine) and cocaine in the tissue from the mummy. The concentration profiles additionally provide evidence for the preferential ways of consumption: Thus, the highest levels of THC in lung specimens point to an inhalation of this drug — as it has been assumed from known ritual smoking ceremonies —, while nicotine and cocaine containing drugs showed their highest concentrations in the intestines and liver, so that they seem to have been consumed perorally.
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May it mean the Ancient Egypt traded to the Americas for nicotine and cocaine!!?
Marijuana traces in Pharaohs’ bodies entertain the marijuana community adding a whole lot to the marijuana culture, enigmatically. And, the whole of Egyptology really wants to explain it: how’s the hell that nicotine and cocaine landed in the tissues of the mummies from the New World while the latter’s got officially discovered only in 1492 by Columbus.
Even though tomatoes and potatoes do contain nicotine, neither of these plants was officially known to the Ancient Egypt, and there is no solid excuse about the fact that the mummies have packed weed and cocaine like 5,000 years ago, ages and ages before Christopher Columbus’s touchdown in the Caribbean.
Pharaoh’s Plug
The Ancient Egyptians have never been accounted as super good sailors, doing mostly on land, that may mean someone else delivered goods to them. Once I met a curious version that attracted my attention as a clear example of the out-of-the-box thinking: What if Pharaoh’s plug traveled not the way over the Atlantic but used the land route through Asia and China and then someone from Asia, even if not Chinese, crossed the Pacific? Filipinos and Indonesians were good sailors, right? Besides, on the top north where the Bering straight is, the distance between the two worlds is short enough and even shorter, it is merely 82 kilometers wide (equals to 51 land miles or 45 nautical miles, translates into 6-8 hours to travel by sail with a small sailboat, practically behind the corner).
Here — A 2013 study suggests the possibility of contact between Ecuador and East Asia
We should not forget about the Olmec, the ancient culture of the Americas existed in the period roughly from 1200 BCE to 400 BCE, very roughly. More important, there is a claim they have contacted Africa.
No, we should not believe everything written. I only wonder what will happen first, either archeologists will find the evidence, or genetics will resurrect (or recreate) Ramses II and will just ask him. Like, what if they are right that the memory presumably is stored in molecules? Like, there is molecular storage in the DNA. Hmm, you know, this part of science moves on pretty fast too.
Mad?
Yes, but the teleport was once mad too, but it is not now and already invented, not yet sending people as a whole into any point; however, it is not a total miracle anymore 😜👍
Relevant enough (Critics)
Critics, presumably driven by envy, hits the finds, of course. The defense suggests that Dr. Svetlana Balabanova used a hair test which is accepted in a court of law as a proof that a substance was consumed while the person was alive, right now, in the modern age. How it works — a sample is washed in alcohol, then the solution is tested, while such a method is used to apply a hammer of law upon people nowadays, in the modern age. So, WHY for the love of gods the SAME method should not work perfect for a Pharaoh and his/her priests and priestesses? Bullet-proof enough, I think.
Wonder why I refer to a Pharaoh as “her” along with “his”? Of course, the tradition did not allow a feminine ruler in the Ancient Egypt, as far as we know, however, there were feminine rulers who disguised themselves as men. Hatshepsut was such, the most famous of the Egyptian feminine princes wearing a fake beard. Also, some sources suggest Nefertiti masqueraded herself under a man’s look. The monuments devoted to her rebellious husband, those made closer to the end of his rule, obviously show boobs and heaps as if he was a woman — some scholars think that Akhenaten was an alien, some scholars think those were the wrongs of genetics, but some think that Nefertiti took over the power eventually and just dressed as a Pharaoh-man (presumably the only way for a Pharaoh-woman to align to the tradition of the Ancient Egypt). Of course, she puffed, or we just love to think so, why not? Even if she had never usurped the absolute power, she was still a Queen of Egypt involved absolutely into religious spiritual rituals and most probably enjoying goods from the Americas and certainly from the Middle East, for gods sake.
IMG: Akhenaten and Nefertiti and their children (src:wikipedia)
“Those mummies are modern fakes” — the envy still shouts. Yack, yack, all of them, starting from RAMSES THE SECOND himself resting now in peace in the Cairo Museum!! Is it what you say? Do you hear yourself? Silence is gold more often than kept.
Ramses II
Ramses the Second, often referred to as Ramses the Great, was the magnificent Pharaoh of Egypt. He ruled the country for 66 years as the second longest reign, and died at the age of about 90 years old, his period is considered the Golden Age of Egypt. Let’s see what they’ve found in his body then.
Ramses II (1292–1190 BCE) ruled Egypt for 66 years!!! now R.I.P. at Cairo Museum, photo credit, creative commons license (mods applied: rotation 90% to be aligned with the actual position of the mummy in the museum as I’ve been contemplating him for an hour there back in 2003)
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The presence of Nicotiana sp. and Anthemideae [plant known as chamomile belong to genera of this tribe] in the abdominal cavity of Rameses II, as plant substances utilized in the preservation process by the Ancient Egyptians. Both [substances] were discovered during the re-examination of his [Rameses II] mummy in Paris in 1976, the former as the fragments of leaf and the latter as massive amounts of pollen (>500,000 grains/cc) (Layer-Lescot 1985; Leroi-Gourhan 1985). The evidence for Nicotiana, tobacco, was published in 1978.
[…] a point is not lost on Balabanova et al. (1993). A short note on this research in Lancet (1993) elicited some sharp responses particularly as the evidence was extended to show the use of hashish (Cannabis Sativa) and cocaine (Erythroxylon coca), the latter at a date earlier than any record in the New World (cf. Cartmel et al. 1991). Like the use of opium, cannabis usage either in religious ritual or medicine is possible.
» source: Rameses II and the tobacco beetle, Buckland & Panagiotakopulu
Yet another doubt suggests there is no single depiction about any cocaine consumption by Pharaohs, neither showing the marijuana tokes, while all Egypt is full of pictures, and those pictures show many aspects, if not every aspect, of life.
To my personal perception, this “move” is weak or stupid or both because it’s not that “every aspect” got pictured, even though they were many.
Secondarily, when you meet somebody insisting the Egyptian script is perfectly decrypted, why not you ask him then, if it is so, the Egyptian script is perfectly deciphered why are the Senet’s rules yet a mystery?
Wed, 08/Nov/23