Context: For a good portion of history, some Europeans taken to eating grounded up Egyptian mummies. This was because it was believed that it provided health benefits and even as an aphrodisiac. This was because of a mistranslation, because Bitumen (Asphalt) in Arabic is *mūmiyā*, which descend from the Persian *mumiya* and *mum*. It then became known as Mummia in Latin, but everyone mistook it for meaning “mummy” (Although to be completely fair, Bitumen *was* a substance used in the mummification process)
Mummia was used from the 12th century, until the 16th century, when Egypt started to ban the sale of mummies to Europeans. By this time, the mistranslation was figured out and Mummia as a health benefit was fully disregarded by the 18th century.
However, this didn’t stop Europeans from acquiring mummies. Besides as curiosities in unwrapping parties, one notable use for mummies was grinding them up and using them for paint called “Mummy Brown.” The last tube was made in the 1960s.
Edit: Made some clarifications
allenout on
The mummies would have been animal mummies, rather than human, but still.
DefTheOcelot on
Bro i dont give a fuck what it translated to, they could have thought it mummy translated to cheeseburger they’re still eating fucking corpses
3 Comments
Context: For a good portion of history, some Europeans taken to eating grounded up Egyptian mummies. This was because it was believed that it provided health benefits and even as an aphrodisiac. This was because of a mistranslation, because Bitumen (Asphalt) in Arabic is *mūmiyā*, which descend from the Persian *mumiya* and *mum*. It then became known as Mummia in Latin, but everyone mistook it for meaning “mummy” (Although to be completely fair, Bitumen *was* a substance used in the mummification process)
Mummia was used from the 12th century, until the 16th century, when Egypt started to ban the sale of mummies to Europeans. By this time, the mistranslation was figured out and Mummia as a health benefit was fully disregarded by the 18th century.
However, this didn’t stop Europeans from acquiring mummies. Besides as curiosities in unwrapping parties, one notable use for mummies was grinding them up and using them for paint called “Mummy Brown.” The last tube was made in the 1960s.
Edit: Made some clarifications
The mummies would have been animal mummies, rather than human, but still.
Bro i dont give a fuck what it translated to, they could have thought it mummy translated to cheeseburger they’re still eating fucking corpses
Utterly insane