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CairoScene
21-05-2025
- Health
- CairoScene
When Europe Ate Mummies: How Colonial Cannibalism Lasted Centuries
In the grainy photograph, the man sits cross-legged beside two stiff, linen-wrapped corpses. The vendor does not smile. His posture suggests this is ordinary business. In a sense, it was. That year, in 1865, Western travellers to Egypt could buy a mummified body. Once destined for the afterlife, these ancient dead had become commercial goods, shipped by the crate-load to Europe where they were crushed into pigment, powdered for medicine, unwrapped at parties, or, most disturbingly, consumed. The practice, colloquially referred to as 'mummy medicine', was more than a passing fad. For centuries, Europeans ingested the remnants of ancient Egyptians with the belief that doing so might heal them. The logic, though warped by distance and desire, was not incidental. It was built on a collision of scientific misunderstanding, colonial hunger, and philosophical confusion about what the dead owe the living. The belief in mumia's healing power was deeply rooted in prevailing medical theories of the time. One such theory was the doctrine of signatures, which held that natural substances resembled the ailments they were meant to cure. Mummified flesh, preserved for centuries, seemed an obvious candidate for treating decay, wounds, and internal deterioration. The origins of this strange commerce trace back to a linguistic and pharmacological confusion. In the Arabic language, the word 'mumia' referred to bitumen, a sticky, tar-like substance used by ancient Egyptians in the embalming process. Bitumen itself was thought to possess curative properties, especially for internal bleeding or bruising. By the 12th century, European apothecaries had begun importing it under the same name. But over time, the material truth behind mumia shifted. As medieval physicians and pharmacists grew more eager for the miraculous powers of 'mummy,' they began harvesting it not from mineral deposits, but from the mummified bodies themselves. Whether by misunderstanding or willful redefinition, the corpse had replaced the compound itself. By the 16th century, mummy powder, scraped from desiccated flesh and ground into a fine brown dust, was a fixture in European pharmacies. 'Take the bones of an unspoiled mummy,' advised French physician Guy de la Fontaine, 'reduce them to powder and mix them with a bit of wine.' This was mainstream medicine for them. A 1672 edition of the London Pharmacopoeia recommended mumia vera aegyptiaca, 'true Egyptian mummy', as a treatment for epilepsy, bruising, and internal hemorrhage. The French king Francis I is said to have carried mummy powder in a pouch around his neck. The British aristocracy swallowed it by the spoonful. Sanctified cannibalism was justified scientifically. To understand how such a practice could be so widely accepted, one must examine the medical logic of the time. Renaissance and early modern medicine was dominated by the humoral theory, in which health depended on the balance of four bodily fluids: blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. Illness indicated imbalance. Remedies were needed to counteract it. Mummified flesh, being dry and dark, was seen as ideal for absorbing excess humors. Moreover, the fact that these remains had withstood centuries in desert tombs seemed to signify resilience. 'There was also the allure of the exotic. Egypt, ancient, mysterious, and distant, offered an imaginative cure for European anxieties about death and decay,' Monica Hanna - Egyptian Egyptologist, scholar and Dean at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology & Maritime Transport - tells CairoScene. 'To ingest a mummy was, in effect, to ingest the magic of immortality.' But this logic carried a darker implication: to consume another human, stripped of name and identity, was acceptable so long as that human came from elsewhere, both geographically and historically. 'What mattered was not the life that had been lived, but the myth that could now be bottled and sold,' Hanna reflects. The dead served not only the sick, but the vain and the curious. By the 18th century, mummies had become fashionable in European drawing rooms. Mummy unwrapping parties, popular among Victorian elites, turned human remains into parlour spectacle. Attendees, often wealthy patrons or amateur scholars, would gather to watch an 'orientalist' expert, usually a male collector or physician, slowly peel away the layers of an ancient body. Gasps would follow the unveiling of teeth, nails, amulets. Sometimes a long-preserved hand would be passed around the room. These events were framed as scientific, even reverent. But their true function was voyeuristic. To unwrap a mummy was to metaphorically dominate the past, to possess not just the body, but the narrative of history. The echoes of these events are still seen today. 'The mummified body of Shepenese, an ancient Egyptian priestess, lies half-naked in a glass coffin in Switzerland's Abbey Library of St. Gallen — her chest unwrapped. Looted from her tomb in the early 19th century, Shepenese has been exhibited for decades as a tourist attraction. Now, over 200 Egyptian scholars, archaeologists, and civil society figures — joined by Swiss academics and cultural leaders — are demanding her repatriation.' Hanna tells Cairoscene. Meanwhile, artists were finding another use for the ancient dead. A pigment known as 'mummy brown' was made by boiling ground mummy powder with white pitch and myrrh, resulting in a rich, smoky hue ideal for glazing. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and other Romantic painters prized it for its depth. The irony was cruel: in being dismembered and repurposed, the mummies were being 'preserved' again, this time not in linen, but in oil on canvas. By the mid-19th century, demand had grown so great that supply faltered. Egyptian tombs, already ransacked, were running dry. Enterprising merchants responded with counterfeit mummies, sometimes made from the bodies of contemporary Egyptians, beggars, or criminals, treated with tar and buried briefly in sand to mimic ancient desiccation. The product is mystique. Though much of this trade occurred with the complicity of European and Egyptian middlemen alike, it was built on a profound erasure. The people whose bodies were sold, pharaohs and farmers, mothers and children, were never named. Their wishes, if recorded, were discarded. Their tombs, often sealed with prayers for peace, were breached in the name of curiosity and commerce. European museums and collectors often justified the trade as a civilizing mission: to rescue antiquity from ignorance. Yet as National Geographic notes, this collecting was often indistinguishable from plunder. During Napoleon's Egyptian campaign in 1798, thousands of artifacts were removed from temples and tombs. By the late 1800s, mummy exports from Egypt had become so routine that customs authorities listed them as bulk goods, alongside cotton and dates. In one reported case, hundreds of mummies were ground up for fertilizer. 'Medical cannibalism, though framed as a rational practice, rested on a deeply irrational foundation: that the dead could be consumed without consequence if they were far enough removed from one's own sense of self. Ingesting a corpse was unthinkable—unless that corpse was foreign, ancient, and exoticised,' Hanna tells CairoScene. In this, mummy consumption reveals something enduring about the Western philosophical relation to the 'Other'. As philosopher Michel de Montaigne wrote in 1580, condemning European cannibalism of the dead, 'We call barbarous what is not in our customs.' Yet the real barbarity, he implied, lies in the forgetting of the dead's humanity. Scientific historian Louise Noble, writing in the journal Early Modern Literary Studies, describes the practice as 'corporeal colonialism', the literal digestion of the colonial subject. It was not just a metaphor. The British, the French, the Germans, each in their way, absorbed Egypt into their bodies. 'The practice of selling mummies as street commodities, often to tourists, is perhaps the most striking example of cultural commodification,' Hanna asserts. It reflected the pervasive belief that the Egyptian past, with its mysticism and grandeur, could be distilled into an object for consumption. These mummies were displayed as curiosities in European drawing rooms, or worse, sold to apothecaries for use in potions, powders, and medicines. This commodification of human remains, once part of sacred rites, became a direct symbol of the way colonial powers extracted value from native cultures, often disregarding their intrinsic cultural significance in favor of economic gain. Even as medical cannibalism waned by the late 1800s, its legacy lingered. Anthropologist Beth Conklin, writing in Current Anthropology, has shown how the logic of medicinal corpse consumption often reemerged in other forms of epistemic violence: in the dissection of colonised bodies, the display of human remains in museums, and the extraction of DNA from the dead without consent. Many of the mummies exported during this time still reside in European institutions. The British Museum alone holds over 120 mummies. In recent years, calls for repatriation have grown louder. In 2022, Egypt formally requested the return of the Rosetta Stone. Other requests have followed for human remains. Yet few have been granted. Museums often cite preservation, access, and educational value. The irony is painful: that those once consumed for health are now exhibited for knowledge, still denied rest. "What can we, as Egyptians, do? Accountability for the centuries-long trade in Egypt's dead must go beyond mere repatriation,' Hanna asserts. 'It requires a multifaceted response—one that includes formal apologies from the institutions and nations involved, acknowledging the harm done and the deep disrespect shown to Egyptian culture.' It is tempting to dismiss this story as a bizarre footnote in the annals of medical history, a quirk of the pre-modern mind. But its contours echo into the present. It reminds us how easily knowledge and power can overwrite reverence. How the desire to understand can slip into the impulse to possess. The vendor sits beside his cargo, silent, indifferent. We do not know his name. We do not know the names of those beside him. But we do know this: they were not ingredients. They were people, who lived, and died, and were embalmed with care in the hope of an afterlife. What they received instead was a second death, one not of biology, but of narrative.
CBS News
08-05-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
New Pope Leo XIV honored by Trump: "It is such an honor to realize that he is the first American Pope"
Washington — President Trump celebrated the election of the first U.S.-born pope, calling it a "Great Honor" that Robert Francis Prevost, who chose Leo XIV as his papal name, was selected Thursday as the first pontiff to hail from the U.S. "Congratulations to Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who was just named Pope," Mr. Trump said in a post on Truth Social. "It is such an honor to realize that he is the first American Pope. What excitement, and what a Great Honor for our Country. I look forward to meeting Pope Leo XIV. It will be a very meaningful moment!" Prevost, 69 was born in Chicago and attended Villanova University before becoming a missionary in Peru. He was elected and accepted his fate as the next Bishop of Rome, leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics earlier Thursday. The U.S. has the fourth-largest Catholic population, after Brazil, Mexico and the Philippines. The late Francis I was the first pope born in the Western Hemisphere, as a native of Buenos Aires.
9 News
07-05-2025
- Politics
- 9 News
Cardinals set to choose new pope in largest-ever conclave
1 of 19 Attribution: Getty The largest group of Catholic cardinals in history will begin their anticipated secret deliberations on May 7 to choose a new Pope. The new pope will be the successor to Francis I, who died on April 21 at age 88 after a 12-year papacy.
Yahoo
26-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Pope Francis obituary: modernising pontiff who took the Gospel to the margins
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Pope Francis I, who has died aged 88, was the first Pope from the Americas, and the first from outside Europe for 1,200 years. He was also the first to live at the Vatican around the corner from his predecessor, said The Daily Telegraph, having been elected following the shock resignation of Benedict XVI – and the first Jesuit to lead the Roman Catholic Church. Known for his belief in social justice, he marked himself out with his informal style. "Buonasera," he famously greeted the crowds gathered in St Peter's Square following his election, aged 76. He dressed simply, eschewing the red shoes and ermine-trimmed cape Benedict had worn. Instead of moving into the papal apartments, he remained in the Vatican guest house; and was soon seen driving around in an old Renault 4. "My people are poor, and I am one of them," he said. He believed that clericalism – the idea that priests stand above the people they serve – was an "evil" at the root of many of the Church's ills, including its failure to tackle clerical abuse. On the first birthday he celebrated as Pope, he invited three men who lived on the streets near the Vatican to join him for breakfast. And on Maundy Thursday that year, when priests traditionally wash men's feet, Pope Francis washed the feet of the young inmates of a detention centre – two of whom were female, and one Muslim. "As he dried each one, he bent over and kissed it." His first pastoral visit outside Rome was to the island of Lampedusa, where he met asylum seekers from Africa and condemned the "global indifference" to their fate and that of others like them. He wanted, he said, to bring the Gospel to the "peripheries", to society's margins. He travelled widely, visiting hot spots including Myanmar and Iraq, and appointed 20 cardinals from countries including Rwanda and Tonga that had never previously had them. In his encyclicals, he sought to move the Church on from arguments about sexual morality, and to focus its mission on fighting climate change and global poverty. Many Catholics adored him, said The Times. Some who had left the Church returned; others looked at it with fresh eyes. But mainstream conservatives were angered by many of his reforms (including his restrictions on the Tridentine Latin Mass beloved by traditionalists). In the US in particular, they objected to his attacks on the excesses of capitalism ("greed looking for easy gain"); and they were "alarmed" by the ambiguity of his statements on moral issues. "Who am I to judge?" he told a journalist in 2013, when asked about gay priests. Though welcomed by progressives, this remark did not signal the start of radical reforms. He opposed gay marriage and gay adoption, and he was steadfast on the sanctity of human life. But he urged priests to welcome gay parishioners; he expressed support for same-sex civil unions; and he said that priests could give same-sex couples spontaneous "non-liturgical" blessings, and that trans people could serve as godparents. For some Catholics, he often seemed to go too far; for others, not far enough, said The New York Times. A "tough administrator", he reformed the constitution of the Roman Curia, so that he could appoint women to senior positions previously held by clerics, and he opened up synods to lay delegates including women; but he opposed the ordination of women as deacons. The upshot was that conservatives, led often by the likes of the American cardinal Raymond Burke, kept rallying against him, and successfully pushed back on some of his proposals (such as to allow married men to become priests in the Amazon, where there was a severe shortage of clerics); while some liberals felt let down that the revolution had never come. In Germany, there was even talk of a schism. Still, he did not stifle views he disagreed with. He believed in a patient process, of listening and talking before going forward. "Bosses cannot always do what they want," he said. "They have to convince." Jorge Bergoglio was born in Buenos Aires in 1936 into an Italian immigrant family. His parents, who were middle class, though not well-off, spoke Spanish at home, but Jorge learnt Italian from his grandparents. At school, he excelled at chemistry. Outside it, he loved football and the tango. His mother hoped he would become a doctor; but aged 16, he walked into a church and realised, he said, that God was waiting for him there. At 21, he suffered severe pneumonia and had to have part of his lung removed. Soon afterwards, he entered a Jesuit seminary, and after 11 years of training he was ordained. In 1973, he was appointed to lead the Jesuits in Argentina; three years later, the brutal military junta took over. Two of his priests were arrested while working in a slum area, and tortured during five months of detention. His enemies would later spread rumours that he'd abandoned the pair, said The Guardian. In fact, he had petitioned the military leaders to release them; he'd also helped others to flee Argentina. However, his failure to denounce the junta, or embrace radical liberation theology, alienated him from his order, as did his authoritarian leadership style. As a result, he was sent into a form of internal exile; he emerged with a more compassionate, more consultative approach. In 1992, he was made auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires, in which role he affirmed his commitment to the poor. In 1998, he became archbishop. He was relieved not to be made Pope in 2005 (he said that a faction had backed him, in a bid to block Cardinal Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict); but when Ratzinger stood down, he was deemed the right man to restore a Church reeling from a series of crises, including the clerical-abuse scandal. In that regard, he committed some serious errors – such as defending a Chilean bishop who had been accused of covering up a priest's abuse. Following a backlash, he admitted to having made a "grave mistake", and reached out to the abuse victims he had accused of slander. He gave survivors of clerical abuse access to documents from Church proceedings for use in lay courts; and he brought in rules obliging Church officials to report evidence of abuse or its cover-up – but only to Church authorities, not civil ones. His advancing age did not hold him back: one of his last visits, in 2023, was to South Sudan and DR Congo; nor did ill health stop his political interventions. In February, he wrote a letter criticising Donald Trump's plans for the mass deportation of undocumented migrants. "All I am trying to do is advance the Gospel," he once said. "But imperfectly, because sometimes I make mistakes."
Daily Mirror
26-04-2025
- General
- Daily Mirror
Pope Francis funeral: Touching note to be buried in coffin with pontiff revealed
Pope Francis has been entombed in Rome's Santa Maria Maggiore basilica with a sealed note following his funeral today - the note remembers him as 'one of the people' Pope Francis I will be buried with a touching note commemorating the "simple" life he led during his 13 years as pontiff, it has been revealed. The late leader of the Catholic Church's shock death aged 88 on Easter Monday, just weeks after he was discharged from Rome's Gemelli hospital following a bout of double pneumonia, has resulted in an outpouring of affection from around the world. Vatican City representatives have revealed 200,000 people were present in the microstate for his funeral this morning, during which service leader Giovanni Battista Re, the dean of the College of Cardinals, commemorated his Pontificate as one that "touched minds and hearts". He will be buried with a document bearing similar words remembering the "simple and much-loved shepherd" this afternoon. The Pope will be buried in Santa Maria Maggiore, a basilica in central Rome the Pontiff frequented before his death, in a wooden coffin lined with zinc. Placed on his body before it was sealed on Friday was a page-long biographical obituary remembering the "simple and much-loved shepherd" who was "one of the people". The note adds that he "travelled far and wide across the city on the underground and the bus, cooking his own meals because he felt one of the people". After adding the late Pope would "remain in the heart of the Church and of humanity", the obituary closed remembering the man who left a "wonderful testimony of humanity", saying: "Francis has left everyone a wonderful testimony of humanity, life of a saint and universal fatherhood." The obituary was placed in a metal canister and sealed with his body inside the zinc-lined coffin, the lid of which carried his name, a cross and two coats of arms - one of his own and another of the papacy. The page-long account was read out during his funeral by Cardinal Re during the service before he was carried to the basilica where he has now been laid to rest. The Santa Maria Maggiore basilica was chosen by the late Pope as one where he would "always stop to pray". In his final testament, the Pope said: 'I wish my final earthly journey to end precisely in this ancient Marian sanctuary, where I would always stop to pray at the beginning and end of every Apostolic Journey, confidently entrusting my intentions to the Immaculate Mother, and giving thanks for her gentle and maternal care.' The Pope also asked his tomb be "prepared in the burial niche in the side aisle between the Pauline Chapel (Chapel of the Salus Populi Romani) and the Sforza Chapel of the Basilica". The testament added: "The tomb should be in the ground; simple, without particular ornamentation, bearing only the inscription: Franciscus. May the Lord grant a fitting reward to all those who have loved me and who continue to pray for me. The suffering that has marked the final part of my life, I offer to the Lord, for peace in the world and for fraternity among peoples."
