Party Boy

[gunny]

Saw an article that tobacco and cocaine were found in Ramses II tomb. Never heard of this. Product of the Amercas. Think this is bulls---?

[Forum Monk]

Please ignore the beeping, its my skeptic's radar.

[Beagle]

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/euro ... s_Atlantic

Goerlitz cites the evidence: Plants known to have originated exclusively in the New World, like cocaine and tobacco, were found in the tomb of the ancient Egyptian ruler Ramses II. Vintage 6,000-year- old rock drawings in Egypt's Wadi Hammamat depict reed boats with keels on the side.

This article may be what you saw Gunny. It was posted in yesterdays Archaeologica News. Also there was a TV program a few years back called the "Curse of the Cocaine Mummies". The show was quite compelling. Many mummies showed evidence of cocaine and tobacco use in their hair samples.

This article is about ancient seafaring.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Saw an article that tobacco and cocaine were found in Ramses II tomb. Never heard of this. Product of the Amercas. Think this is bulls---?

No.
A german professor examined more than 700 ancient Egyptian mummies (between 2,500 and 3,500 yrs old) and showed traces of tobacco, cocaine, opium/heroin, and cannabis, in the hair of a third of them!

In other words: 'they' can (still) legally prove you used drugs 3,500 years after the fact!

Tobacco, cocaine, opium/heroin are physically addictive drugs. Meaning users (upper class ancient Egyptians) were junks. And thus had a regular, daily intake. Meaning there must have been a steady supply. Meaning there was regular, global trade!

[gunny]

Why have these findings not been written up in approiate journals such as NATURE with feedback?

[Rokcet Scientist]

Why have these findings not been written up in approiate journals such as NATURE with feedback?

I saw it a couple years ago in a National Geographic TV documentary. So I'll bet they were published in appropriate publications but you just missed them, gunny.

[Beagle]

The TV show "Curse of the Cocaine Mummies" that I referred to was on Discovery Channel about 8 years ago. They may replay it one day. Possibly the show is for sale somewhere.

[Beagle]

http://www.newdawnmagazine.com/Articles ... mmies.html

It is within this context that we must watch The Curse of the Cocaine Mummies. Cocaine and tobacco are plants that originated in America and were unknown to the Old World if we are to believe the traditional paradigm. The first tear in the fabric of the dogma came on the 16th of September 1976 when the mummified remains of Ramses II arrived at the Museum of Mankind in Paris. To repair the damage to the mummy, a scientific team was assembled which included Dr. Michelle Lescot of the Natural History Museum (Paris). She received fragments from the bandages and found a plant fragment ensnared within the fibres. When she looked at it under a microscope she was amazed to discover that the plant was tobacco. Fearing that she had made some mistake she repeated her tests again and again with the same result every time: a New World plant had been found on an Old World mummy. The results, little known in North America, caused a sensation in Europe.

Gunny, here is a pretty good account of the entire debacle. Science has simply ignored the issue.

[Rokcet Scientist]

http://www.newdawnmagazine.com/Articles ... mmies.html

It is within this context that we must watch The Curse of the Cocaine Mummies. Cocaine and tobacco are plants that originated in America and were unknown to the Old World if we are to believe the traditional paradigm. The first tear in the fabric of the dogma came on the 16th of September 1976 when the mummified remains of Ramses II arrived at the Museum of Mankind in Paris. To repair the damage to the mummy, a scientific team was assembled which included Dr. Michelle Lescot of the Natural History Museum (Paris). She received fragments from the bandages and found a plant fragment ensnared within the fibres. When she looked at it under a microscope she was amazed to discover that the plant was tobacco. Fearing that she had made some mistake she repeated her tests again and again with the same result every time: a New World plant had been found on an Old World mummy. The results, little known in North America, caused a sensation in Europe.

Gunny, here is a pretty good account of the entire debacle. Science has simply ignored the issue.

More precisely, imo: the Club has simply ignored the issue. Because they can't face having to admit to the fact that there must have been regular global trade, and thus regular contact between Egypt and the New World, millennia ago!

[Minimalist]

Science has simply ignored the issue.

Gee. Where have I heard that before?

[Charlie Hatchett]

Science has simply ignored the issue.

Gee. Where have I heard that before?

[Cognito]

More precisely, imo: the Club has simply ignored the issue. Because they can't face having to admit to the fact that there must have been regular global trade, and thus regular contact between Egypt and the New World, millennia ago!

R/S, I understand your argument for global trade. However, why wouldn't someone just grow coca plants from the seeds? Chewing coca leaves was common in pre-Columbian Peru and Bolivia as practiced by ordinary people. It seems to me that the economics of an agricultural product being so expensive or restrictive that only Egyptian royalty could afford and/or use it would be a huge incentive for traders to acquire the plant by any means possible in order to make more profit.

Also, I believe remains of the plants in tombs would be necessary for most scientists to admit global trade as a possibility. Regardless, you're telling me that many of these mummies would fail a standard drug test today. Go figure.

[Minimalist]

It seems to me that the economics of an agricultural product being so expensive or restrictive that only Egyptian royalty could afford and/or use it would be a huge incentive for traders to acquire the plant by any means possible in order to make more profit.

But we can't really say that, Cogs. Most of the mummies dug out of tombs are members of the upper classes so, unless you start applying the same tests to people who are just planted in a hole in the ground we don't know how extensive the use of these plants may have been.

[Rokcet Scientist]

why wouldn't someone just grow coca plants from the seeds?

They did!
It didn't work.
Don't you think that's been tried over and over again?
Coca plants apparently require the Andean high altitude climate to grow.
There's very little of that within, say, 3,000 miles of the Nile, Cog!

[Forum Monk]

I resisted the idea in my first response, mainly because I felt the "global trade" issue was the main stumbling block to tobacco in Egypt. The idea of ancient global trade is like admitting there are hand-axes in North America. We don't speak of it.