Ancient Egyptians necked drinks of booze, drugs and body fluid, research reveals
Source: Daily Star – World News
Ancient Egyptians may have been getting off their bonce drinking psychedelic beverages. The cat-lovers, according to new research, mixed the likes of bodily fluid and booze into whacky drinks. The revelation comes after researchers uncovered a 2,000 year-old mug – and now they have suggested the ancient society used it to deliver psychedelic rituals.
Led by Davide Tanasi from the University of Southern Florida, the team used chemical dialysis to analyse the mug, which features the head of Bes, a god worshiped for protection, fertility, medicinal healing and magical purification. He explained: “There’s no research out there that has ever found what we found in this study.
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(Image: Tampa Museum of Art, Florida)
“For the first time, we were able to identify all the chemical signatures of the components of the liquid concoction contained in the Tampa Museum of Art’s Bes mug, including the plants used by Egyptians, all of which have psychotropic and medicinal properties.”
In a statement, Branko van Oppen, curator of Greek and Roman art at the Tampa Museum of Art said: “For a very long time now, Egyptologists have been speculating what mugs with the head of Bes could have been used for, and for what kind of beverage, like sacred water, milk, wine or beer.
“Experts did not know if these mugs were used in daily life, for religious purposes or in magic rituals.”
(Image: Print Collector/Getty Images)
The research, which saw Tanasi collaborate with researchers in both the US and Italy and was published in Nature’s Scientific Reports , was carried outy by using various techniques to analyse mulched scrapings taken from the inside of the jar. Inside, according to the University of Southern Florida, bodily fluids, drugs and booze were detected in the results.
Tanasi added: “Religion is one of the most fascinating and puzzling aspects of ancient civilizations.
“With this study, we’ve found scientific proof that the Egyptian myths have some kind of truth and it helps us shed light on the poorly understood rituals that were likely carried out in the Bes Chambers in Saqqara, near the Great Pyramids at Giza.”
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