Mummia, mumia, or originally mummy was any of several different preparations in the history of medicine, from "mineral pitch" to "powdered human mummies". It originated from Arabic mūmiyā "a type of resinous bitumen found in Western Asia and used curatively" in traditional Islamic medicine, which was translated as pissasphaltus (from "pitch" and "asphalt") in ancient Greek medicine. In medieval European medicine, mūmiyā "bitumen" was transliterated into Latin as mumia meaning both "a bituminous medicine from Persia" and "mummy". Merchants in apothecaries dispensed expensive mummia bitumen, which was thought to be an effective cure-all for many ailments. It was also used as an aphrodisiac.
Beginning around the 12th century when supplies of imported natural bitumen ran short, mummia was misinterpreted as "mummy", and the word's meaning expanded to "a black resinous exudate scraped out from embalmed Egyptian mummies". This began a period of lucrative trade between Egypt and Europe, and suppliers substituted rare mummia exudate with entire mummies, either embalmed or desiccated. After Egypt banned the shipment of mummia in the 16th century, unscrupulous European apothecaries began to sell fraudulent mummia prepared by embalming and desiccating fresh corpses.
By the 18th century, doubts about mummia's medical value had grown and its use became rarer, though it was still occasionally sold into the early 20th century. Artists in the 17–19th centuries also used ground-up mummies to tint a popular oil paint called mummy brown.
Terminology The etymologies of both English mummia and mummy derive from Medieval Latin mumia, which transcribes Arabic mūmiyā "a kind of bitumen used medicinally; a bitumen-embalmed body" from mūm "wax (used in embalming)", which descend from Persian mumiya and mum.Online Etymology Dictionary, mummy.The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, mummy.
The Oxford English Dictionary records the complex semantic history of mummy and mummia. Mummy was first recorded meaning "a medicinal preparation of the substance of mummies; hence, an unctuous liquid or gum used medicinally" (c. 1400), which Shakespeare used jocularly for "dead flesh; body in which life is extinct" (1598), and later "a pulpy substance or mass" (1601). Second, it was semantically extended to mean "a sovereign remedy" (1598), "a medicinal bituminous drug obtained from Arabia and the East" (1601), "a kind of wax used in the transplanting and grafting of trees" (1721), and "a rich brown bituminous pigment" (1854). The third mummy meaning was "the body of a human being or animal embalmed (according to the ancient Egyptian or some analogous method) as a preparation for burial" (1615), and "a human or animal body desiccated by exposure to sun or air" (1727). Mummia was originally used in mummy'''s first meaning "a medicinal preparation…" (1486), then in the second meaning "a sovereign remedy" (1741), and lastly to specify "in mineralogy, a sort of bitumen, or mineral pitch, which is soft and tough, like shoemaker's wax, when the weather is warm, but brittle, like pitch, in cold weather. It is found in Persia, where it is highly valued" (1841). In modern English usage, mummy commonly means "embalmed body" as distinguished from mummia "a medicine" in historical contexts.Mummia or mumia is defined by three English mineralogical terms.All definitions are from the OED (2016). Bitumen (from Latin bitūmen) originally meant "a kind of mineral pitch found in Palestine and Babylon, used as mortar, etc. The same as asphalt, mineral pitch, Jew's pitch, Bitumen judaicum", and in modern scientific use means "the generic name of certain mineral inflammable substances, native hydrocarbons more or less oxygenated, liquid, semi-solid, and solid, including naphtha, petroleum, asphalt, etc." Asphalt (from Ancient Greek ásphaltos "asphalt, bitumen”) first meant "A bituminous substance, found in many parts of the world, a smooth, hard, brittle, black or brownish-black resinous mineral, consisting of a mixture of different hydrocarbons; called also mineral pitch, Jews' pitch, and in the [Old Testament] 'slime'", and presently means "A composition made by mixing bitumen, pitch, and sand, or manufactured from natural bituminous limestones, used to pave streets and walks, to line cisterns, etc.", used as an abbreviation for asphalt concrete. Until the 20th century, the Latinate term asphaltum was also used. Pissasphalt (from Greek pissasphaltus "pitch" and "asphalt") names "A semi-liquid variety of bitumen, mentioned by ancient writers".
The medicinal use of bituminous mummia has a parallel in Ayurveda: shilajit or silajit (from Sanskrit shilajatu "rock-conqueror") or mumijo (from Persian mūmiyā "wax") is "A name given to various solid or viscous substances found on rock in India and Nepal ... esp. a usu. dark-brown odoriferous substance which is used in traditional Indian medicine and probably consists principally of dried animal urine".
History The usage of mumiya as medicine began with the famous Persian mumiya black pissasphalt remedy for wounds and fractures, which was confused with similarly appearing black bituminous materials used in Egyptian mummification. This was misinterpreted by Medieval Latin translators to mean whole mummies. Starting in the 12th century and continuing until as far as the 19th century, mummies and bitumen from mummies would be common in European medicine and art, as well as Egyptian trade.Karl H. Dannenfeldt (1985), "Egyptian Mumia: The Sixteenth Century Experience and Debate", The Sixteenth Century Journal 16.2: 163.
Bitumen or asphalt had many uses in the ancient world such as glue, mortar, and waterproofing. The ancient Egyptians began to use bitumen for embalming mummies during the Twelfth Dynasty (1991–1802 BCE).Abraham, Herbert (1938), Asphalts and Allied Substances: Their Occurrence, Modes of Production, Uses in the Arts, and Methods of Testing, D. Van Nostrand Co.S. G. F. Brandon, "Mummification." Man, Myth and Magic: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Supernatural.
According to historians of pharmacy, mummia became part of the materia medica of the Arabs, discussed by Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (845–925) and Ibn al-Baitar (1197–1248).Needham, Joseph and Lu Gwei-djen (1974), Science and Civilization in China. Vol. 5., Part 2. Chemistry and Chemical Technology. Part II. Spagyrical Discovery and Invention: Magisteries of Gold and Immortality, Cambridge University Press, 75. Medieval Persian physicians used bitumen/asphalt both as a salve for cuts, bruises, and bone fractures, and as an internal medicine for stomach ulcers and tuberculosis. They achieved the best results with a black pissasphalt that seeped from a mountain in Darabgerd, Persia.Pringle, Heather Anne (2001), The Mummy Congress: Science, Obsession, and the Everlasting Dead, Barnes & Noble, 196. The Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides' c. 50–70 De Materia Medica ranked bitumen from the Dead Sea as medicinally superior to the pissasphalt from Apollonia (Illyria), both of which were considered to be an equivalent substitute for the scarce and expensive Persian mumiya.Dannenfeldt (1985), 164.
During the Crusades, European soldiers learned firsthand of the drug mummia, which was considered to have great healing powers in cases of fracture and rupture.Pringle (2001), 196. The demand for mummia increased in Europe and since the supply of natural bitumen from Persia and the Dead Sea was limited, the search for a new source turned to the tombs of Egypt.
Misinterpreting the Latin word mumia "medicinal bitumen" involved several steps. The first was to substitute substances exuded by Egyptian mummies for the natural product.Dannenfeldt, Karl H. (1959), "Egypt and Egyptian Antiquities in the Renaissance", Studies in the Renaissance 6: 17. The Arab physician Serapion the Younger (fl. 12th century) wrote about bituminous mumia and its many uses, but the Latin translation of Simon Geneunsis (d. 1303) said, "Mumia, this is the mumia of the sepulchers with aloes and myrrh mixed with the liquid (humiditate) of the human body".Dannenfeldt (1985), 165. Two 12th-century Italian examples: Gerard of Cremona, mistakenly translated Arabic mumiya as "the substance found in the land where bodies are buried with aloes by which the liquid of the dead, mixed with the aloes, is transformed and it is similar to marine pitch",Pringle (2001), 197. and the physician Matthaeus Platearius said "Mumia is a spice found in the sepulchers of the dead. ... That is best which is black, ill-smelling, shiny, and massive".Dannenfeldt (1985), 164.
The second step was to confuse and replace the rare black exudation from embalmed corpses with the black bitumen that Egyptians used as an embalming preservative. The Baghdad physician Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi (1162–1231) described ancient Egyptian mummies, "In the belly and skull of these corpses is also found in great abundance called mummy", added that although the word properly denoted bitumen or asphalt, "The mummy found in the hollows of the corpses in Egypt, differs but immaterially from the nature of mineral mummy; and where any difficulty arises in procuring the latter, may be substituted in its stead."Dannenfeldt (1985), 166.
The third step in misinterpreting mummia was to substitute the blackened flesh of an entire mummy for the hardened bituminous materials from the interior cavities of the cadavers.Dannenfeldt (1985), 167. The ancient tombs of Egypt and the deserts could not meet the European demand for the drug mumia, so a commerce developed in the manufacture and sale of fraudulent mummies, sometimes called mumia falsa. The Italian surgeon Giovanni da Vigo (1450–1525) defined mumia as "The flesh of a dead body that is embalmed, and it is hot and dry in the second [grade], and therefore it has virtue to incarne [i.e., heal over] wounds and to staunch blood", and included it in his list of essential drugs.Dannenfeldt (1985), 170–171.
The Swiss-German polymath Paracelsus (1493–1541) gave mummia a new meaning of "intrinsic spirit" and said true pharmaceutical mummia must be "the body of a man who did not die a natural death but rather died an unnatural death with a healthy body and without sickness". The German physician Oswald Croll (1563–1609) said mumia was "not the liquid matter which is found in the Egyptian sepulchers", but rather "the flesh of a man that perishes a violent death, and kept for some time in the air", and gave a detailed recipe for making tincture of mumia from the corpse of a young red-haired man, who had been hanged, bludgeoned on the breaking wheel, exposed to the air for days, then cut into small pieces, sprinkled with powdered myrrh and aloes, soaked in wine, and dried.Dannenfeldt (1985), 173–174.