We’ve all heard of mummies- they’re ancient dried up corpses that usually haunt pyramids
and ancient tombs, but have you ever heard of a honey mummy?
How about a human honey-sicle?
Mellification is the process where dead bodies are transformed into human rock candy by steeping
them in honey.
You heard that right.
Tales of mellified men stem from the Bencao Gangmu, an exotic medical journal curated
in the 16th century by the Chinese apothecary of Li Shizhen.
Mellification as described in the journal was practiced by the men of ancient Arabia.
It is described as a self-sacrificial process that would typically begin before death.
Approaching the end of their lives, men set to be essentially “candied” would eat,
drink, and even bathe in nothing but honey, and not long after, would start to urinate,
sweat out, and even defecate… honey.
Eventually, when they succumbed to this sugary diet, their bodies were placed in stone coffins
where they were submerged in yet even more… you guessed it- honey.
This was not a quick process, however, as it would take a couple centuries before the
mellified man was considered “ripe” for consumption.
Yup.
That’s right.
Consumption.
These honey mummies would later be pulled out of their tombs to be broken up into smaller
confectionary fragments, later being sold in bazaars at a high price.
Like I said, rock candy.
Considered by many to be an exotic elixir of sorts, mellified men reportedly had remarkable
healing capabilities for broken limbs and open wounds.
However, in her book Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, author Mary Roach points
out that “The popularity of some of these human elixirs probably had less to do with
the purported effective ingredient than with the base.”
'Scuse me. Uh-the- the f**k did you just say?
In other words, the honey by itself probably could have done the trick just the same.
And she’s right.
Honey has for a long time, been documented as possessing antimicrobial properties and
wound-healing activity.
A study from the Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Biomedicine found that this is due
to the fact that the enzymatic production within bees naturally produces hydrogen peroxide.
You know, that shit that adults would pour on your knee scrape right after lying to your
face that it wouldn’t hurt.
It offers antibacterial activity, maintains a moist wound condition, and its high viscosity
creates a protective barrier for preventing infection.
Amina Harris, executive director of the Honey and Pollination Center at UC Davis told Smithsonian
Magazine that “honey in its natural form is very low in moisture.
Very few bacteria or microorganisms can survive in an environment like that, they just die.
They’re smothered by it essentially.”
So why combine it with dead bodies?
Well, mummies were considered to be a popular medicine from the 12th to the 18th century,
especially for Europeans.
Mummy powder would be obtained by raiding ancient tombs and stealing the cold, dried-up
corpses hidden within.
Once a corpse was obtained, it would be ground into dust and could be mixed with other substances
to treat headaches, stomach ulcers, and even tumors.
For the record, humans have been using odd body parts as experimental medicine for as
long as aches and pains have been around.
Human fat was thought to cure gout if rubbed on the afflicted area and in Rome, the blood
and liver of the young were thought to cure epilepsy.
Unfortunately, the idea that ground up corpse powder could somehow be medicinal was the
result of a large misunderstanding.
Bitumen is a natural petrochemical that was used in ancient times to treat arthritis and
today we know it as the asphalt we use on our roads.
The Persian word for wax, mumia, was used to describe bitumen.
However, Egyptians used the word, mumia, to describe the resin they used on corpses during
the mummification process.
Since the word for these two different substances were both mumia, bitumen became associated
with mummies and the curative powers of Arabian wax, became synonymous with Egyptian corpse
powder.
So back to mellification, honey is a natural preservative, and doesn’t really “go bad”,
so it makes sense that we looked towards it for an immortality of sorts.
But whether or not adding cadavers really makes all that much of a difference is largely
debatable.
Eating parts of the dead seems to have faded into history and doesn’t really sound like
the best practice anymore.
But what do you think of mellification?
Let me know in the comments below and I’ll see you next Friday.