From the medieval times up until 19th century, civilised Christian Europe practiced medicinal cannibalism on a massive scale.Why are Egyptian mummies so rare today? Considering that preserving the bodies of the dead played such a pivotal role in ancient Egyptian culture, there should be, figuratively speaking, mountains of mummies.But there aren't because European Christians ate them all.Around the 11th century, European scribes translated Arabic instructions to treat various illnesses and ailments. A common ingredient mentioned in those texts was mumiya, a type of medicinal bitumen.But the European scribes fumbled the meaning of the word. So, mumiya, the kind of bitumen often used in mummification, became "mummia," mummified human flesh.And from there the race was on. Christian Europe began importing Egyptian mummies in massive quantities for several centuries. Mummy traders bought every mummified body available.The demand was so high that the local Egyptian suppliers couldn't dig up enough suitable mummified bodies. This lead to a blooming 'industry' of producing fake mummies. Both Egyptian and European 'entrepreneurs' would dig up fresh corpses of peasants and executed criminals to dry them in the sun and wrap them in gaze to meet the European demand for Mummia.The consumption of mummified flesh came to an end in the 19th century with the advent of modern, evidence based science and medicine but it's reported that some places still stocked actual Mummia up until the early 20th century.By the time it stopped, the grand majority of Egyptian mummies had been either cut into bits and pieces or ground into powder to be consumed by civilised European Christians.The same happened to the fresh corpses of executed criminals btw. Parts of those bodies were highly sought-after medicinal ingredients in Christian Europe also right up to the 19th century.
