Ancient Egyptians Created "Meat Mummies" So Dead Could Continue To Eat 93
sciencehabit writes "What is your beloved mummy going to eat for the rest of eternity? For some ancient Egyptians, the answer included meat. In King Tutankhamun's tomb, for example, archaeologists found 48 wooden cases of butchered cuts of beef and poultry. But unlike offerings of fruit and grains, which could last for quite a while once dehydrated and placed in dry tombs, pieces of meat required special treatment. After just a few hours in the desert heat, 'they will become a terrible mess if you don't take some steps to preserve them,' says Richard Evershed, an archaeological chemist at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom. The solution? Mummify. Now, a team of researchers led by Evershed is shedding light on the embalming processes used to create these so-called meat mummies, including mummified beef ribs."
News? Stuff that matters? (Score:1)
Re:News? Stuff that matters? (Score:5, Funny)
Think of it as an analogue to McDonalds, or SPAM.
Re:News? Stuff that matters? (Score:5, Funny)
Add water, makes its own sauce...
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Re:News? Stuff that matters? (Score:5, Funny)
Nerds love jerky.
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You make me want to la la.
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Zevulon the Great. He's teriyaki style.
Re:News? Stuff that matters? (Score:5, Informative)
"archaeological chemist"
How is that not news for nerds?
This is awesome nerd fair.
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That and there aren't many comments on this "nerd fair" article.
I think people are still trying to digest the idea. Clearly that is more palatable than the meat. And that's not saying much....
Re:News? Stuff that matters? (Score:5, Informative)
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Did they get a date on that meat?
"Best by 1334 BC"
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Yeah but this "archaeological chemist" thinks that ancient Egypt was a desert, whereas most others have concluded that it was a lush rainforest, and that the people of that day were into farming on a large scale. That and there aren't many comments on this "nerd fair" article.
Twelve thousand years ago the area was mixed grassland and scrub fed from the heavier rainfall caused by the extended ice cap. Forests ran along river banks. By four thousand years ago the area was arid desert. It was never rain forest.
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Not all the pyramids, those of Chanchan in Peru are in the midst of the Atacama Desert, the driest desert in the world and the largest pyramid of all, the Great Mound near Kehokia, is in the Great Plains of North America. My time was off a bit though, it was during the period of 10,500-5,500 years ago that the Sahara was grasslands. [livescience.com]
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I'd just question why what would appear to be the world's most ingenious civilization, that spanned the globe apparently, would set up shop in a desert. Of course there could have been a good reason, the ancient Egyptians did all sorts of strange things. It's just that all of the other pyramids around the world are in lush rainforest-like places, many covered completely in vegetation. Also the sphinx was apparently worn down by a significant amount of rain since it was constructed.
I don't know how to say this without significant offense, but you've been listening to waaay too many crackpots.
As another poster pointed out, pyramids are a common monument structure, not because one globe-spanning civilization was obsessed with them, but because they are some of the simplest stable structures to create. (Never mind that there are significant differences in the way different cultures made their pyramids look either.)
The reason the Egyptians "set up shop in a desert" is that it wasn't one
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IIRC, the reason that the Nile valley was settled and farmed had less to do with rainfall, and more to do with the regular, seasonal floods that acted as a natural irrigation system for the floodplain. The area probably was less arid than today, but the (twice-yearly?) floods made the floodplain fertile.
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We're talking 5,000 years ago, not a million. Egypt was a desert during "ancient" times.
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Yeah but this "archaeological chemist" thinks that ancient Egypt was a desert, whereas most others have concluded that it was a lush rainforest, and that the people of that day were into farming on a large scale. That and there aren't many comments on this "nerd fair" article.
It wasn't a rain forest. Yearly flooding of the Nile provided fertile soil and water which allowed for farming of the flood plain. Go a bit away from the Nile and you were still out in the dessert rather quickly. This is why nearly all major ancient Egyptian sites are along the Nile River (whereas a rainforest would have allowed for a more geographical dispersed population).
The Nile no longer floods every year though due to the construction of the Aswan damn.
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Really?
The "Archeological Chemist" apparently knows next to nothing about food preservation. This "mess after a few hours" thing is bunk.
As the U.S. Army Survival Manual has been saying for at least 4 decades: in a hot, arid desert, you can bury a piece of raw meat the size of your arm under the sand, and it will remain edible (if somewhat dried out) for at least 2 years.
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At My School... (Score:2)
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Now that you've old and toothless, campus food is indeed perfect and the middle-aged angry girls look like babes.
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Nice snipe, though. With whom are *you* so angry?
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That wasn't personal, sorry if you took it that way.
Your statement just conjured an image of how old I would have to be to find the lunch ladies attractive...
Typos happen, it's freezing in this lab, to keep the magic smoke inside darn components.
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In total darkness; not only are the lunch ladies beautiful, I'm handsome.
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Makes me hungry just thinking about it (Score:1)
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Doubtless there were hieroglyphs advertising those same dinners when they were first frozen. The ancient Egyptians were amazing.
I like the turkey and the terriyaki too.
I like the chicken if the sauce is not too blue....
Road Trip Food (Score:2)
Well, here's some of the stuff my family used for the 8-12 hour drives to visit relatives when I was a kid:
-- Non-dense cereals (different brands/flavors to suit people) in ziploc baggies
-- Anything that can be used in a non-refrigerated brown-bag lunch works -- bring an ice chest for anything that's better when cold.
-- Cheese & deli meat safe at room temp (e.g. salami, pepperoni...)
-- Soft French bread rounds (for sandwiches or alone) & mustard
-- Large croissants (alone or sandwiches)
-- Garlic brea
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Purina Zombie Chow (Score:2)
How do you tell the diner from the food?
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Okay, one odd fact... (Score:5, Insightful)
When people were mummified, their internal organs were put into clay pots in the sarcophagus.
So if the kings were to eat after death... where did anyone think the food was going to go?
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There is no better thing for a mummy to eat, than tasty morsels of mummy meat!
No chance of it going bad in their abdominal cavity.
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Did they know the same physiology that we do today? Did they know that the stomach and intestine were needed for digestion?
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I wish I knew the context behind why they did anything that they did in ancient Egypt.
Americans have that too. It's called the McRib (Score:2)
Yeah (Score:2)
I would eat some mummy meat. I bet it might be tasty.
Heh. In more practical terms, it would be cool to figure out what went into making this meat. We could eat ancient Egyptian meat, much in the same way that we enjoy Midas Touch from Dogfish Head Craft Brewed Ales.
Re:Yeah (Score:4, Funny)
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By this time the Andean peoples were already drying meat for use in the off season. I wonder what made it so much more difficult to dry meat in the Sahara.
Wow.. (Score:1)
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And in this case, bliss is underrated.
Patent Issue (Score:2)
Would this undermine claims on Slim Jim proprietary recipe?
Obligatory Hubert Farnsworth (Score:5, Funny)
This is an outrage - I was going to eat that mummy!
Coming soon... (Score:2)
...to a McDonald's near you: "Meat McMummy". And don't peal off the simulated gauze wrapping: it's edible. Yum!
The francise possibilities (Score:2)
In-N-Out-Mummy, Mummy King, Mummy-In-The-Box, McMummy's ...
That explains a lot (Score:2)
But What Does it Taste Like? (Score:2)
But What Does it Taste Like?
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Because ... (Score:2)
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Why would you want to eat Buck Roger's robot?
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Why do you insist they were built by humans? We have more resources and technology than ever before in history, and it's still considered impossible...
Because the other explanations are 1) They were build by aliens, or (other non human earthlings) and 2) It came into existence naturally. Both are even more unlikely.
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We have more resources and technology than ever before in history, and it's still considered impossible...
No, it's considered very impractical. We could fairly easily build them, it would just be expensive and take a while. The Egyptians had plenty of wealth and resources (natural, scientific, labor, and time) to build the pyramids.
Why do you insist on the Pyramids being built in a desert? Science has proven the Nile moved over time...
According to the article found here: http://ees.ac.uk/userfiles/file/EA-32pp03-05-Lutley.pdf [ees.ac.uk], in the past 5k years the Nile has shifted only within the Nile floodplain, a shift of about 4 km total from West to East. Giza is located roughly 5 miles from the edge of the current path
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There is a youtube video of a guy showing how he could have built stonehenge. It is quite interesting how with a few tricks he can move massive blocks of stones, and position them so they put upright into the ground. Everything is impossible if you do it the hard way, finding the easy way is the trick. Finding that easy way is not obvious of course. He uses everyday items like sticks and stones that prehistoric man had easy access to. The egyptians could do it even easier and had more than one guy.
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There is a youtube video of a guy showing how he could have built stonehenge.
Mythbusters did it too with just some 2x4s
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check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYQBDhkBfr0 [youtube.com]
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not impossible at all, any competent civil engineer can tell you how to do it with or without machines.
those sensationist articles you read claiming otherwise were not written by engineers.
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it's still considered impossible
When the Peruvians here idiots exclaiming that Machu Picchu and Sacsayhuaman must have been built by aliens because people couldn't have done it they're insulted. They know almost exactly how it was done, and their ancestors were even recorded doing it by the Spanish. Can't help but think the Egyptians might well feel similarly insulted.
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Why do you insist they were built by humans? We have more resources and technology than ever before in history, and it's still considered impossible...
Where do you get the idea that the pyramids would be impossible to build today? It's just a pile of limestone blocks. People built a 6 meter pyramid using a total of only 40 something men in less than a month for an episode of NOVA, using only a few modern shortcuts (iron tools to carve and a front-end loader to transport blocks to the building site to be placed by hand after demonstrating that it was possible to move the blocks by rolling them). The only thing that makes pyramids impressive is that they
The fast food industrie (Score:1)
must have found this recipe a couple of decades ago.
Stating the funking obvious. (Score:1)
Dear Arby's, (Score:1)
Lose weight fast! (Score:2)
Mmm... (Score:2)