It has been just a century since big cities became so important to so many people. The way it happened was that a handful of scientists in Europe discovered a way to produce synthetic fertilizers cheaply. This breakthrough, along with a few other advances in agriculture, enabled farmers, almost overnight, to produce many times as much food as they had before. And since almost everybody in those times was a farmer, it soon became obvious that they could grow a lot more than they needed to survive.
Now agriculture is not always a lot of fun. If there is a chance of doing something that requires less physically demanding work, most people are eager to take it. And, in fact, many people did just that. By the time of World War I, many rural areas began seeing their sons and daughters leave for the city. By mid-century, New York City, which was the largest city in the world at the time, had over ten million people living there. By the end of the century, there were several cities with that many people. Cities with over a million people were common.
During this same period of urban growth, or shall we say rural abandonment, more and more boys began having problems growing up. A hundred years ago, the problems of juvenile delinquency were almost unheard of. Boys grew up on farms and learned how to work from an early age. There were many manly examples nearby for them to learn from and the transition from boy to man happened naturally. In fact it happened so naturally that nobody stopped to give it much thought. It just happened.
It worked because boys want to become men, and the world of men was easily defined. A boy takes great pride when his voice starts changing and he begins to hear a deeper sound than he used to hear. Then, when he starts to grow so fast that his pants and shoes no longer fit from one season to the next, he knows something is going on. When he starts to grow hair where he didn’t have any before, he begins to look at the world in a very different way. When all of this happens, the developing man needs to prove that he is no longer a boy. On a farm this is easy to do.
A man is strong enough to wield a heavy scythe. This means he can cut more grain than someone less strong. He can manage a team of horses or oxen with more confidence. He can heft a shovel and axe more deftly, accomplishing more than he could as a boy. A man is strong enough to build a barn or even a house. Before the advent of sawmills, it required the strength of a man to cut down trees, move them to a building site, and position them into sturdy structures. When a teenage boy was trusted to do this kind of work, he understood that he was becoming a man. After all, his body, including his growing muscles, was starting to look like a man.
This doesn’t mean that all boys used to grow up to be great men. Greatness has never been a democratic virtue. It does mean, though, that whereas boys used to grow up with a healthy sense of their proper place, all too many of them now have no idea about what they should do with their lives. Instead of shouldering a responsible life, they remain boys in grown-up bodies. Our urban lives and communities have made it hard for boys to find the right circumstances to become responsible adults - to become men. The prevalence of fatherless homes and the lack of venues where men can work side-by-side with boys are so common today that many of us can’t imagine any other way. This is at the heart of our problem.
Let’s at least try to imagine a different kind of world. If, by chance, we can learn how life used to be, maybe we can make changes to improve the way things are today. A couple of examples from Church history come immediately to mind. In both examples, we watch a boy become a man in spite of real setbacks. In the case of Joseph F. Smith, we see this happen in a fatherless family. In the case of B.H. Roberts, we see it happen without a father and without the support of a strong family. Despite the challenges, both boys became extraordinary men. Of course, a big part of the reason is that they were both extraordinary individuals in their own right. But they also lived in times when it wasn’t difficult to become a man.
Joseph F. Smith was the son of Hyrum Smith (the brother of the Prophet Joseph Smith) and Mary Fielding. He was only five years old when his father was killed at Carthage just outside of Nauvoo, Illinois where he lived. He witnessed first hand the challenges his mother faced as she outfitted a wagon, prepared her children (and other disadvantaged saints) for the long trip west, and refused to give up when others made it difficult for her to succeed.
On their trek to the Salt Lake Valley, Joseph, though only a boy, had to take responsibility on many occasions for the wagon and the team of oxen. This was no easy task because his company only had half as many animals a they needed to pull their two wagons. They were forced to hitch the two wagons together and have the animals pull both in tandem. When the trail was flat, the team managed well enough. When they came to a hill, however, Joseph would have to unhitch the wagons, pull one of them up the hill with the oxen, and then go back down the hill to get the other one.
This was a lot of work. In fact, it was a man’s work but since there were not enough men to do it for them, the nine-year-old Joseph managed to do it by himself. He was also required to take his turn guarding the wagons during the day, a job normally done exclusively by men. He would have had to do the same at night but his mother wouldn’t allow it.
Once his family got to the Salt Lake Valley, Joseph continued to be responsible for the cattle. During the first winter in the valley, one of the cows gave birth out on the range. Joseph, though not yet old enough to be a deacon, would not desert the calf. In spite of a pack of hungry wolves, he carried and pushed the newborn calf until he arrived back to the safety of his home.
Only a few years later, at the age of 15, Joseph was called on a mission to the Hawaiian Islands. This seems unbelievably young to us, yet Joseph was known to be fully up to the task. He had been doing man’s work for years. His son Joseph Fielding Smith later wrote of his maturity at this early time of his life that, “[At] the time of his mother’s death he was thirteen years of age, but the life he had led during all the tribulation the family had passed through had made of him a man at that tender age.”
Another early and remarkable example of becoming a man is Brigham Henry Roberts (or B.H. Roberts, as he is more commonly called) who became the Church‘s most important scholar in his time and a president of the Quorum of the Seventy. As a child, young Harry lived without both of his parents for several years and was accustomed to the environment of a broken home. Both of his parents joined the church in Lancashire, England in 1857 (the year Roberts was born). But it wasn’t long before his father abandoned the family.
A few years later, Harry’s mother, after acquiring just enough money to transport herself and her small children to Utah, left Harry and his older sister Polly with members in England. She hoped to send for them when she could earn enough money. Unfortunately, these members turned out to be less than trustworthy. Not long after Harry’s mother left for Utah they stopped attending church and began wandering around England. They often worked as entertainers in bars where Harry learned to dance and sing in order to earn his keep. When he could get away with it, he crawled under a bar room table to sleep.
As if this weren’t tragic enough, he ended up losing contact with his mother altogether. This was partly because of the negligence (perhaps intended) of his guardians but also because his care was entrusted to another family. Years were to pass before he was able to make contact again with the Church and make his way to Utah by participating in the Perpetual Immigration Fund. Roberts would later write of the years that, “my childhood was a nightmare; my boyhood a tragedy.”
There is an interesting story of young Harry walking across the plains that captures both the sense of his youth and of his maturity at this early age. His curiosity sometimes tempted him to leave his company in order to go exploring. On one occasion he found himself in a thicket and decided to rest. Before long he was asleep and only woke up when the last wagon was rolling away in the distance. He jumped up and ran to catch up, only to find a river between him and the others. A man on the other side asked if he knew how to swim. Harry said yes and quickly took off his shoes (they were actually clogs) and jacket, leaving them on the bank, and then swam across. He expected others coming after him to pick up his things, but he never saw them again.
For weeks Harry was left walking barefoot across the plains. Then one day his luck changed. he had been exploring in a small abandoned cabin where he discovered a corpse of a man who had only recently died. The body was still wearing a pair of boots. They were too big for Harry but that didn’t stop him. He removed them and returned to the wagon.
He then decided, however, that he wanted the boots to look nice for his mother when he arrived in Salt Lake. So, accordingly, he placed them carefully in the wagon and walked the rest of the way to the Salt Lake City barefoot. When his company finally arrived in the valley, Harry was seen walking down Main Street wearing a pair of shoes several sizes too large. Somehow this was quite fitting. He had certainly proven that he was capable of filling them.
It was good that Harry was a hardy boy because life continued to be difficult even after arriving in the valley. At the age of twelve, he had a job with Utah Central Railway as an ox-team grader. This was a challenging job that required leading a team of oxen while also manipulating a heavy wood or metal scraper that the team was pulling. In order to remove hard uneven mounds of dirt, the grader had to be positioned just right. Truman Madsen wrote of the experience that, “[b]y shouts and an expert whip hand he could simultaneously drive the oxen and manipulate the controls of the scraper. He did a man-size day’s work.”
As Harry got older, he found work in Tooele County in a mining camp. His work habits served him well as an errand boy and general camp hand, but life there had very definite disadvantages, as only mining camps have. As an impressionable youth he ended up participating in “irregular habits,” “Improprieties,” “recklessness,” “jumped claims,” “fights and gun play,” and even as a spectator of “murder”. His bishop ended up having him disfellowshipped from the church.
This is a hard way to grow up. In one sense, the stark realities of surviving forced a responsibility on young men at an early age - clearly an important part of growing up. But the example of B.H. Roberts also shows that this is, by itself, not enough. Manhood, in the eyes of the Lord requires more than just working hard.
Truman Madsen’s account of Harry’s mining years indicated that, “[b]y standards other than those of the Latter-day Saints, his mining camp lapses might be written off as “growing up.”” To Roberts, however, this was not the kind of “growing up” that he was proud of. He struggled the rest of his life to stay above the bad habits he learned as a youth. Many years later as a General Authority he pleaded for leaders to catch young men between boyhood and manhood when they needed the most help.
Fortunately for Roberts, the same bishop that had disfellowshipped him, helped him back into the Church. Some time later he began working with a blacksmith and came under the influence of a righteous mentor. Thereafter, he was able to put his life in order and start on the road to becoming a man of God.
These examples of Joseph F. Smith and B.H. Roberts are just two of so many others. Growing in to a man of God may have been as challenging as ever, but the mere fact of growing up was taken for granted. Today this is certainly not the case.
Far too many boys are not growing up. They may be shaving and well past their teenage years and still be incapable of, or unwilling to, shoulder the responsibilities of manhood. Is it any wonder then that the much more difficult goal of becoming a man of God seems now to be almost unreachable to so many of our struggling youth? What has changed? What can we do to fix this very serious problem?
[To be continued]
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Thursday, October 8, 2009
American Drugs in Egyptian Mummies
American Drugs in Egyptian Mummies: A Review of the Evidence
Abstract: The recent findings of cocaine, nicotine, and hashish in Egyptian mummies by Balabanova et al. have been criticized on grounds that: contamination of the mummies may have occurred, improper techniques may have been used, chemical decomposition may have produced the compounds in question, recent mummies of drug users were mistakenly evaluated, that no similar cases are known of such compounds in long-dead bodies, and especially that pre-Columbian transoceanic voyages are highly speculative. These criticisms are each discussed in turn. Balabanova et al. are shown to have used and confirmed their findings with accepted methods. The possibility of the compounds being byproducts of decomposition is shown to be without precedent and highly unlikely. The possibility that the researchers made evaluations from faked mummies of recent drug users is shown to be highly unlikely in almost all cases. Several additional cases of identified American drugs in mummies are discussed. Additionally, it is shown that significant evidence exists for contact with the Americas in pre-Columbian times. It is determined that the original findings are supported by substantial evidence despite the initial criticisms.
_________________________________
In a one-page article appearing in Naturwissenschaften, German scientist Svetla Balabanova (1992) and two of her colleagues reported findings of cocaine, hashish and nicotine in Egyptian mummies. The findings were immediately identified as improbable on the grounds that two of the substances are known to be derived only from American plants - cocaine from Erythroxylon coca, and nicotine from Nicotiana tabacum. The suggestion that such compounds could have found their way to Egypt before Columbus' discovery of America seemed patently impossible.
The study was done as part of an ongoing program of investigating the use of hallucinogenic substances in ancient societies. The authors themselves were quite surprised by the findings (Discovery, 1997) but stood by their results despite being the major focus of criticism in the following volume of Naturwissenschaften. Of the nine mummies evaluated, all showed signs of cocaine and hashish (Tetrahydrocannabinol), whereas all but one sampled positive for nicotine. It is interesting too that the concentrations of the compounds suggest uses other than that of abuse. (For example, modern drug addicts often have concentrations of cocaine and nicotine in their hair 75 and 20 times higher respectively than that found in the mummy hair samples.) It is even possible that the quantities found may be high due to concentration in body tissues through time.
Without question, the study has sparked an interest in various disciplines. As Balabanova et al. predicted, "…the results open up an entirely new field of research which unravels aspects of past human life-style far beyound [sic] basic biological reconstruction."
The Criticisms
The biggest criticism of the findings of Balabanova et al. was not necessarily directed at the extraction process per se, although this was discussed. The biggest criticism was that cocaine and nicotine could not possibly have been used in Egypt before the discovery of the New World, and that transatlantic journeys were not known - or at least they are highly speculative. It is safe to say that the criticisms of the study would have been minimal or nonexistent if the findings had been made of Old World drugs. Such findings, in fact, would not have been at all unusual as the use of stimulants were known in Egypt. Poppy seeds and lotus plants have been identified for just this use in manuscripts (the Papyrus Ebers) and in hieroglyphs (as Balabanova et al. show).
Schafer (1993) argues that, "the detection of pharmacologically active substances in mummified material never proves their use prior to death." He argues that such compounds could have been introduced as part of the mummification process. The suggestion is that (especially) nicotine could have been introduced around the mummy (and subsequently absorbed into its tissue) as an insecticide (being used as a preservative) within relatively modern times. A similar criticism was raised by Bjorn (1993) who wondered if nicotine might have been absorbed by the mummies from cigarette smoke in the museums where the mummies have been preserved. According to Schafer, the only way to show that the compounds were taken into the bodies while they were alive would be to find different concentrations at different distances from the scalp - a procedure not undertaken by the authors.
Another interesting criticism of Schafer (1993) is that Balabanova et al. might have been the victims of faked mummies. Apparently people (living in the not too far distant past) believed that mummies contained black tar called bitumen and that it could be ground up and used to cure various illnesses. In fact the very word 'mummy' comes from the Persian mummia meaning bitumen (Discovery, 1997). A business seems to have developed wherein recently dead bodies where deliberately aged to appear as mummies and that some of the perpetrators of such deeds were drug abusers.
The criticism that seems most popular is that the identified drugs might have been products of "necrochemical and necrobiochemical processes" (Schafer, 1993; Bjorn, 1993). One explanation is that Egyptian priests used tropine-alkaloid-containing plants during the mummification process that subsequently underwent changes in the mummy to resemble the identified compounds.
Yet another argument is that there is nothing in the literature showing that any of the three compounds have been identified in bodies that have been dead for some time.
Reply to the Critics
Analytical Techniques and Contamination
In the study, samples were taken from nine mummies that were dated from between 1070 B.C. to 395 A.D. The samples of hair, skin and muscle were taken from the head and abdomen. Bone tissue was also taken from the skull. All tissues were pulverized and dissolved in NaCl solution, homogenized, and centrifuged. A portion of the supernatant was extracted with chloroform and dried and then dissolved in a phosphate buffer. Samples were then measured by both radioimmunoassay (Merck; Biermann) and gas chromatography / mass spectrometry (Hewlett Packard) - hereinafter GCMS.
This is the procedure used to produce what McPhillips (1998) considered indisputable evidence for confirming products of substance abuse in hair. Within recent years, hair analysis has been used more commonly in this kind of screening process and the techniques employed have been optimized. Mistakes are known to have occurred in some cases evaluating for metals, but the ability to detect drugs such as cocaine, nicotine, and hashish seem not been problematic (Wilhelm, 1996). The two possible mistakes in analyzing hair for drugs include false positives, which are caused by environmental contamination; and false negatives, where actual compounds are lost because of such things as hair coloring or perming. In recent years, these techniques of hair analysis have revealed the interesting findings of arsenic in the hair of Napoleon Bonaparte, and laudanum in the hair of the poet Keats.
The procedure includes a thorough washing of the hair to remove external contaminants followed by a process of physical degradation using a variety of methods (such as digestion with enzymes or dissolution with acids, organic solvents, etc.). Following these preparatory procedures, the hair is then analyzed. Antibody testing (e.g. radioimmunoassay) is a well-established procedure although there is small potential of obtaining false positive results. These are mainly caused by the cross-reactivity of the antibody with other compounds, including minor analgesics, cold remedies and antipsychotic drugs - compounds not likely to be found in Egyptian mummies. Because of the possible false positives, chromatography (GCMS) is routinely utilized to confirm the results.
The suggestion of nicotine contamination from cigarette smoke is eliminated by the use of solvents and/or acids in the cleaning process - methods used by Balabanova et al. and all other researchers that have documented drugs in mummies.
The validity of Balabanova's findings seems to be vindicated at least so far as the analytical methods used in the study. The authors' methods as well as those in the additional findings reported here (see below) have used the combination of immunological and chromatographic methods to both analyze and confirm samples.
Faked Mummies
The argument that the mummies might have been modern fakes was investigated by David (Discovery, 1997). David is the Keeper of Egyptology at the Manchester Museum, and undertook her own analysis of mummies, independent of Balabanova's group. In addition, she traveled to Munich to evaluate for herself the mummies studied by Balabanova's group. Unfortunately the mummies weren't available for filming and they were being kept isolated from further research on grounds of religious respect. David had to resort to the museum's records. She found that, except for the city's famous mummy of Henot Tawi (Lady of the Two Lands) the mummies were of unknown origin and some were represented only by detached heads.
David's inability to examine the mummies herself may have kept the possibility of faked ones open; however, her evaluation of the museum's records seemed to indicate otherwise. The mummies were preserved with packages of their viscera inside. Some even contained images of the gods. In addition the state of mummification itself was very good. The isolated heads may have been fakes (evidence one way or the other is lacking) but the intact bodies examined in Balabanova's research were clearly genuine.
Chemical Changes
The argument that the identified drugs might be byproducts of decomposition is highly unlikely. The argument appears to resemble a 'Just So' story of biochemical evolution without the benefit of natural selection. Schafer (1993) admits that natural decomposition or mummification has never led to the synthesis of cocaine or related alkaloids but leaves the possibility open anyway. He argues that the compounds in question might theoretically have been produced by tropine-alkaloid-containing plants (such as were present in species that were utilized in the mummification process).
The benefit of the doubt in this case clearly goes to Balabanova et al. Until it is shown how cocaine could be produced in this way, the argument is hypothetical at best.
Isolated Example
The detection of drugs in human hair is a fairly recent endeavor (McPhillips, 1998; Sachs, 1998). A few compounds were identified during the 1980's but it wasn't until the 1990s that drug screening via hair analysis became accepted and used as a possible alternative to urine sampling. The criticism that no known cases of cocaine, nicotine, or hashish have been reported in human hair must, therefore be interpreted with clarification. None of these compounds had been observed in human hair because the process had not been fully developed, nor had the application even been considered until quite recently. Even then the claim is not true.
Cartwell et al. (1991) using a radioimmunoassay method detected cocaine metabolites in pre-Columbian mummy hair from South America. In this study two out of eight mummies analyzed showed cocaine metabolites. All samples tested were confirmed by a separate laboratory (Psychomedics Corporation, Santa Monica, California) using GCMS. The two mummies testing positive were from the Camarones Valley in northern Chile. The artifacts as well as the mummies at this site were typical of Inca culture.
Since the initial work of Balabanova et al., other studies have revealed the same drugs (cocaine, nicotine, and hashish) in Egyptian mummies, confirming the original results. Nerlich et al. (1995), in a study evaluating the tissue pathology of an Egyptian mummy dating from approximately 950 B.C., found the compounds in several of the mummy's organs. They found the highest amounts of nicotine and cocaine in the mummy's stomach, and the hashish traces primarily in the lungs. These findings were again identified using both radioimmunoassay and GSMS techniques. Very similar results were again found in yet another study by Parsche and Nerlich (1995). Again, the findings were obtained using the immunological and chromatographic techniques.
David's work (Discovery, 1997) though not finding cocaine, did confirm the presence of nicotine. This finding has seemed a little less threatening to conservative scholarship in that it seems possible (albeit unlikely) that a nicotine-producing plant may have existed in Africa within historic times - only becoming extinct recently.
Such a possibility might allow for a comfortable resolution to conservative scholarship but doesn't explain the evidence of cocaine. Additionally, the possibility of a native plant going extinct is unlikely. Much more reasonable would be that an introduced species under cultivation could go extinct, yet this only begs the question of the original provenance of the species.
In any event, considering the several confirmations of Balabanova's work (as well as that of Caldwell et al. prior to her study) it appears that the argument against their findings based on too little evidence is quickly vanishing (if not already obviated).
Pre-Columbian Voyages to America
The major reason for the initial criticisms to Balabanova's work is the disbelief in pre-Columbian transoceanic contacts. Egyptologist John Baines (Discovery, 1997) went so far as to state, "The idea that the Egyptians should have traveled to America is overall absurd…and I also don't know anyone who spends time doing research in these areas, because they're not perceived to be areas that have any real meaning for the subjects." Another interpretation on why researchers haven't considered the subject closer is given by Kehoe (1998), "After mid-century, any archaeologist worried about money or career avoided looking at pre-Columbian contacts across saltwater [p. 193]." It appears that acknowledging that pre-Columbian contacts occurred was not academically acceptable. Kehoe (1998) also gives examples of several researchers whose work has been academically marginalized because it supported these views (e.g. Stephen Jett, Carl Johannessen, Gordon Ekholm, Paul Tolstoy, and George Carter).
Surprising at it may seem, evidence for early ocean voyages to America from the Old World is not lacking - nor is it negligibly verifiable. Within the last two years, two periodicals, focusing on these contacts have been established. The first, entitled Pre-Columbiana, is edited by Stephen C. Jett, Professor of Clothings and Textiles at the University of California, Davis; the second is entitled Migration and Diffusion and is edited by Professor Christine Pellek in Vienna, Italy. There is certainly quite a bit of spurious reports of early contacts from the Old World, however, a general disregard for all of the evidence is, anymore, itself evidence of academic negligence, as these two periodicals indicate.
A bibliography of these early contacts is given by John Sorensen (1998) in the first issue of Pre-Columbiana. It is a good example of the kinds of evidence being uncovered by legitimate researchers and institutions. The bibliography is itself a condensation of a two-volume work of these publications and includes titles such as: The world's oldest ship? (showing evidence for a pre-Columbian ship in America) published in Archaeology; Peruvian fabrics (showing very strong similarities between Peru and Asia) published in Anthropological papers of the American Museum of Natural History; Robbing native American cultures: Van Sertima's Afrocentricity and the Olmecs (showing evidence for connections between Africa and the Olmecs of Middle America) published in Current Anthropology; Possible Indonesian or Southeast Asian Influences in New World textile industries (showing at least three textile-related inventions that appear in both Indonesia and the New World) published in Indonesian Textiles; and, Genes may link Ancient Eurasians, Native Americans, published in Science.
And the list goes on and on - some evidence being better than others - but as a whole it seems pretty much irrefutable. Claims to the contrary seem to be made by individuals with a vested interest in the isolationist position. The evidence, pro and con, when evaluated objectively, would seem without question, to favor the diffusionist position (which claims that pre-Columbian contacts took place).
Considerations
The initial reactions to the findings of Balabanova et al. were highly critical. These criticisms were not based on a known failing in the authors' research methodology, rather they were attempts to cast doubt on an implication of the research - that cocaine and nicotine were brought to Egypt from the New World before Columbus. This conclusion is not acceptable to conservative investigators of the past. In fact it suggests a deep-rooted aversion to what Balabanova suggested might mean an unraveling of aspects of history contrary to basic reconstructions. This aversion, according to Kehoe (1998) stems from the conviction that Indians were primitive savages destined to be overcome by the civilized world - that the acme of evolutionary success resided in the conquering race itself. "Childlike savages could never have voyaged across oceans."
Balabanova's findings bring yet other evidence forward that humanity is not so easily pinioned into the pre-conceived notions of primitive and advanced - even as this might be related to the presumed technology of earlier times. The quest for discovery - to find new worlds - is not just a modern selective advantage. Perhaps it has always been a defining characteristic.
Literature Cited:
Balababova, S., F. Parsche, and W. Pirsig. 1992. First identification of drugs in Egyptian mummies. Naturwissenschaften 79:358.
Bisset, N.G. and M.H. Zenk. 1993. Responding to 'First identification of drugs in Egyptian mummies'. Naturwissenschaften 80:244-245.
Bjorn, L.O. 1993. Responding to 'First identification of drugs in Egyptian mummies'. Naturwissenschaften 80:244.
Cartwell, L.W. et. al. 1991. Cocaine metabolites in pre-Columbian mummy hair. Journal of the Oklahoma State Medical Association 84:11-12.
Discovery Information. 1997. Curse of the Cocaine Mummies. Thirty-six page transcript of program viewed on US national TV in January 1997 and July 1999.
Kehoe, A.B. 1998. The Land of Prehistory, A Critical History of American Archaeology. Routledge, New York and London. 266 pp.
McIntosh, N.D.P. 1993. Responding to 'First identification of drugs in Egyptian mummies'. Naturwissenschaften 80:245-246.
McPhillips, M. et. al. 1998. Hair analysis, new laboratory ability to test for substance use. British Journal of Psychiatry 173: 287-290.
Nerlich, A.G. et. al. 1995. Extensive pulmonary haemorrhage in an Egyptian mummy. Virchows Archiv 127:423-429.
Parsche, F. 1993. Reply to "Responding to 'First identification of drugs in Egyptian mummies'". Naturwissenschaften 80:245-246.
Parsche, F. and A. Nerlich. 1995. Presence of drugs in different tissues of an Egyptian mummy. Fresenius' Journal of Analytical Chemistry 352:380-384.
Sachs, H. and P. Kintz. 1998. Testing for drugs in hair, critical review of chromatographic procedures since 1992. Journal of Chromatography (B) 713:147-161.
Schafer, T. 1993. Responding to 'First identification of drugs in Egyptian mummies'. Naturwissenschaften 80:243-244.
Sorenson, J.L. 1998. Bibliographia Pre-Columbiana. Pre-Columbiana 1(1&2):143-154.
Wilhelm, M. 1996. Hair analysis in environmental medicine. Zentralblatt fur Hygeine und Umweltmedizin 198: 485-501.
[This is a re-posting. The original is occasionally cited and can be hard to find so I am posting it here as well. The original can be found at: http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/Entomology/courses/en570/papers_2000/wells.html]
Abstract: The recent findings of cocaine, nicotine, and hashish in Egyptian mummies by Balabanova et al. have been criticized on grounds that: contamination of the mummies may have occurred, improper techniques may have been used, chemical decomposition may have produced the compounds in question, recent mummies of drug users were mistakenly evaluated, that no similar cases are known of such compounds in long-dead bodies, and especially that pre-Columbian transoceanic voyages are highly speculative. These criticisms are each discussed in turn. Balabanova et al. are shown to have used and confirmed their findings with accepted methods. The possibility of the compounds being byproducts of decomposition is shown to be without precedent and highly unlikely. The possibility that the researchers made evaluations from faked mummies of recent drug users is shown to be highly unlikely in almost all cases. Several additional cases of identified American drugs in mummies are discussed. Additionally, it is shown that significant evidence exists for contact with the Americas in pre-Columbian times. It is determined that the original findings are supported by substantial evidence despite the initial criticisms.
_________________________________
In a one-page article appearing in Naturwissenschaften, German scientist Svetla Balabanova (1992) and two of her colleagues reported findings of cocaine, hashish and nicotine in Egyptian mummies. The findings were immediately identified as improbable on the grounds that two of the substances are known to be derived only from American plants - cocaine from Erythroxylon coca, and nicotine from Nicotiana tabacum. The suggestion that such compounds could have found their way to Egypt before Columbus' discovery of America seemed patently impossible.
The study was done as part of an ongoing program of investigating the use of hallucinogenic substances in ancient societies. The authors themselves were quite surprised by the findings (Discovery, 1997) but stood by their results despite being the major focus of criticism in the following volume of Naturwissenschaften. Of the nine mummies evaluated, all showed signs of cocaine and hashish (Tetrahydrocannabinol), whereas all but one sampled positive for nicotine. It is interesting too that the concentrations of the compounds suggest uses other than that of abuse. (For example, modern drug addicts often have concentrations of cocaine and nicotine in their hair 75 and 20 times higher respectively than that found in the mummy hair samples.) It is even possible that the quantities found may be high due to concentration in body tissues through time.
Without question, the study has sparked an interest in various disciplines. As Balabanova et al. predicted, "…the results open up an entirely new field of research which unravels aspects of past human life-style far beyound [sic] basic biological reconstruction."
The Criticisms
The biggest criticism of the findings of Balabanova et al. was not necessarily directed at the extraction process per se, although this was discussed. The biggest criticism was that cocaine and nicotine could not possibly have been used in Egypt before the discovery of the New World, and that transatlantic journeys were not known - or at least they are highly speculative. It is safe to say that the criticisms of the study would have been minimal or nonexistent if the findings had been made of Old World drugs. Such findings, in fact, would not have been at all unusual as the use of stimulants were known in Egypt. Poppy seeds and lotus plants have been identified for just this use in manuscripts (the Papyrus Ebers) and in hieroglyphs (as Balabanova et al. show).
Schafer (1993) argues that, "the detection of pharmacologically active substances in mummified material never proves their use prior to death." He argues that such compounds could have been introduced as part of the mummification process. The suggestion is that (especially) nicotine could have been introduced around the mummy (and subsequently absorbed into its tissue) as an insecticide (being used as a preservative) within relatively modern times. A similar criticism was raised by Bjorn (1993) who wondered if nicotine might have been absorbed by the mummies from cigarette smoke in the museums where the mummies have been preserved. According to Schafer, the only way to show that the compounds were taken into the bodies while they were alive would be to find different concentrations at different distances from the scalp - a procedure not undertaken by the authors.
Another interesting criticism of Schafer (1993) is that Balabanova et al. might have been the victims of faked mummies. Apparently people (living in the not too far distant past) believed that mummies contained black tar called bitumen and that it could be ground up and used to cure various illnesses. In fact the very word 'mummy' comes from the Persian mummia meaning bitumen (Discovery, 1997). A business seems to have developed wherein recently dead bodies where deliberately aged to appear as mummies and that some of the perpetrators of such deeds were drug abusers.
The criticism that seems most popular is that the identified drugs might have been products of "necrochemical and necrobiochemical processes" (Schafer, 1993; Bjorn, 1993). One explanation is that Egyptian priests used tropine-alkaloid-containing plants during the mummification process that subsequently underwent changes in the mummy to resemble the identified compounds.
Yet another argument is that there is nothing in the literature showing that any of the three compounds have been identified in bodies that have been dead for some time.
Reply to the Critics
Analytical Techniques and Contamination
In the study, samples were taken from nine mummies that were dated from between 1070 B.C. to 395 A.D. The samples of hair, skin and muscle were taken from the head and abdomen. Bone tissue was also taken from the skull. All tissues were pulverized and dissolved in NaCl solution, homogenized, and centrifuged. A portion of the supernatant was extracted with chloroform and dried and then dissolved in a phosphate buffer. Samples were then measured by both radioimmunoassay (Merck; Biermann) and gas chromatography / mass spectrometry (Hewlett Packard) - hereinafter GCMS.
This is the procedure used to produce what McPhillips (1998) considered indisputable evidence for confirming products of substance abuse in hair. Within recent years, hair analysis has been used more commonly in this kind of screening process and the techniques employed have been optimized. Mistakes are known to have occurred in some cases evaluating for metals, but the ability to detect drugs such as cocaine, nicotine, and hashish seem not been problematic (Wilhelm, 1996). The two possible mistakes in analyzing hair for drugs include false positives, which are caused by environmental contamination; and false negatives, where actual compounds are lost because of such things as hair coloring or perming. In recent years, these techniques of hair analysis have revealed the interesting findings of arsenic in the hair of Napoleon Bonaparte, and laudanum in the hair of the poet Keats.
The procedure includes a thorough washing of the hair to remove external contaminants followed by a process of physical degradation using a variety of methods (such as digestion with enzymes or dissolution with acids, organic solvents, etc.). Following these preparatory procedures, the hair is then analyzed. Antibody testing (e.g. radioimmunoassay) is a well-established procedure although there is small potential of obtaining false positive results. These are mainly caused by the cross-reactivity of the antibody with other compounds, including minor analgesics, cold remedies and antipsychotic drugs - compounds not likely to be found in Egyptian mummies. Because of the possible false positives, chromatography (GCMS) is routinely utilized to confirm the results.
The suggestion of nicotine contamination from cigarette smoke is eliminated by the use of solvents and/or acids in the cleaning process - methods used by Balabanova et al. and all other researchers that have documented drugs in mummies.
The validity of Balabanova's findings seems to be vindicated at least so far as the analytical methods used in the study. The authors' methods as well as those in the additional findings reported here (see below) have used the combination of immunological and chromatographic methods to both analyze and confirm samples.
Faked Mummies
The argument that the mummies might have been modern fakes was investigated by David (Discovery, 1997). David is the Keeper of Egyptology at the Manchester Museum, and undertook her own analysis of mummies, independent of Balabanova's group. In addition, she traveled to Munich to evaluate for herself the mummies studied by Balabanova's group. Unfortunately the mummies weren't available for filming and they were being kept isolated from further research on grounds of religious respect. David had to resort to the museum's records. She found that, except for the city's famous mummy of Henot Tawi (Lady of the Two Lands) the mummies were of unknown origin and some were represented only by detached heads.
David's inability to examine the mummies herself may have kept the possibility of faked ones open; however, her evaluation of the museum's records seemed to indicate otherwise. The mummies were preserved with packages of their viscera inside. Some even contained images of the gods. In addition the state of mummification itself was very good. The isolated heads may have been fakes (evidence one way or the other is lacking) but the intact bodies examined in Balabanova's research were clearly genuine.
Chemical Changes
The argument that the identified drugs might be byproducts of decomposition is highly unlikely. The argument appears to resemble a 'Just So' story of biochemical evolution without the benefit of natural selection. Schafer (1993) admits that natural decomposition or mummification has never led to the synthesis of cocaine or related alkaloids but leaves the possibility open anyway. He argues that the compounds in question might theoretically have been produced by tropine-alkaloid-containing plants (such as were present in species that were utilized in the mummification process).
The benefit of the doubt in this case clearly goes to Balabanova et al. Until it is shown how cocaine could be produced in this way, the argument is hypothetical at best.
Isolated Example
The detection of drugs in human hair is a fairly recent endeavor (McPhillips, 1998; Sachs, 1998). A few compounds were identified during the 1980's but it wasn't until the 1990s that drug screening via hair analysis became accepted and used as a possible alternative to urine sampling. The criticism that no known cases of cocaine, nicotine, or hashish have been reported in human hair must, therefore be interpreted with clarification. None of these compounds had been observed in human hair because the process had not been fully developed, nor had the application even been considered until quite recently. Even then the claim is not true.
Cartwell et al. (1991) using a radioimmunoassay method detected cocaine metabolites in pre-Columbian mummy hair from South America. In this study two out of eight mummies analyzed showed cocaine metabolites. All samples tested were confirmed by a separate laboratory (Psychomedics Corporation, Santa Monica, California) using GCMS. The two mummies testing positive were from the Camarones Valley in northern Chile. The artifacts as well as the mummies at this site were typical of Inca culture.
Since the initial work of Balabanova et al., other studies have revealed the same drugs (cocaine, nicotine, and hashish) in Egyptian mummies, confirming the original results. Nerlich et al. (1995), in a study evaluating the tissue pathology of an Egyptian mummy dating from approximately 950 B.C., found the compounds in several of the mummy's organs. They found the highest amounts of nicotine and cocaine in the mummy's stomach, and the hashish traces primarily in the lungs. These findings were again identified using both radioimmunoassay and GSMS techniques. Very similar results were again found in yet another study by Parsche and Nerlich (1995). Again, the findings were obtained using the immunological and chromatographic techniques.
David's work (Discovery, 1997) though not finding cocaine, did confirm the presence of nicotine. This finding has seemed a little less threatening to conservative scholarship in that it seems possible (albeit unlikely) that a nicotine-producing plant may have existed in Africa within historic times - only becoming extinct recently.
Such a possibility might allow for a comfortable resolution to conservative scholarship but doesn't explain the evidence of cocaine. Additionally, the possibility of a native plant going extinct is unlikely. Much more reasonable would be that an introduced species under cultivation could go extinct, yet this only begs the question of the original provenance of the species.
In any event, considering the several confirmations of Balabanova's work (as well as that of Caldwell et al. prior to her study) it appears that the argument against their findings based on too little evidence is quickly vanishing (if not already obviated).
Pre-Columbian Voyages to America
The major reason for the initial criticisms to Balabanova's work is the disbelief in pre-Columbian transoceanic contacts. Egyptologist John Baines (Discovery, 1997) went so far as to state, "The idea that the Egyptians should have traveled to America is overall absurd…and I also don't know anyone who spends time doing research in these areas, because they're not perceived to be areas that have any real meaning for the subjects." Another interpretation on why researchers haven't considered the subject closer is given by Kehoe (1998), "After mid-century, any archaeologist worried about money or career avoided looking at pre-Columbian contacts across saltwater [p. 193]." It appears that acknowledging that pre-Columbian contacts occurred was not academically acceptable. Kehoe (1998) also gives examples of several researchers whose work has been academically marginalized because it supported these views (e.g. Stephen Jett, Carl Johannessen, Gordon Ekholm, Paul Tolstoy, and George Carter).
Surprising at it may seem, evidence for early ocean voyages to America from the Old World is not lacking - nor is it negligibly verifiable. Within the last two years, two periodicals, focusing on these contacts have been established. The first, entitled Pre-Columbiana, is edited by Stephen C. Jett, Professor of Clothings and Textiles at the University of California, Davis; the second is entitled Migration and Diffusion and is edited by Professor Christine Pellek in Vienna, Italy. There is certainly quite a bit of spurious reports of early contacts from the Old World, however, a general disregard for all of the evidence is, anymore, itself evidence of academic negligence, as these two periodicals indicate.
A bibliography of these early contacts is given by John Sorensen (1998) in the first issue of Pre-Columbiana. It is a good example of the kinds of evidence being uncovered by legitimate researchers and institutions. The bibliography is itself a condensation of a two-volume work of these publications and includes titles such as: The world's oldest ship? (showing evidence for a pre-Columbian ship in America) published in Archaeology; Peruvian fabrics (showing very strong similarities between Peru and Asia) published in Anthropological papers of the American Museum of Natural History; Robbing native American cultures: Van Sertima's Afrocentricity and the Olmecs (showing evidence for connections between Africa and the Olmecs of Middle America) published in Current Anthropology; Possible Indonesian or Southeast Asian Influences in New World textile industries (showing at least three textile-related inventions that appear in both Indonesia and the New World) published in Indonesian Textiles; and, Genes may link Ancient Eurasians, Native Americans, published in Science.
And the list goes on and on - some evidence being better than others - but as a whole it seems pretty much irrefutable. Claims to the contrary seem to be made by individuals with a vested interest in the isolationist position. The evidence, pro and con, when evaluated objectively, would seem without question, to favor the diffusionist position (which claims that pre-Columbian contacts took place).
Considerations
The initial reactions to the findings of Balabanova et al. were highly critical. These criticisms were not based on a known failing in the authors' research methodology, rather they were attempts to cast doubt on an implication of the research - that cocaine and nicotine were brought to Egypt from the New World before Columbus. This conclusion is not acceptable to conservative investigators of the past. In fact it suggests a deep-rooted aversion to what Balabanova suggested might mean an unraveling of aspects of history contrary to basic reconstructions. This aversion, according to Kehoe (1998) stems from the conviction that Indians were primitive savages destined to be overcome by the civilized world - that the acme of evolutionary success resided in the conquering race itself. "Childlike savages could never have voyaged across oceans."
Balabanova's findings bring yet other evidence forward that humanity is not so easily pinioned into the pre-conceived notions of primitive and advanced - even as this might be related to the presumed technology of earlier times. The quest for discovery - to find new worlds - is not just a modern selective advantage. Perhaps it has always been a defining characteristic.
Literature Cited:
Balababova, S., F. Parsche, and W. Pirsig. 1992. First identification of drugs in Egyptian mummies. Naturwissenschaften 79:358.
Bisset, N.G. and M.H. Zenk. 1993. Responding to 'First identification of drugs in Egyptian mummies'. Naturwissenschaften 80:244-245.
Bjorn, L.O. 1993. Responding to 'First identification of drugs in Egyptian mummies'. Naturwissenschaften 80:244.
Cartwell, L.W. et. al. 1991. Cocaine metabolites in pre-Columbian mummy hair. Journal of the Oklahoma State Medical Association 84:11-12.
Discovery Information. 1997. Curse of the Cocaine Mummies. Thirty-six page transcript of program viewed on US national TV in January 1997 and July 1999.
Kehoe, A.B. 1998. The Land of Prehistory, A Critical History of American Archaeology. Routledge, New York and London. 266 pp.
McIntosh, N.D.P. 1993. Responding to 'First identification of drugs in Egyptian mummies'. Naturwissenschaften 80:245-246.
McPhillips, M. et. al. 1998. Hair analysis, new laboratory ability to test for substance use. British Journal of Psychiatry 173: 287-290.
Nerlich, A.G. et. al. 1995. Extensive pulmonary haemorrhage in an Egyptian mummy. Virchows Archiv 127:423-429.
Parsche, F. 1993. Reply to "Responding to 'First identification of drugs in Egyptian mummies'". Naturwissenschaften 80:245-246.
Parsche, F. and A. Nerlich. 1995. Presence of drugs in different tissues of an Egyptian mummy. Fresenius' Journal of Analytical Chemistry 352:380-384.
Sachs, H. and P. Kintz. 1998. Testing for drugs in hair, critical review of chromatographic procedures since 1992. Journal of Chromatography (B) 713:147-161.
Schafer, T. 1993. Responding to 'First identification of drugs in Egyptian mummies'. Naturwissenschaften 80:243-244.
Sorenson, J.L. 1998. Bibliographia Pre-Columbiana. Pre-Columbiana 1(1&2):143-154.
Wilhelm, M. 1996. Hair analysis in environmental medicine. Zentralblatt fur Hygeine und Umweltmedizin 198: 485-501.
[This is a re-posting. The original is occasionally cited and can be hard to find so I am posting it here as well. The original can be found at: http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/Entomology/courses/en570/papers_2000/wells.html]
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