Was Ancient Egypt the Stoned Age?

Welcome Winter! Two movies for Egypt: “Death on the Nile” and “Cairo Time;” A musical gift from Zambra.

Here in the Northern Hemisphere we have turned the corner. Darkness is in retreat. Light has prevailed. The days slowly begin to grow longer.

Our ancient ancestors gathered for the magic solstice moment when the days grow longer. The chanting, singing, and celebrating with food and beer and wine. The Mistletoe! The Christians came along and tried to take away all the fun! But our ancient customs were too strong.

Merry Christmas, Happy Winter Solstice, Happy Yule! Bring out the Mistletoe! Time to get that Kiss!

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The countdown to Cairo continues! We‘ve watched two interesting movies about Egypt recently: Death on the Nile and Cairo Time. Have you seen them?

Death on the Nile

Death on the Nile is a classic. We watched it last night. Wow what an All-star cast!

The movie is based on the 1937 mystery thriller by Agatha Christie. She is the most widely published author of all time, outselling all but the Bible and Shakespeare!

The 1978 movie itself is a real blockbuster.

Check out this All-Star cast: Angela Lansbury, Peter Ustinov, Maggie Smith, David Niven, Olivia Hussy, George Kennedy, Bette Davis, Mia Farrow, Jane Birkin, Jack Warden, and Lois Chiles.

It’s a stand-alone sequel to the 1974 movie Murder on the Orient Express. Angela Lansbury steals every scene she’s in. She dances the Tango with David Niven in one memorable scene. (We saw Angela L. on Broadway in 1979 in the original production of Sweeney Todd. Oh my that was an experience for a couple of small town Midwestern kids!)

The cinematography is sublime, with great scenes

A newer version of Death on the Nile came out in 2022. We haven’t seen that one yet. Have you? If so, would love to hear your take on it.

Cairo Time: the Movie.

The other film we’ve screened is Cairo Time, which won Best Canadian Film at the 2009 Canadian Film Festival.

It’s an interesting film by Canadian writer and director Ruba Nada. A naive American magazine editor, Juliette Grant, played by the lovely Patricia Clarkson, comes to Cairo to meet her husband, who works for the UN in Gaza. She foolishly walks around town in a daze, wearing outfits like that flimsy blue dress shown above, barging into a “men only” coffee house searching for Tareq (Alexander Siddig), then wanders with him around town.

It’s a worthwhile watch for the scenery alone, but I liked it for the cultural clash. I thought it might have been written as soft porn for the Cairo crowd at first. What really came through to me was the contrast between western and Arab cultures. But if you’re looking for sex scenes, skip it. Ultimately for me, the naïveté of the supposedly modern western woman was just a bit too much to handle.

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Were the Pharaohs doing drugs?

Was ancient Egypt “The Stoned Age?” A comment on my post The Settlement of the Americas by Brilliant Reader (and Writer) Jane Baker has led me on a merry chase. Here’s an excerpt from Jane’s comment:

It's later in history but relatively recent research has shown most Elite Egyptian Mummies, the royals and their high up court officials, have got high levels of cocaine in their remains. They were stoned! So as that drug whatever it comes from only grows in South America + did back then that means that human trade was getting it to Egypt and after considering all the likely routes the historians THINK that it was taken ACROSS the Pacific to China or such and thence along the Silk Roads routes.

I spent several hours digging into this. The best summary of the evidence and current state of knowledge that I could find is The Stoned Age? by Duncan Edlin.

Edlin summarizes the evidence for cocaine, tobacco and hashish (cannabis) in mummies. It’s worth a read. It’s important not just because it’s interesting to see how high the Pharaohs were, but also because cocaine and tobacco were native to the Americas, and not found in Europe or Asia until after 1500, raising the question of pre-Colombian trade with the Americas.

Above: Parsche, F., Balabanova, S. and Pirsig, W. (1993) "Drugs in ancient populations" The Lancet 341: 503

The study compared drug levels in mummies from Peru, Egypt, Sudan, and the Bell Beaker Culture (c. 2400 BCE - Western Europe) with hair samples from modern German drug addicts.

Here’s another study done a few years later: Presence of drugs in different tissues of an Egyptian mummy. Fresenius Journal of Modern Chemistry, Parsche and Nerlich, 1995. The study was also done on Egyptian Mummies stored in Munich, Germany.

There’s no question the Pharaohs and others were doing cannabis-based drugs, such as hashish. It originated in the Middle East. High levels of THC (the active ingredient in cannabis) were found in the lungs and is not surprising. But tobacco and cocaine are another matter. Evidence of tobacco and cocaine were found in the abdominal cavity, which is where tobacco leaves were placed years ago to fumigate the mummies.

Alternatively, there may have been products other than tobacco used by Egyptians that contained nicotine and cocaine. More likely the nicotine detected came from modern day efforts to fumigate the mummies with tobacco.

At any rate, thanks Jane for bringing that interesting topic to my attention! I will keep this issue in mind as we visit the various sites in Egypt!

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We’re going to have a White Christmas here in Michigan. Whether yours is white, green, brown, or sandy, I hope it’s a magical one!

Here’s a musical gift for you from Zambra, on YouTube. I hope you love it as much as I do:

Winter Charm of Lasting Life, a traditional Scottish folk song performed by Zambra

Thanks for traveling along~!

Opening photo: Christmas Card from c. 1900 showing both Holly and Mistletoe.

Last photo: 2022 Rose Bowl pre-Parade New Year’s Eve.