Overcoming The Curse of The Mummies

by Dr. Michael R. Eades, M.D.

From time immemorial the fertile valley along the Nile River has produced an abundance of plant life. The river itself teemed with fish in ancient times and provided food and cover for birds, while the lush floodplain provided rich grazing for every sort of wild animal.

Out of this flourishing, verdant landscape the early inhabitants, the ancient Egyptians, carved the beginnings of one of the greatest civilizations of all time - pharaonic Egypt.

During the almost 3,000 years from 2500 B.C. to A.D. 395, the Egyptians refined the art of mummification and extended its practice through all social strata. The number of mummies from that period has been estimated by some experts to equal the population of Egypt today.

Medical scientists have analyzed many of these mummified remains in such detail that they have been able to determine not only blood type and body size and shape, but the presence of specific bacterial or parasitic infections and other diseases as well as the cause of death.

In effect, this legion of mummies provides us with a thirty-century-long study of health and disease.

In addition, we have the written history the Egyptians left us. Archaeologists have unearthed tens of thousands of papyrus fragments describing all aspects of life along the Nile in dynastic times.

From translations of their meticulous and voluminous records, we know how they lived and in what kinds of houses, where and how they worked, how much they were paid, and most important for our purposes, what they ate.

What the Mummies Ate

The diet of the average Egyptian consisted primarily of carbohydrates.

Their staple crops, wheat and barley, supplied a coarse stone-ground whole-wheat flour, which they baked into a flat bread and consumed in great quantity.

In fact, during the later periods, the Egyptian army rationed each of its soldiers about five pounds of bread per day, a quantity so impressive the Greeks of the time called these soldiers artophagoi, “the bread eaters.”

Egyptian farmers cultivated a wide variety of fruits, such as grapes, dates, jujube, melons, peaches, olives, pears, pomegranates, carob, apples, and nuts, and several varieties of vegetables - mainly garlic, onions, lettuce, cucumbers, peas, lentils, and papyrus.

They sweetened their food with honey (since sugar didn't arrive on the scene until about A.D. 1000) and used olive, safflower, linseed, and sesame oils for cooking and medicinal purposes.

The papyrus records tell us the early Egyptians sat down to dine on a diet consisting primarily of bread, cereals, fresh fruit and vegetables, some fish and poultry, almost no red meat, olive oil instead of lard, and goat's milk for drinking and to make into cheese - a veritable nutritionist's nirvana.

Except for papyrus, the Egyptians could have obtained their entire diet from the shelves of any health food store in America.

With such a bounty available, rich in all the foods believed to promote health and almost devoid of saturated fat and cholesterol, it would seem the ancient Egyptians should have lived forever or at least should have lived long, healthy lives and died of old age in their beds.

But did they?

Let's look at the archaeological evidence.

What Ailed the Egyptians

We have two ways of estimating the health of these ancient people: searching the surviving papyrus writings of the time for any mention of diseases and examining the actual mummified remains of the ancient Egyptians.

Through the science of paleopathology - the application of modern techniques of pathology and other scientific disciplines to the remains of early man, from bone fragments to entire preserved bodies - scientists can determine not only the state of health at the time of death, but also the almost indiscernible responses of the flesh to the rigors of primitive life.

Obviously the more complete the specimen, the more reliable the analysis.

And when scientists can study many fairly intact remains, such as the enormous number of Egyptian mummies available, all from a particular time and place, they can spot disease trends and can speculate with a good deal of certainty about the health status of the population.

Certainly we would expect to find evidence of bacterial and parasitic infections, because at that time there were no antibiotic or antiparasitic medications - those were not developed until the twentieth century.

And indeed we do find evidence of widespread infections and infestations.

The ancient Egyptians suffered pneumonia, tuberculosis, probably leprosy, and many other less exotic bacterial infections, along with parasites that occur from drinking and bathing in contaminated water.

With no refined sugar in the diet, we would expect that the ancient Egyptians would have perfect teeth, right?

Absolutely wrong.

Mummies from all socioeconomic strata suffered terrible dental problems.

Their teeth were worn down to such an extensive degree that both enamel and dentin were gone, exposing the soft pulp.

Without this protective outer surface, the living tissue within the tooth dies, and the empty canal becomes a source of chronic infection, often leading to abscess formation.

The incidence of actual tooth decay was not particularly high because the teeth were worn down to the nub before decay could set in.

The Egyptians also had severe gum disease, which most experts believe was caused by two factors - diet and poor dental hygiene.

We know little of the oral hygiene habits of the ancient Egyptians.

But we can suppose they wouldn't be any worse than their primitive hunting-gathering ancestors.

Subsisting as they did on a diet of fresh fruits and vegetables and coarse whole-grain bread, at least we would not expect to find fat Egyptians.

But here is yet another health problem that doesn't correlate with our “healthy diet” paradigm: obesity.

Many ancient Egyptians were not just a little overweight, but were actually fat.

Paleopathologists have described huge folds of excess skin.

Finally, in view of the low-fat content of the diet, we would anticipate very little evidence of heart disease.

Yet cardiovascular disease was widespread.

Arteries were choked with greasy, cholesterol-laden deposits.

Evidence of high blood pressure was common.

Cardiovascular disease appears to have been as prevalent in ancient Egypt as it is today.

The papyrus Ebers, written around 1500 B.C., describes heart disease pain:

"If thou examinest a man for illness in his cardia, and he has pains in his arms, in his breasts, and in one side of his cardia…it is death threatening him."

This description matches the symptoms of a heart attack.

And so the picture emerges.

A population afflicted with dental disease, obesity, and heart disease.

Despite a diet modern nutrition often praises.

Note: For more information on this subject, read Obesity in Ancient Egypt by Dr. Michael R. Eades, M.D.