In the Middle Agesthe Egyptian mummies they were not only archaeological finds, but they were used as medicines. A little known aspect is that the mummified remains were also transformed into a intense bituminous pigment, known as “black“or”brown of mummy“, used in painting until the twentieth century, before its human origin raised ethical concerns. Today we know these embalmed bodies dating back to several thousand years ago, mostly as archaeological artifacts of great importance, preserved in museums and studied by the researchers. Yet when they started to be introduced in Europe in the Middle Ages it was not their main purpose: the mummies were in fact trade as medicines To treat a wide range of medical disorders, from dental pain to dysentery – an idea derived according to some scholars from the medical use of the Pece by the ancient Greeks.
In the 16th century the human meat trade derived from crumbled mummies He was flourishing: there are detailed testimonies of the dismemberment, grinding and packaging process for the European market (and when they are scarce, the condemned criminal meatleading to investigations such as the one launched by the doctor of the king of Navarra in the mid -16th century). In parallel, the mummies began to collect interest in and for themselves, a fascination that would have grown a lot over the centuries, in particular at the end of the eighteenth century with the famous Shipping of Napoleon in Egyptleading to the museum conservation and the exposure of the precious human remains that we know today.
Since the Europeans ate, drank and rub the body with the mummified remains, they must not play too strange that these were also used to paint. The product that was obtained from the mummies was called “black“or”brown of mummy“, a pigment intense brown obtained from meat mixed with white pitch and myrrh. This pigment had a rather variable composition, which is why it is difficult to find specific reports of its use in works of art: today we can resort to techniques such as the mass spectrometry that were once unknown.
We know it was very popular, which is why it is also found on the palette of Eugène Delacroix In 1854, when he painted the Salone de la paix at the Hotel de Ville. The color would have been available from the 16th century to the twentieth century, reaching his maximum popularity between the mid -18th and 19th centuries and gradually becoming less and less used and appreciated. The change of spirit confirms the episode written by the English painter Georgian Burne-Jones In the biography of her husband and famous artist Preraffaellita Edward Burne-Jones: The artist, having discovered the real “human” origins of the pigment, had in fact buried him with all the ceremonies.
