A 2,000-year-old mug has the first physical evidence that the ancient Egyptians used hallucinogens.
In one of the few remaining Egyptian Bes mugs, as the Tampa Museum of Art acquired one in 1984, researchers wanted to know what purpose this ritualistic container served. So, as part of the Mediterranean Diet Archeology project, an international team of researchers performed chemical and DNA analyses of the contents of an ancient Egyptian mug.
“Experts did not know if Egyptians used these mugs in daily life, for religious purposes, or in magic rituals,” Branko van Oppen, curator of Greek and Roman art at the Tampa Museum of Art, told the University of South Florida. Egyptians worshipped Bes as the god of protection, fertility, medicinal healing, and magical purification.
Two thousand years later, they have made a groundbreaking discovery after performing innovative tests. They combined a series of “analytical techniques,” almost mirroring the “cocktail” they found inside the mug.
After scraping the walls of the mug, they confirmed that the ancient Egyptians used hallucinogenic substances, a first. It proves that the old myths to be true, they were definitely getting high.
The University of South Florida has provided the first physical evidence of the use of psychotropic drugs, and not even just one, but many, a “cocktail” that is still traceable. So it’s official: the ancient Egyptians ingested medicinal plants.