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| Henuttaui [1] in hieroglyphs | |||
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| Era: 3rd Intermediate Period (1069–664 BC) | |||
Henut Taui, or Henuttaui, Henuttawy ( fl. ca 1000 BCE) was an Ancient Egyptian priestess during the 21st Dynasty whose remains were mummified. She is mainly known for being one of the so-called "cocaine mummies".
Little to nothing is known about her life. She was a priestess and chantress in the temple of Amun at Thebes, and after her death her body was embalmed and buried in the Deir el-Bahari necropolis.
After the discovery of her tomb, her mummy became a property of the king of Bavaria (likely Ludwig I), who later donated it to the Staatliche Sammlung für Ägyptische Kunst of Munich, where it is still located today (ÄS 57). [2] Her coffin, once located at the National Archaeology Museum of Lisbon, [3] is now in Munich too. [4]
In 1992, German toxicologist Svetlana Balabanova discovered traces of cocaine, hashish and nicotine on Henut Taui's hair as well as on the hair of several other mummies of the museum, [5] which is significant [2] in that the only source for cocaine and nicotine had at that time been considered to be the coca and tobacco plants native to the Americas, and were not thought to have been present in Africa until after Columbus voyaged to the Americas. [6]
This result was interpreted by theorists and supporters of contacts between pre-Columbian people and ancient Egyptians, as a proof for their claims. The findings are controversial because while other researchers have also detected the presence of cocaine and nicotine in Egyptian mummies, two successive analyses on other groups of Egyptian mummies and human remains failed to fully reproduce Balabanova's results, and some showing positive results only for nicotine. [7] [6] [8]
After these experiments, even assuming that cocaine was actually found on mummies, it is possible that this could be contamination which occurred after the discovery of the mummies. [7] The same argument can be applied to nicotine but, in addition, various plants other than tobacco are a source of nicotine and two of these, Withania somnifera and Apium graveolens , were known and used by ancient Egyptians. David J Counsell notes that "Duke’s Phytochemical and Ethnobotanical Database lists twenty-three nicotine-containing plants in addition to tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum). Of these, two – Withania somnifera and Apium graveolens – were known to the Egyptians (Manniche 1993), and the latter, celery, was the more likely to be used as a food." [7] Sources of nicotine other than tobacco and sources of cocaine in the Old World are discussed by the British biologist Duncan Edlin. [9]
Coca is any of the four cultivated plants in the family Erythroxylaceae, native to western South America. Coca is known worldwide for its psychoactive alkaloid, cocaine.
Egyptology is the scientific study of ancient Egypt. The topics studied include ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious practices in the 4th century AD.
Nefertiti was a queen of the 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, the great royal wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten. Nefertiti and her husband were known for their radical overhaul of state religious policy, in which they promoted the earliest known form of monotheism, Atenism, centered on the sun disc and its direct connection to the royal household. With her husband, she reigned at what was arguably the wealthiest period of ancient Egyptian history. After her husband's death, some scholars believe that Nefertiti ruled briefly as the female pharaoh known by the throne name, Neferneferuaten and before the ascension of Tutankhamun, although this identification is a matter of ongoing debate. If Nefertiti did rule as pharaoh, her reign was marked by the fall of Amarna and relocation of the capital back to the traditional city of Thebes.
Pre-Columbian transoceanic contact theories are speculative theories which propose that visits to the Americas, interactions with the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, or both, were made by people from elsewhere prior to Christopher Columbus's first voyage to the Caribbean in 1492. Studies between 2004 and 2009 suggest the possibility that the earliest human migrations to the Americas may have been made by boat from Beringia and travel down the Pacific coast, contemporary with and possibly predating land migrations over the Beringia land bridge, which during the glacial period joined what today are Siberia and Alaska. Whether transoceanic travel occurred during the historic period, resulting in pre-Columbian contact between the settled American peoples and voyagers from other continents, is vigorously debated.
KV55 is a tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. It was discovered by Edward R. Ayrton in 1907 while he was working in the Valley for Theodore M. Davis. It has long been speculated, as well as much disputed, that the body found in this tomb was that of the famous king, Akhenaten, who moved the capital to Akhetaten. The results of genetic and other scientific tests published in February 2010 have confirmed that the person buried there was both the son of Amenhotep III and the father of Tutankhamun. Furthermore, the study established that the age of this person at the time of his death was consistent with that of Akhenaten, thereby making it almost certain that it is Akhenaten's body. However, a growing body of work soon began to appear to dispute the assessment of the age of the mummy and the identification of KV55 as Akhenaten.
Thutmose II was the fourth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, and his reign is generally dated from 1493 to 1479 BC. Little is known about him and he is overshadowed by his father Thutmose I, half-sister and wife Hatshepsut, and son Thutmose III. He died around the age of 30 and his body was found in the Deir el-Bahri Cache above the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut.
Phytochemistry is the study of phytochemicals, which are chemicals derived from plants. Phytochemists strive to describe the structures of the large number of secondary metabolites found in plants, the functions of these compounds in human and plant biology, and the biosynthesis of these compounds. Plants synthesize phytochemicals for many reasons, including to protect themselves against insect attacks and plant diseases. The compounds found in plants are of many kinds, but most can be grouped into four major biosynthetic classes: alkaloids, phenylpropanoids, polyketides, and terpenoids.
Chyavanprash, originally Chayavanaprasham, is a cooked mixture of sugar, honey, ghee, Indian gooseberry (amla) jam, sesame oil, berries and various herbs and spices. It is prepared as per the instructions suggested in Ayurvedic texts. Chyavanprash is widely sold and consumed in India as a dietary supplement.
Tuna el-Gebel was the necropolis of Khmun. It is the largest known Greco-Roman necropolis in Egypt, dating from the New Kingdom to the Roman Period, and seeing heavy use in the Ptolemaic Period. Tuna el-Gebel is located in Al Minya Governorate in Middle Egypt.
Tomb KV36 is the burial place of the noble Maiherpri of the Eighteenth Dynasty in the Valley of the Kings, Egypt.
Tomb KV57 is the royal tomb of Horemheb, the last pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty and is located in the Valley of the Kings, Egypt.
The Valley of the Kings, also known as the Valley of the Gates of the Kings, is an area in Egypt where, for a period of nearly 500 years from the Eighteenth Dynasty to the Twentieth Dynasty, rock-cut tombs were excavated for pharaohs and powerful nobles under the New Kingdom of ancient Egypt.
The Tomb of Two Brothers is an ancient sepulchre in Deir Rifeh, Egypt. It contains the chamber tomb of the ancient Egyptian high status priests Nakht-Ankh and Khnum-Nakht, which dates from the 12th Dynasty. The whole tomb group is now in the Manchester Museum.
Maatkare(Mutemhat) was an ancient Egyptian high priestess, a God's Wife of Amun during the 21st Dynasty.
Psychoactive plants are plants, or preparations thereof, that upon ingestion induce psychotropic effects. As stated in a reference work:
Psychoactive plants are plants that people ingest in the form of simple or complex preparations in order to affect the mind or alter the state of consciousness.
Abora is the name of several reed boats built by the German explorer Dominique Görlitz. The expeditions were inspired by previous trans-oceanic expeditions by the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl. Main aim of the Abora expeditions was to prove that a keel-less reed boat could be steered crosswise and against prevailing winds, using sideboards (leeboards) in lieu of a fixed keel. The name of the vessels was derived from the Canarian deity Abora.
Priestess of Hathor or Prophetess of Hathor was the title of the Priestess of the goddess Hathor in the Temple of Dendera in Ancient Egypt.
Henut-wedjebu was an ancient Egyptian noblewoman buried in the late Eighteenth Dynasty during the reigns of Amenhotep III or Amenhotep IV. She is known from her intact burial at Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, discovered in 1896 by French Egyptologist Georges Daressy. The same year, Henut-wedjebu's coffin and mummy was purchased by Charles Parsons and gifted to Washington University in St. Louis. Her coffin is on display in the Saint Louis Art Museum.
