Mummy Paper - Other Industrial Uses For Mummies

Other Industrial Uses For Mummies

Perhaps the most famous claimed use of mummies in other industries than papermaking appeared in Mark Twain’s novel Innocents Abroad. He writes of the practice then current on the Egyptian railroad of using mummies for fuel to power the locomotives.

“I shall not speak of the railway, for it is like any other railway -- I shall only say that the fuel they use for the locomotive is composed of mummies three thousand years old, purchased by the ton or by the graveyard for that purpose, and that sometimes one hears the profane engineer call out pettishly, "D -- n these plebeians, they don't burn worth a cent -- pass out a King …”

This master story teller was speaking tongue in cheek. He lets the reader in on the joke in the next passage, which reads "Stated to me for a fact. I only tell it as I got it. I am willing to believe it. I can believe any thing." While this use cannot be substantiated with contemporary sources, this story has been mentioned by many reliable secondary sources. An article from the 3 December 1859 issue of Scientific American also reports of this unusual fuel source.

There are many sources relating to the use of ground-up mummies in pharmaceuticals. In fact, Merck & Company sold mummy up until 1910. Ground-up mummified bodies also produce a brown pigment, still referred to as “mummy brown” or “Egyptian brown”. The color is no longer produced from mummies. Additional by-products of mummies include the distillation of the bodies to produce aromatic oils, such as olibanum and ambergris, which can be made into machine oils, soaps or even incense for use in the Catholic Church. Clearly, mummies were a multi-product import of choice, much as the buffalo or whale had been before them.