Archeologists have been studying the material remains of past human life and activities since modern archaeology began in the 18th century.
But advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) are helping archeologists decipher old texts and identify digging sites.
But this Florida Professor was shocked by what he discovered inside a 2,000-year-old Egyptian mug.
Despite all the advancements and innovations made by humans over the centuries, the reality is that we still know little about the distant past.
But, archeologists around the globe are constantly searching for clues that help fill in the gaps and missing places from our history.
Advancements in AI helped find new archaeological sites in the Arabian Desert as well as a 4,000-year-old tomb in Egypt.
But an archeologist at the University of South Florida recently discovered something remarkably interesting in an old mug from 2,000 years ago.
His findings suggest that people were tripping on psychedelics back then like they are today.
“A Professor at the University of South Florida (USF) analyzed a 2,000-year-old Egyptian mug and discovered that the ancient object once held a psychedelic concoction used in a magical ritual,” Fox News reported. “The mug studied was an Egyptian Bes mug donated to the Tampa Museum of Art in 1984,” Fox News continued. “The mug is one of few still in existence.”
According to USF Professor Davide Tanasi, research into the mug, which displayed the head of Bes, first started in 2021. Bes was among the most popular gods of ancient Egypt.
Tanasi’s colleagues took a sample of particles from inside the mug to a laboratory for chemical analysis.
The archeologists expected the tests to show the mug was used for an alcoholic beverage.
But they were wrong.
Tanasi described the chemicals as a “cocktail” of various components.
“The new tactic was successful and revealed the vase had a cocktail of psychedelic drugs, bodily fluids, and alcohol – a combination that Tanasi believes was used in a magical ritual reenacting an Egyptian myth, likely for fertility,” USF wrote in a release. “The concoction was flavored with honey, sesame seeds, pine nuts, licorice, and grapes, which were commonly used to make the beverage look like blood.”
Tanasi celebrated the historic findings.
“There’s no research out there that has ever found what we found in this study,” Tanasi said. “For the first time, we were able to identify all the chemical signatures of the components of the liquid concoction contained in the Tampa Museum of Art’s Bes mug, including the plants used by Egyptians, all of which have psychotropic and medicinal properties.”
The curator of Greek and Roman art at the Tampa Museum of Art, Branko Van Oppen, said the findings ended years of speculation by experts.
“For a very long time now, Egyptologists have been speculating what mugs with the head of Bes could have been used for, and for what kind of beverage, like sacred water, milk, wine or beer,” Van Oppen said. “Experts did not know if these mugs were used in daily life, for religious purposes or in magic rituals.”
“This research teaches us about magic rituals in the Greco-Roman period in Egypt,” Van Oppen said. “Egyptologists believe that people visited the so-called Bes Chambers at Saqqara when they wished to confirm a successful pregnancy because pregnancies in the ancient world were fraught with dangers,” he continued. “So, this combination of ingredients may have been used in a dream-vision-inducing magic ritual within the context of this dangerous period of childbirth.”
The Bes mug is on display now at the Tampa Museum of Art and can be viewed in the exhibition, “Prelude: An Introduction to the Permanent Collection.”
DeSantis Daily will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
