Egyptian Pharaohs Smoking Marijuana and Snorting Cocaine- Diffusion!

 

Egyptian Pharaohs Smoking 

Marijuana and Doing Cocaine- Diffusion!

   The use of a wide range of narcotic drugs in antiquity has been widely documented, although archaeologists have sometimes been too credulous of apparently scientific data and have failed to appreciate the post-excavation histories of artifacts, including mummies. This paper examines the discovery of tobacco in the mummy of Rameses II, provides an alternative model for its origin, as a 19th-century insecticide used in conservation, and throws doubt upon the evidence for both cannabis and cocaine in ancient Egypt.

Rameses II and the tobacco beetle

P. C. Buckland and E. Panagiotakopulu (2001).
Antiquity, Volume 75, Issue289, September 2001, pp 549-556
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?aid=9434988

3000-year-old mummified remains from ancient Egypt contain strong traces of Nicotine and Cocaine 2500 years before Christoper Columbus opened up Europe to the plants and animals of the Americas.  Nicotine has also been found in Austria and Chinese mummies some dating back to 3,700 B.C.