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Ground Up Mummies
Most people today would probably associate Egyptian mummies with museums. This is unsurprising, as this is
probably where most of us have seen them, especially in Europe. Yet, if I were to say that real mummies can be
found in paintings, it may be a little odd, to say the least.
L’interieur d’une cuisine by Martin Drölling, 1815. ( Public domain )
For instance, it has been recorded that the British portraitist, Sir William Beechey, kept stocks of Mummy Brown. The
French artist Martin Drölling also reputedly used Mummy Brown made with the remains of French kings disinterred
from the royal abbey of St. Denis in Paris. It has been suggested that his L’interieur d’une cuisine is an example of
extensive use of the pigment, while the mesmerizing painting by Edward Burne-Jones, entitled The Last Sleep of
Arthur in Avalon, is also believed to have been painted using Mummy Brown.
An Egyptian mummy dealer selling his wares in 1870. How much potential knowledge have we lost due to the
popularity of mummy brown pigment? ( Public domain )
For example, when the artist Edward Burne-Jones discovered what Mummy Brown was actually made of, he went to
his studio, took his tube of Mummy Brown, and insisted on giving it a decent burial there and then. In 1964, Mummy
Brown paint became “extinct” when C. Roberson & Co., a London firm that manufactures and supplies material for
fine art, announced that they “ran out” of mummies for the production of their Mummy Brown paint.
A tube of mummy brown in a “coffin” which was probably originally made for an eel or a snake. Now in the collection
of the Bolton Library in England. (Geni / CC BY-SA 4.0 )
As a result of this belief in the medicinal properties of Mummy powder, Egyptian mummies were exported to
Europe, ground down, and sold in apothecaries throughout the continent. Part of the craze for Mummy powder was
due to the claim that mummies had a mysterious life force that was transferrable to whoever ingested it. Hence,
ground mummies were consumed by Europeans well into the 18th century.
An apothecary vessel containing mumiae (mumia or mummy powder), from the pharmacist collection at the
Museums für Hamburgische Geschichte. (Christoph Braun / CC0)
This private enterprise meant that the bodies of executed criminals or slaves were treated with bitumen and
exposed to the sun in order to produce authentic-looking mummies, which were then sold to traders. Once ground
into powder, it would probably be near impossible to tell the difference between a genuine Egyptian mummy and a
fresh corpse treated with bitumen.
Today, the pigment Caput Mortuum , which means “dead head” or “worthless remains,” is an alternative name for
Mummy Brown and it is produced by popular brands such as Faber Castell. Nevertheless, you can be pretty sure
that there are no dead bodies used in its production.
Top image: Left: An unknown Egyptian mummy. Right: Modern equivalent of Mummy Brown pigment.