A more than 2,000-year-old vessel from ancient Egypt was last filled with a cocktail of psychedelic drugs and alcohol.
Photo: University of South Florida
The devil’s jar contained a really interesting “cocktail”.
American scientists examined the Bes jar, which was provided by the Tampa Museum of Art. The results of the research were published on November 13 by the scientific journal Scientific reports. The vessel from the reign of the pharaohs of the Ptolemaic dynasty (323 to 30 BC) is decorated with an image of the ancient Egyptian god Bes. His domain was protection, fertility, healing and magical purification, his female counterpart was the goddess Beset. He was worshiped in the so-called Halls of Bes in Saqqara, which historians say were located near the pyramids of Giza, Sky News reports.
A proper cocktail
Historians in the past have only speculated about the drinks served during ceremonies in honor of this ancient god. They assumed that they could be some kind of holy water, wine or beer. A chemical analysis of the residue from the vessel, which was acquired by the Tampa Museum of Art in 1984, was conducted by a scientific team led by Davide Tanasi of the University of South Florida. You can see a 3D scan of Besova’s vessel on this link.
The analysis found the presence of not only psychedelic drugs, bodily fluids and alcohol, but also honey, sesame seeds, pine nuts, licorice and grapes. Based on the composition of the drink and written sources, Professor Tanasi believes that the drink may have been part of a ritual reminiscent of one of the ancient Egyptian myths, probably a fertility myth.
The ancient “pregnancy test” worked
“For the first time in history, we were able to identify all the chemical traces of the ingredients from the Bes jar stored at the Tampa Museum of Art, including all the plants with psychotropic and medicinal properties that the Egyptians used,” Tanasi said. However, the inhabitants of ancient Egypt also had at their disposal surprisingly modern conveniences – pregnancy tests allowing to determine the sex of the child.
The US Department of Health’s National Institutes of Health (NIH) lists what appears to be the oldest known pregnancy test on its website. It comes from an ancient Egyptian papyrus from the 14th century BC and advised women who wanted to know if they were pregnant to urinate on wheat and barley seeds for several days. The sprouting of barley meant a male offspring, the sprouting of wheat meant a girl. If not a single plant sprouted, the woman was not pregnant, according to the papyrus.
Testing of this theory in 1963 showed that the urine of pregnant women caused the seeds to germinate in up to 70 percent of cases. Seeds sprinkled with the urine of men and women who were not pregnant did not germinate. According to scientists, it was probably the first test capable of detecting unique substances in the urine of pregnant women. The reason for its success was probably the increased level of estrogen in the urine of pregnant women, adds the NIH.
Source: vat.pravda.sk
