Mummy trains

[diddyriddick]

I might add that it was very fashionable for the wealthy in the 19th century to buy an entire mummy, ship it to their house for a party, then have their guest take turns unwrapping it.

Um....Ew! And I thought I had seen some bizarre parties!

 

[DIVUS IVLIVS]

Supposedly Diddy, if you boiled some of the remains into a tea, it would cure what ails you? Hey Mummy! Like some tea? Laugh!

 

[Black Dog]

Possibly, the medicine thing has been confused with Mummia, a resin used in the mummification of bodies. It is still used as a folk medicine in parts of Africa. Many in the middle ages thought that mummia was actual mummies, ground up and mixed with resin.

There are many folk stories about the magical properties of dead bodies or related artifacts. In Medieval England, it was believed that if you took the rope that had hanged a man, and put it around your own neck, it would cure epilepsy.

I think you'd need an awful lot of mummies to keep a steam train going!

 

[bigscreeninkster]

I think you'd need an awful lot of mummies to keep a steam train going!

It was a narrow-gauge railroad. Some of the engines were quite small, but, yes it was my understanding they were in such abundance of mummies they were being used for fuel.

 

[tjadams]

I really don't think so Big Screen.

 

[Black Dog]

It takes about 1 hour to cremate a body in a modern gas powered crematorium: that's a "fresh" corpse with fat on it. Mummies have very little "fuel" apart from their bandages and perhaps whatever oils etc were used for embalming. There's virtually nothing to burn.