The mummy paper is a paper claimed to be made of sheets and other fibers (eg papyrus) from Egyptian mummies imported into America around 1855. The existence of this paper has not been confirmed for certain but has been widely discussed.
Video Mummy paper
History
The history of mummy paper in America is closely related to the history of paper making and papermaking in America in general.
Lack of supply
Paper can be said to have been born in ancient Egypt, circa 2000 BC, with the invention of what the Romans called "papyrus", based on earlier Greek names for matter. Papyrus is not a paper in the modern sense of the word, because it is formed from compressed stalked sheets rather than pulp. Paper made from cultured plant fibers can be credited to Ts'ai Lun of China in 105 A., when he first presented a paper sheet made of bark from a mulberry tree. When the paper-making technique found its way to Europe, paper was made not from trees but from pieces of cotton and linen fiber. This paper-making technique first came to America in Germantown, Pennsylvania in 1690 when William Rittenhouse founded the first paper mill. Rittenhouse had been a paper maker in Amsterdam, Holland before coming to America, bringing European engineering with him.
In the 1850s, paper making in America reached a crisis point. America produces more newspapers than any other country and its consumption of papers is the same as that of the British and French. According to estimates of 1856, it would take 6,000 carriages, each carrying two tons of paper, to carry all the paper consumed by American newspapers within a year. This equals the need for 405 million pounds of fabric for 800 paper mills and then works in the United States. Most of these fabrics are imported from Europe, with the largest source coming from Italy. By 1854, however, Italy also began exporting fabric to the UK, reducing the supply available to American paper makers. This means that a new replacement or supply source of fabric needs to be discovered, and quickly.
Isaiah Deck
At the same time period, Egyptian mummies are widely known by the public in America. Many mummies have been part of the exhibit and have been shown in museums and exhibitions around the country. In fact, Dr. Pettigrew is the operator of one such show, where he will open it or unroll the mummy in front of the crowd for their entertainment. The impetus for a new supply source of fabric for paper may come from Dr. Isaiah Deck, an Englishman by birth, a New Yorker by residence, a geologist by trade, an archaeologist by specified hobbies and explorers. On previous gold-searching trips to Jamaica, Deck has evaluated other sources for paper including aloe vera, plantain, banana, and dagger grass, but nothing is acceptable. Thus, already preoccupied with paper and paper sources, Deck set off on his way to Egypt in 1847 to search for the missing emerald mines of Cleopatra. Deck's father, also called Isaiah, had known Giovanni Belzoni, the famous Italian robber from the Egyptian tomb; The younger deck inherits from his father some Egyptian artifacts, including a piece of cloth from a mummy.
When searching for missing mines, Deck can not help but see most of the mummies and parts of the mummy that appear on the communal burial site called "mummified hole." He writes, "There is so much that they find in some places off the track that most travelers are accustomed to, that after a periodic storm, the whole region can be seen sand, leaving behind fragments and limbs exposed in such variations and variations." Deck does some calculations: considers two thousand years of embalming expanded, average life span of thirty-three years and a stable population of eight million. This will make you have about five hundred million mummies. Add that the number of mummified animals including cats, bulls and crocodiles, and the number increases drastically. Deck also states, "it does not mean rarely find over 30 lbs. The weight of the linen wrapper on the mummies... A princess from Mr. Pettigrew's collection is wrapped in 40 thickness, yielding 42 meters of the finest texture." Deck next counts that the average paper consumption in America is about 15 pounds. per person per year. This means that the supply of Egyptian mummies will be able to meet American demand for about 14 years, at which time a replacement supply source or material will likely be found, so the need for fabric is unnecessary.
Maps Mummy paper
Evidence
Whether or not the American paper mill takes Isaiah Deck's proposal seriously can not be proven or rejected convincingly. However, some evidence remains.
Dard Hunter
Dard Hunter is a renowned paper researcher and handmade paper catalog and handwriting supporter. His book,
Hunter also wrote in a broad footnote of the letter he received from Ny. John Ramsey of Syracuse, New York, tells the story his dad used to tell his days at a paper mill in Broadalbin, New York. He worked there from 1855 to 1860 and was one of those people responsible for unrolling the old linen from the mummies the factory received. He wrote to Hunter that "the rolled robe retains the mummy shape, so that when the workers attempt to straighten or unroll the 'cocoon'... it jumps back into the mummy's shape once wrapped up so long." He also describes the material as a cream-colored linen that still keeps bits of embroidery on the edges.
Hunter also writes about and quotes from Deck's proposal on the import of mummies. However, Hunter refers to the work as a script, leaving Joseph Dane to ignore the work, stating that the work can not be found and implies that Hunter created it according to his purpose. This Dane's claim must also be dismissed, since the authors both before and since Dane, including Deck's colleagues and modern writers, among them are Wolfe and Baker, have been able to find copies of this paper. Dane also rejected Deck's writing, and therefore Hunter, on the grounds that it was in a Swiftonian satire mode. He cites the Deck reference for austerity, attention by reducing its shortcomings and accuracy in its calculations as further evidence of his writing in the book 3 of Gulliver's Travels. Dane also wrote that Hunter should have realized that Deck was not serious, thus questioning Hunter's own authority on the field.
Evidence from periodical
It is a verifiable fact that fabrics from Egypt were imported during this period. Joel Munsell is a prolific printer and publisher from Albany, New York, and he keeps scrapbook articles related to his trade. This eventually became the basis for his book Timeline of Origin and Progress of Paper and Paper Making . For entries from 1855, Munsell noted that the payload of 1215 Egyptian fabric bales arrived and was purchased by J Priestly & amp; Co for about 4 cents per pound. The source, Paper Trade Reporter , states that the final purchase price for the transaction is $ 25,000. The following year, New York Tribune writes that about two and a quarter million pounds of fabrics have been imported from Egypt.
The article discussing the practicality and financial implications of mummified imports for papers for the Egyptian government and the American paper mills was also published in the July 7, 1847 edition of The Friend, 1947, edition of the Scientific American > and December 17, 1847 about Cold War Fountain . Although none of these articles confirm the creation of such papers in America, they prove that the concept is widely discussed and is being discussed in famous and respected magazines of the day.
Another article goes on in the April 1873 edition of the Druggist Circular and Drug Sheet describing a visit of a New York businessman to New York in 1866. There, he purchased and "exported to the United States 'mummies of the catacombs' to be converted to mush to paper making." This article also shows that mummies are not ideal for printing paper because of the various oils and botanicals that are included in the fabric, leading to the change of paper color. This reinforces Hunter's report that the Stanwood plant uses mummies to make brown chocolate paper.
On July 31, 1856, Syracuse Standard posted a notice in his newspaper informing the reader that it was printed on paper made of fabric imported directly from Egypt. The fabrics were imported by Mr. G.W. Ryan and processed at his factory at Marcellus Falls. Munsell added that the cloth was stripped of mummies. Hunter reported that he could not find a copy of the matter, and Dane considered this to mean that the paper did not claim to have been printed on mummy paper, but only on laps of the mummified area. Baker, however, has found a copy of a paper in the Onondaga History Association and confirms both the notification words and the physical differences of this issue from the previous one.
Evidence on mummy paper
Dane argues that a mummy paper is not possible because all references to the paper are vaguely documented or a product of oral history. He also argues that they have a Swift aura about them and that all the original authors have satirical intentions. Dane also stated that both copies of the Standard on the mummy paper can be found, as well as the Deck article could not be found, both statements clearly proved wrong.
Indeed there are some facts that make proving the existence of mummy paper concrete impossible. First, papers from Standard and the Norwich side are not chemically testable to prove that they are from mummies, because they will only prove they are made of linen. They also can not carbon-14 dates. This test requires burning of the material, which means that items that exist in only one or two copies must be destroyed to complete the test, something obviously can not be done. In addition, mummies were made for over 4,000 years in Egypt, so even a time frame for paper products will not narrow the material age to a useful window for a strong conclusion to be made. In addition, the percentage of mummified cloth onto other fabrics in a given pulp mix may deviate the test results. DNA tests will also prove to be inconclusive, because the only thing to be tested is that matter at one point has close contact with humans.
Beyond scientific tests, there are no records of paper mills that buy mummies. If there is a note or account book, they have been lost or recycled by the manufacturer itself for more paper. No mummy photos or mummy wrappers in paper mills. Delivery notes and special notes have also disappeared. However, this may not prove anything for sure; because the fabric for duty free paper at the moment, the charge does not need to be declared. Even if the mummified cloth has been declared, they may be declared as paper waste, with no proof given.
Other industrial uses for mummies
Perhaps the most popular use of mummies in other industries besides papermaking appears in the novel Mark Twain Innocents Abroad . He wrote about the practice, then the current on Egyptian railways used mummies as fuel to power the locomotive.
"I'm not going to talk about trains, because it's like any other train - I'll just say that the fuel they use for locomotives consists of three thousand-year-old mummies, bought by tons or by graves for that purpose, and that sometimes someone hears profane engineers calling pettishly, "D-n plebeian this, they do not burn for a penny-fainting a King..."
The main storyteller talks with his tongue on the cheek. He lets the reader read the joke in the next passage, which reads "Telling me for a fact, I only say it when I get it, I'm willing to believe it, I can trust anything." Although this usage can not be proved by contemporary sources, this story has been mentioned by many reliable secondary sources. An article from the December 3, 1859 edition of Scientific American also reported this unusual fuel source.
There are many sources related to the use of mummy excavation in medicine. In fact, Merck & amp; The company sold mummies until 1910. The soil mummification bodies also produce brown pigments, still referred to as "mummy brown" or "Egyptian brown". The color is no longer produced from the mummy. Additional mummified products include body distillation to produce aromatic oils, such as olibanum and ambergris, which can be made into engine oil, soap or even incense. Clearly, mummies are the choice of many imported products, just like buffalo or whales in their presence.
See also
- Ancient Egyptian burial custom
- Dard Hunter
- Innocents Abroad
- Mummy
- Nicholson Baker
- Paper
- Paper Creation
- Preservation (library and archive science)
References
External links
- Do Egyptians burn mummies as fuel?
- Nicholson Baker fan page
- Mummy's Curse and Jas Armani by Sandy Kinnee
- Rags to Riches, article from Down East
- S.J. Wolfe's personal web page
- PAPER FROM MUMI DISCUSSION, article by John Lienhard
- Wolfe, S.J. "Long Under Wraps, Solved Puzzle Catalog." The book . 61 (2003): 4-5.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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