When Odd Old World Artifacts are found in the New World...

originally posted by: Harte
a reply to: toms54

Here's a list of plants in the same family that are native to Africa and could produce similar, and in some cases the same, daughter compounds"
E. brownianum_, Southern Africa
E. caffrum_, Southern Africa
E. delagoense_, Mozambique through South Africa
E. emarginatum_, Guinea to Kenya, Central and Southern Africa
E. gerrardi_, Madagascar and Mozambique
E. monogynum_, India
E. pictum_, Southern Africa
E. platycladum_, Kenya to Mozambique and Madagascar
E. pulchellum_, Southern Africa
E. zambesiacum_, Central Africa

Harte

I have tried to evaluate some of what you have presented. First I would say that the Hall of Ma'at link is actually pretty balanced and does not rule out anything. Maybe it speculates too much. The possibility that coc aine may have been concentrated from leaves that contained only trace amounts into usable dosages has even less evidence in support of it than anything I said. I do mean trace amounts. I was not able to find much on the subspecies you listed but what I have found is that the drug is only found in the well known South American varieties and was undetectable in all others until newer, more modern, more sensitive methods were developed. Since then, some other strains were found to be significant but they are all in South America. There is no history of any coc aine use or production in any part of Africa until modern times. Any instance I could find of these plants used as herbs was for skin condition or upset stomach not as a stimulant. Cocaine was never concentrated by South American natives either.

Here a review of scientific articles: American Drugs in Egyptian Mummies

Here is some analysis of wild coc aine pants: Wild Coca Species Are Broadly Distributed – Not Just In The Andes!

I haven't really looked into tobacco. I think the science is good but I was mostly interested in the coc aine. Maybe later.

originally posted by: toms54

originally posted by: Harte
a reply to: toms54

Here's a list of plants in the same family that are native to Africa and could produce similar, and in some cases the same, daughter compounds"
E. brownianum_, Southern Africa
E. caffrum_, Southern Africa
E. delagoense_, Mozambique through South Africa
E. emarginatum_, Guinea to Kenya, Central and Southern Africa
E. gerrardi_, Madagascar and Mozambique
E. monogynum_, India
E. pictum_, Southern Africa
E. platycladum_, Kenya to Mozambique and Madagascar
E. pulchellum_, Southern Africa
E. zambesiacum_, Central Africa

Harte

I have tried to evaluate some of what you have presented. First I would say that the Hall of Ma'at link is actually pretty balanced and does not rule out anything. Maybe it speculates too much. The possibility that coc aine may have been concentrated from leaves that contained only trace amounts into usable dosages has even less evidence in support of it than anything I said. I do mean trace amounts. I was not able to find much on the subspecies you listed but what I have found is that the drug is only found in the well known South American varieties and was undetectable in all others until newer, more modern, more sensitive methods were developed. Since then, some other strains were found to be significant but they are all in South America. There is no history of any coc aine use or production in any part of Africa until modern times. Any instance I could find of these plants used as herbs was for skin condition or upset stomach not as a stimulant. Cocaine was never concentrated by South American natives either.

Here a review of scientific articles: American Drugs in Egyptian Mummies

Here is some analysis of wild coc aine pants: Wild Coca Species Are Broadly Distributed – Not Just In The Andes!

I haven't really looked into tobacco. I think the science is good but I was mostly interested in the coc aine. Maybe later.

Recall that coc aine was NOT found in the mummies either.

Harte

Recall that coc aine was NOT found in the mummies either.


So you said. Your own source contradicts that.

The Hall of Ma'at

Is it possible that the presence of these drugs could be explained as intermediary compounds or breakdown products of other common, known biochemicals?
WP: According to my knowledge coc aine, THC and nicotine and their metabolites have their origin only in plants, and there is no way how they can result from other natural processes.
SB: It is not known that coc aine or nicotine can be intermediary compounds or breakdown products.

Is this scientific evidence so watertight that it could withstand legal testimony?
WP: Dr. Balabanovas expertise in analysing drugs in the hair of drug addicts was performed in context with forensic investigations ordered by Justice and the German State without any profit background. Insofar I would term her evidence a legal one.

The coc aine concentrations found in artificially mummified bodies from Egypt, dated from 1070BC to 395AD, ranged from 24ng/g to 441ng/g. [12] Cocaine was found too in skeletal samples from 71 individuals without traces of artificially embalming procedure, from Egyptian Nubia, dated 600AD to 1100AD. The alkaloid was found in 56 individuals ranged from 0 to 59 years, the highest coc aine values were detected in the group of 1 to 6 year-old children (82ng/g). Up to the age of 22 years the concentrations decreased to 52ng/g. Then after a new increase up to 67ng/g, at the age of 39 years the coc aine amounts decreased steadily.


American Drugs in Egyptian Mummies

“This is the procedure used to produce what McPhillips (1998) considered indisputable evidence for confirming products of substance abuse in hair. Within recent years, hair analysis has been used more commonly in this kind of screening process and the techniques employed have been optimized. Mistakes are known to have occurred in some cases evaluating for metals, but the ability to detect drugs such as coc aine, nicotine, and hashish seem not been problematic (Wilhelm, 1996).


At least you could admit it in not entirely unreasonable.

Read it years ago. The compounds were daughter compounds of coc aine, the result of degeneration, not coc aine itself.

Harte

Right, but are the compounds found in anything else that a human being would ingest?

The issue is: how did they end up ingesting daughter compounds of Kocaine? And more importantly: how did they end up ingesting it in quantities great enough to leave a detectable trace in their tissue?

Random ingestion of ordinary foods that break down to produce those compounds fails as an explanation because, if I'm reading Toms54 quote right, the drug test used to check for it is the same one applied in the present world to living humans to screen for drugs. Drug tests are often a mandatory condition for employment. Being prone to yielding false positives would make them useless for that purpose.


So either A: The Egyptians had a way of processing local plants to get a compound that had similar effects to Kocaine.

Or B: They ingested Kocaine.




Note that they might not have been doing it for recreation. Taking Kocaine when you are sick can give the illusion that you are recovering. A sick and dying noble might ingest large amounts of it believing it to be medicine.

Nobody is claiming they ingested coc aine, except idiots and fringe con men.

Cocaine wasn't isolated until fairly recently and it takes quite a bit to do it.

The compounds that degenerate into the daughter compounds that were found, however, can be found in other plants as well, many of them native to Africa.

If you eat those plants, you'll lose your job to a drug test without even getting high.

Harte

This quote taken from Toms54's link:

In the present study, the leaf samples of 51 different Erythroxylum species were investigated for their coc aine content. Twenty-eight species had not been examined previously and coc aine was detected in 23 wild Erythroxylum species. Cocaine content was less than 0.001% for all wild species, except for Erythroxylum laetevirens in which a 10 times higher amount was determined.

So the highest content they found in any sample was 0.01% for Erythroxylum laetevirens, which does grow in Africa.

Coca, on the other hand usually has between 0.25% and 0.75% The coca leaves they used in their study had 0.60%

That's a pretty big difference. You wouldn't get much of an effect from eating Erythroxylum laetevirens straight. You'd need to know how to concentrate it, and concentrate it quite a lot.

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous

This quote taken from Toms54's link:

In the present study, the leaf samples of 51 different Erythroxylum species were investigated for their coc aine content. Twenty-eight species had not been examined previously and coc aine was detected in 23 wild Erythroxylum species. Cocaine content was less than 0.001% for all wild species, except for Erythroxylum laetevirens in which a 10 times higher amount was determined.

So the highest content they found in any sample was 0.01% for Erythroxylum laetevirens, which does grow in Africa.

Coca, on the other hand usually has between 0.25% and 0.75% The coca leaves they used in their study had 0.60%

That's a pretty big difference. You wouldn't get much of an effect from eating Erythroxylum laetevirens straight. You'd need to know how to concentrate it, and concentrate it quite a lot.

There is also the fact that a subsequent analysis gave the same result, but two analyses after that both showed no such compounds were found.
And, the only mummies that tested positive had been stored in Europe for centuries, whereas no other tested mummy from the same period gave any positive test result.

Harte

a reply to: Plotus

So many carefully preserved artworks from the Italian Renaissance are proof that not as much was lost as popularly believed.
The Botticelli mirror painting with the unexplained burning sarcophagus is testament to some of the ancient Egyptian knowledge retained.

originally posted by: Harte

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous

This quote taken from Toms54's link:

In the present study, the leaf samples of 51 different Erythroxylum species were investigated for their coc aine content. Twenty-eight species had not been examined previously and coc aine was detected in 23 wild Erythroxylum species. Cocaine content was less than 0.001% for all wild species, except for Erythroxylum laetevirens in which a 10 times higher amount was determined.

So the highest content they found in any sample was 0.01% for Erythroxylum laetevirens, which does grow in Africa.

Coca, on the other hand usually has between 0.25% and 0.75% The coca leaves they used in their study had 0.60%

That's a pretty big difference. You wouldn't get much of an effect from eating Erythroxylum laetevirens straight. You'd need to know how to concentrate it, and concentrate it quite a lot.

There is also the fact that a subsequent analysis gave the same result, but two analyses after that both showed no such compounds were found.
And, the only mummies that tested positive had been stored in Europe for centuries, whereas no other tested mummy from the same period gave any positive test result.

Harte

I don't know where you are getting that. When I search, I'm finding that other tests have been done, and gotten similar results. Although sometimes they find nicotine, but no coke, and sometimes they find coke, but no nicotine.

www.faculty.ucr.edu...


And apparently actual tobacco leaves were found in the bandages of none other than Ramses II himself.

www.beyondsciencetv.com... aine-mummies/


We can either invent a new, altogether previously unknown theory that speculates the particular chemicals that are detected by a drug test just so happen to be common outcomes of the breakdown of unrelated plants over time.... because random chemical mixtures *can* do that with some remote probability slightly greater than absolute zero.

Kind of like the theory that exposing an ordinary person to radioactive waste will turn them into a superhero.



... or we can accept the other seemingly low probability explanation, that maybe ancient polynesian sailors did more than just visit and colonize remote pacific islands. Maybe some of them actually used the technology in their possession for what it does best: trade.

The fact the technology to navigate the oceans was, in fact, in those people's possession is, at this point, entirely undisputed.

a reply to: bloodymarvelous

There is the Homeric legend of the Lotus eaters.
Not exactly news that Power and wealth can corrupt leaders so that they become lazy, addicted and left behind.