Mellified Man
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A mellified man, also known as a human mummy confection, was a legendary medicinal substance created by steeping a human cadaver in
honey Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several species of bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of pl ...
. The concoction is detailed in Chinese medical sources, including the ''
Bencao Gangmu The ''Bencao gangmu'', known in English as the ''Compendium of Materia Medica'' or ''Great Pharmacopoeia'', is an encyclopedic gathering of medicine, natural history, and Chinese herbology compiled and edited by Li Shizhen and published in the ...
'' of the 16th century. Relying on a second-hand account, the text reports a story that some elderly men in
Arabia The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...
, nearing the end of their lives, would submit themselves to a process of
mummification A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay furt ...
in honey to create a healing confection. This process differed from a simple
body donation Body donation, anatomical donation, or body bequest is the donation of a whole body after death for research and education. There is usually no cost to donate a body to science; donation programs will often provide a stipend and/or cover the cost ...
because of the aspect of
self-sacrifice Self-sacrifice is the giving up of something that a person wants for themselves, so that others can be helped or protected, or so that other external values can be advanced or protected. Generally, an act of self-sacrifice conforms to the rule tha ...
; the mellification process would ideally start before death. The donor would stop eating any food other than honey, going as far as to bathe in the substance. Shortly, the donor's feces and even sweat would consist of honey. When this diet finally proved fatal, the donor's body would be placed in a stone coffin filled with honey. After a century or so, the contents would have turned into a sort of confection reputedly capable of healing broken limbs and other ailments. This confection would then be sold in street markets as a hard to find item with a hefty price.


Etymology

''Bencao Gangmu'' calls the concoction ''miren'' (蜜人), translated as "honey person" or "mellified man". ''Miziren'' (蜜漬人 "honey-saturated person") is a modern synonym. The place it comes from is ''Tianfangguo'', an old name for Arabia or the Middle East. The Chinese ''munaiyi'' (木乃伊), along with "mummy"
loanword A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...
s in many other languages, derives from
Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
''mūmīya'' (mummy) or from
Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
mūmiyâyī (, "mummy"), itself from ''mūm'' "wax". Mellification is a mostly obsolete term for the production of honey, or the process of honeying something, from the Latin '' mellificāre'' (“to make honey”), or ''mel'' (“honey”). The
Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...
word ''mélissa'' ( μέλισσα) means "bee; honeybee; (poetic) honey".


Origins

Some of the earliest known records of mellified corpses come from Greek historian
Herodotus Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...
(4th century BCE) who recorded that the
Assyrians Assyrians (, ) are an ethnic group indigenous to Mesopotamia, a geographical region in West Asia. Modern Assyrians share descent directly from the ancient Assyrians, one of the key civilizations of Mesopotamia. While they are distinct from ot ...
used to embalm their dead with honey. A century later,
Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...
's body was reportedly preserved in a honey-filled
sarcophagus A sarcophagus (: sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a coffin, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from the Greek language, Greek wikt:σάρξ, σάρξ ...
, and there are also indications that this practice was known to the Egyptians. Another record of mellification is found in the ''
Bencao Gangmu The ''Bencao gangmu'', known in English as the ''Compendium of Materia Medica'' or ''Great Pharmacopoeia'', is an encyclopedic gathering of medicine, natural history, and Chinese herbology compiled and edited by Li Shizhen and published in the ...
'' (section 52, " Man as medicine") under the entry for ''munaiyi'' (木乃伊 "mummy"). It quotes the ''Chuogeng lu'' ( 輟耕錄 "Talks while the Plough is Resting", c. 1366) by the
Yuan dynasty The Yuan dynasty ( ; zh, c=元朝, p=Yuáncháo), officially the Great Yuan (; Mongolian language, Mongolian: , , literally 'Great Yuan State'), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after Div ...
scholar
Tao Zongyi The Tao or Dao is the natural way of the universe, primarily as conceived in East Asian philosophy and religion. This seeing of life cannot be grasped as a concept. Rather, it is seen through actual living experience of one's everyday being. T ...
(陶宗儀) and
Tao Jiucheng The Tao or Dao is the natural way of the universe, primarily as conceived in East Asian philosophy and religion. This seeing of life cannot be grasped as a concept. Rather, it is seen through actual living experience of one's everyday being. T ...
(陶九成).
According to ao Jiuchengin his 'Chuogenglu'' in the lands of the Arabs there are men 70 or 80 years old who are willing to give their bodies to save others. Such a one takes no more food or drink, only bathing and eating a little honey, till after a month his excreta are nothing but honey; then death ensues. His compatriots place the body to macerate in a stone coffin full of honey, with an inscription giving the year and month of burial. After a hundred years, the seals are removed and the confection so formed used for the treatment of wounds and fractures of the body and limbs—only a small amount taken internally is needed for the cure. Although it is scarce in those parts, the common people call it "mellified man" 'miren'' 蜜人 or, in their foreign speech, "mu-nai-i". Thus Mr. ao but I myself do not know whether the tale is true or not. In any case, I append it for the consideration of the learned.
According to
Joseph Needham Noel Joseph Terence Montgomery Needham (; 9 December 1900 – 24 March 1995) was a British biochemist, historian of science and sinologist known for his scientific research and writing on the history of Chinese science and technology, initia ...
and
Lu Gwei-djen Lu Gwei-djen (; July 22, 1904 – November 28, 1991) was a Chinese biochemist and historian. She was an expert on the history of science and technology in China and a researcher of nutriology. She was an important researcher and co-author of t ...
, this content was
Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
, but Li Shizhen confused the story with a Burmese custom of preserving the bodies of abbots and high monks in honey, so that "the Western notion of a drug made from perdurable human flesh was combined with the characteristic Buddhist motif of self-sacrifice for others". In her book '' Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers'', writer
Mary Roach Mary Roach (born March 20, 1959) is an American author specializing in popular science and humor. She has published seven New York Times bestsellers: '' Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers'' (2003), '' Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife ...
observes that the text points out that it does not know the veracity of the mellified man story.


In popular culture

* The novel ''
The Dervish House ''The Dervish House'' is a 2010 science fiction novel by British author Ian McDonald. The novel was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2011, and won the BSFA Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in the same year. It was a ...
'' by Ian McDonald features a hunt for a mellified man. * A segment of the eighth episode of the fourth series of the British children's historical sketch show ''
Horrible Histories ''Horrible Histories'' is an educational entertainment franchise encompassing many media including books, magazines, audio books, stage shows, TV shows, and more. In 2013, Lisa Edwards, UK publishing and commercial director of Scholastic Corpo ...
'' features this concept. * The song "Sweet Bod" by
Neil Cicierega Neil Stephen Cicierega ( ; born August 23, 1986) is an American musician, filmmaker, YouTuber, and animator. He is known as the creator of '' Potter Puppet Pals'', " The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny", and various music albums under the ...
(also known as
Lemon Demon Lemon Demon is a musical project and band created by American comedian and musician Neil Cicierega in 2003 in Boston, Massachusetts. Lemon Demon's studio work is performed solely by Cicierega, who is the project's sole official member. Live per ...
) on the 2016 album ''
Spirit Phone ''Spirit Phone'' is the seventh studio album by Lemon Demon, a musical project created by American musician Neil Cicierega. The album was released digitally through Bandcamp on February 29, 2016, marking his first full-length album in eight yea ...
'' is about this concept, containing many lyrics revolving around a corpse being mummified in honey, and the sale of said honey for medicinal purposes.


See also

*
Medical cannibalism Medical or medicinal cannibalism is the consumption of parts of the human body, dead or alive, to treat or prevent diseases. The medical trade and pharmacological use of human body parts and fluids often arose from the belief that because the hu ...
*
Mummia Mummia, mumia, or originally mummy referred to several different preparations in the history of medicine, from "mineral pitch" to "powdered human mummies". It originated from Arabic ''mūmiyā'' "a type of resinous bitumen found in Western A ...


References

{{Reflist Arabian mythology Medical cannibalism History of pharmacy Honey Mummies Mythological medicines and drugs Suicide by poison