22,000 People Signed A Petition To Drink ‘Mummy Juice’ That’s Actually Just Sewage
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This headline transcends just history news and must be considered as particularly weird history news.
On July 19, archaeologists looked inside a previously-unopened Ancient Egyptian sarcophagus that had been unearthed in Alexandria several weeks prior. What they discovered was three skeletons floating around in a mysterious, 2,000-year-old red liquid, and soon the internet started buzzing about what this “mummy juice” might be.
Some suggested that the liquid might possess some sort of special powers were you to consume it, and so naturally a Change.org petition was made which called on Egyptian authorities to allow those who want to drink the “mummy juice” to do so.
Change.org user Innes McKendrick wrote in the description of the petition that the signees “need to drink the red liquid from the cursed dark sarcophagus in the form of some sort of carbonated energy drink so we can assume its powers and finally die” (which is the entirety of the description).
But this “mummy juice” isn’t magical at all, it’s actually just sewage water. Even this fact, though, hadn’t stopped “elixir of life” believers from wanting to drink the stuff, as petition signatures continued to pile up by the minute.
Egypt Ministry of AntiquitiesThe unopened sarcophagus.
Aside from the internet speculating about the fantastical nature of the “mummy juice,” the skeletons inside have also inspired some theories as to who the skeletons might have belonged to.
One popular hypothesis is that the 30-ton tomb (which is the largest one yet to have been discovered in Alexandria) belongs to Alexander the Great, who founded the city of Alexandria in 331 B.C.
The mystery surrounding Alexander the Great’s tomb had some worried that if this latest sarcophagus does belong to the great ruler, that those who open it could suffer some sort of curse and die.
But Dr. Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, has said that the remains are most likely not linked to Alexander the Great and assured everyone that they shouldn’t worry because he and his team are still standing.
“We’ve opened it and, thank God, the world has not fallen into darkness,” Waziri said. “I was the first to put my whole head inside the sarcophagus, and here I stand before you — I am fine.”
