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Cocaine in Egyptian Mummies? The Dr. Balabanova Mystery Explained · Lost Civilizations: Ancient Aliens & Forgotten History

0:02
If I should look at it from the
0:04
outside, I would say something like, you know,
0:07
some of these people that is, should we
0:10
say, sceptic about her work, it is from
0:13
my point of view, as when a young
0:15
pupil is, you know, is criticizing the teacher,
0:19
that this cannot be true.
0:22
The thing is that Dr. Svetlana Balabanova, she
0:25
was an expert in forensic toxicology, and her
0:31
critics was archaeologists, botanics, and so on.
0:35
So bottom line was that, who's the expert
0:39
here?
0:40
And to, from my point of view, I
0:44
don't think we can discuss if the, if
0:48
the toxins were found in the sample, that
0:50
is proven.
0:52
There's no room for interpretation here.
0:55
What we only can discuss here is that,
0:59
can it come from other sources?
1:03
That is a little more, should we say,
1:08
problematic.
1:11
First of all, these methods are every day
1:16
challenged in courts around the world.
1:20
And one of the, this is in German,
1:25
I have to translate it, I think we
1:27
call it hair shaft test.
1:31
And that is basically that the hair is
1:35
a washed chemical.
1:38
And then after it has been washed, the
1:40
sample here, you analyze the liquid that is
1:45
left.
1:47
And this is, if there's no more traces
1:51
of say cocaine or nicotine and so on,
1:55
then we conclude that the hair is now
1:59
clean.
1:59
And then we do the analysis of the
2:01
hair in a separate test.
2:04
So if the toxic material is only found
2:07
inside the hair, then there's a clear indication
2:11
that this is something that must have been
2:14
taken when the mummy was alive and not
2:17
by contamination.
2:19
And that was exactly what she did.
2:22
So Dr. Balabanova was actually quite certain that
2:27
contamination was not likely.
2:33
However, some, some critics might have a point
2:37
here, because they are discussing that the archaeology
2:41
tests are extremely proof, sorry, it's extremely hard
2:45
to compare with modern medicine, because then you
2:53
have a fresh sample, you normally know what
2:57
has happened with the sample, and the environment
3:00
is controlled.
3:02
In archaeology, these mummies can easily be 3
3:06
,000 years old, they can be handled by
3:11
hundreds of persons, and they can have been
3:13
threatened with chemicals in museums and so on.
3:16
For instance, one of the mummies, the one
3:19
called Henutao, I think it's called, has been
3:24
plundered, has been transported, has been in museum
3:27
in the 18th century, and has been handled
3:30
in a period where people actually smoked cigars
3:34
all over.
3:35
So the problem was not the test of
3:40
Balabanova, but the sample's history.
3:43
But again, here, I find it important to
3:47
highlight that Dr. Sviljana Balabanova actually sent samples
3:52
to three other laboratories that also found the
3:55
cocaine and the negotine, and that is actually
4:00
a fairly strong point, which is quite often
4:03
is overviewed, so is overlooked in a lot
4:08
of pseudoscientific texts.
4:14
But it's also important to highlight that she
4:18
was actually testing 134 other mummies, and in
4:23
total, I believe it was more than 3
4:26
,000 tests she did, and there was found
4:29
traces of nicotine in a lot of them.
4:34
And one of the problem was actually that
4:36
if you compare it with a, should we
4:38
say, a modern-day smoker, the strength of
4:45
the nicotine was actually up more than 30
4:47
times higher.
4:50
So it was not possible, you know, to
4:55
smoke that many cigarettes, basically.
5:02
But again, one of the key, should we
5:08
say, defenses from the traditional ecologists is that
5:11
nobody has found a coca plant, and nobody
5:17
has found, should we say, clear traces of
5:22
coca in the Egypt.
5:25
But the problem is that Balabanova's results has
5:28
never been disproven.
5:36
I think that one of the problems is
5:38
with this, should we say, resistance, is that
5:46
if accepted, you will have to, you know,
5:49
rewrite history, not only Egyptology, but also botanics,
5:56
commerce routes, the world history, and so on.
6:01
And that, they think, requires, should we say,
6:05
extraordinary evidence.
6:08
I challenge that, because it's not a problem
6:13
that you find something that disproves.
6:16
The problem is that you have a lot
6:18
of weak results that is actually, you know,
6:21
collected, is supposed to give a strong result.
6:25
That is not, should we say, a proper
6:32
scientific view.
6:37
The thing is that when you have a
6:39
solid science that's actually pinpoint one thing, then
6:47
you cannot take, you know, three or four
6:51
weak, should we say, theories or accepted ecology
6:57
facts, and then say that those three are
7:00
more, are stronger evidence than one that is
7:06
actually following all the rules today, who is
7:09
challenged every day.
7:11
So, I think that it's not fair.
7:15
Dr. Balabnova was a very competent forensic toxology.
7:20
She used methods that is challenged every day
7:22
in court around the world.
7:25
She actually tested against contamination by using three
7:30
different additional laboratories in order to disprove contamination.
7:41
If we open up and look a little
7:43
further, it's not only nicotine and cocaine that
7:47
has been found in Egyptian mummies.
7:49
We also have cannabis, especially the THC.
7:53
That is interesting, not because it's rare.
7:57
It's actually known in the Eurasia for thousands
8:00
of years.
8:02
But nicotine found in hair and tissue samples
8:06
has created some debate, because concentrations was far
8:09
higher than expected from, should we say, normal
8:13
plants.
8:16
Possible explanation is, of course, medical application of
8:19
the plants, the use of nicotine in balsamation.
8:26
It could be environmental, or it could be
8:31
lost or unknown plants.
8:34
But it shows that the old biochemical traces
8:38
is often hard to interpret later.
8:44
But if we are looking at the old
8:50
European skeletons, then we also have found nicotine
8:55
in Europe before tobacco officially came from America.
9:04
And that has been found in samples of
9:06
hair and bones.
9:09
We found nicotine traces in skeletons about the
9:13
12th to the 14th century.
9:16
And a possible explanation is plants of the
9:19
of the night shadow family, I think it's
9:22
called Solanaceae.
9:24
Don't quote me exactly on that one.
9:27
But also from medical herbs and from contamination
9:31
of earth or, should we say, the later
9:34
handling of this.
9:37
The thing here is that it shows that
9:43
molecules can live quite for some time.
9:46
Narcotic elements can be stored in hair, in
9:50
tissue, in bones, in harbics and balsam, and
9:55
so on.
10:00
And then the problem is that it's often
10:02
easier to say that the molecules is in
10:04
the sample than to explain how did it
10:07
get in there for 3 000 years ago.
10:11
And that is basically the problem.
10:15
It's easier to say it's there than it
10:18
is to explain why it's there.
10:23
And one of the key problems here is
10:24
actually that archaeology and chemistry, they require that
10:31
you both, of course, understand the toxicology, you
10:34
understand the botanics, the history, archaeology, and then
10:39
also, of course, chemistry.
10:43
And develop an over case exactly in the,
10:45
should we say, in the cross field between
10:48
all these different samples.
10:51
And if you remember from one of my
10:53
earlier podcasts in this season, one of the
10:56
key problems in archaeology is that the style
10:59
of thinking.
11:00
They are working in the same way as
11:03
when you have secret projects by, I don't
11:07
know, NSA and so on, because the knowledge
11:11
is compartmentalized.
11:14
So that means that if you're living in
11:16
one compartment, you do not know what's happened
11:19
in your, should we say, sister compartments.
11:22
And nobody is actually, or at least very
11:25
few, is combining the knowledge between these different
11:29
silos.
11:32
I call them silos, because I see that
11:35
as a knowledge and it is siloed and
11:37
that the knowledge is kept there.
11:39
It's not freely shared with the rest of
11:42
them.
11:43
So so bottom line, if you really want
11:49
to debunk her findings, you will have to
11:52
know all these different specialties.
11:58
And that is actually one of the key
12:01
areas why it will not die.
12:10
And the reason is that, because there is
12:13
actually a thing that is a detail that
12:16
is quite overlooked in a lot of the
12:20
critics about her work.
12:22
And that is about metabolites.
12:30
When a person takes, I don't know, cocaine
12:33
or nicotine or whatever, then the cocaine is
12:37
consumed by the body.
12:39
And then the liver starts breaking it down.
12:41
And during that process, metabolites is created.
12:44
And these metabolites are stored in both in
12:48
tissue, but also in hair.
12:51
And that is actually the strongest, should we
12:54
say, proof of consumation.
12:59
Because if you only find clean cocaine, then
13:04
in principle, it is more or less certain
13:08
that it's contamination.
13:10
Something has been in contact with cocaine, or
13:14
it could be, I don't know, that the
13:17
laboratory is not using clean measurements.
13:22
But when you find metabolites, that is the
13:26
same as to say that the cocaine has
13:33
been in the body, because it has been
13:36
metabolized.
13:37
So it's the same to say that the
13:40
person in life has consumed this cocaine.
13:48
And if you actually look at the analysis
13:51
that Dr. Balabanoma did, she found cocaine, but
13:55
he also found the metabolites of cocaine in
13:58
hair samples.
13:59
And that is exactly why she means that
14:02
contamination could not explain the results.
14:06
Because if the only cocaine was found, then
14:09
more or less case closed.
14:13
Then we have a new problem with this
14:15
one.
14:16
Because in science, cocaine and metabolites are not
14:22
chemical staples for thousands of years.
14:24
Over the time, there's oxidation, degradation, and blah,
14:28
blah, blah.
14:29
So it is, some chemist has stated that
14:35
the metabolites, they can be created artificial during
14:40
degradation, or they can be created by converting
14:45
a chemical from cocaine.
14:51
In that case, the results is, of course,
14:55
a lot more hard to analysis.
15:00
In modern forensic, you analyze hair from, you
15:05
know, I don't know, a few weeks, month,
15:08
perhaps a few years old.
15:12
But in mummies, they can easily be, the
15:15
hair could easily be 3,000 years old.
15:17
And it can be exposed to all kinds
15:22
of chemicals, from balsamation, from heat, from microorganisms,
15:26
and conservation things, and so on.
15:30
So chemical process can change the sample.
15:42
So bottom line is, in this, you actually
15:45
have three different conclusions.
15:48
You can, first of all, you can accept
15:51
the conclusion that cocaine is what's actually in
15:53
the hair.
15:55
So in that case, then you could have
16:00
an unknown commercial route, you can have an
16:03
unknown plant, or you can have some very
16:08
early global contact.
16:10
You can also have contamination.
16:12
The thing is, with contamination, that is well
16:14
documented that that is not likely the case.
16:18
But you can also have chemical, should we
16:21
say, insufficient analysis.
16:27
So what do you think is more or
16:32
less a religious case?
16:35
Thing is, metabolites, that is normal proof of
16:39
consummation of a certain chemical.
16:41
But in very old samples, the chemical samples
16:46
can change, which makes it hard to make
16:50
sure what it is actually that you are
16:52
measuring.
16:56
I personally have, should we say, traces of
17:01
doubts, because after reading a lot of, regarding
17:05
Svetlana Velopanova, I think that one of the
17:09
problem is that she was German.
17:14
In the beginning of the 1990s, bottom line
17:19
was that the internet was almost not used
17:22
in science.
17:24
A lot of articles was published, especially in
17:29
Germany, on German.
17:31
So that means that there was no easy
17:35
access for the rest of the world to
17:37
these articles that she actually was publishing.
17:43
And the same goes the other way around.
17:46
So that meant that language, should we say,
17:49
barriers, was actually a thing to consider.
17:54
But it also means that the international, should
17:57
we say, science debate was a lot slower
18:01
than today.
18:05
And if you have, should we say, public,
18:11
sorry, a public science magazine, then it's likely
18:20
that it could have, should we say, far
18:23
less value on the international society than it
18:28
was actually the, should we say, the true
18:32
science potential of this discovery.
18:36
Especially if you are using a German magazine
18:39
that nobody in US has heard about, or
18:42
in France, for instance, or UK, then they
18:46
perhaps did not consider this properly.
18:50
By definition, it was published, but the language
18:54
barrier could be a problem at that time.
19:00
But also, if you imagine that they actually
19:04
were able to read that, then again, it
19:06
is my thinking that critics only had limited
19:12
access to the dates.
19:16
So that means that all the samples on
19:19
all the different, might not be translated.
19:25
And that is, it's the fact that Dr.
19:29
Balabanova, she sent the samples to three additional
19:33
laboratories, and they repeated the results with the
19:37
same conclusions.
19:39
But that is not measured, sorry, it is
19:42
not printed in a lot of articles that
19:46
is actually critical to her work.
19:49
So I personally take that as not as
19:53
malevolent, but as a sign of that a
19:57
barrier, a language barrier was actually there, and
20:01
it's not been identified.
20:03
Furthermore, Dr. Balabanova, as the name indicates, that
20:11
is an East European background.
20:14
And she worked in Germany in a period
20:17
where the Soviet empire was just dissolved.
20:21
A lot of scientists from East was actually
20:26
working in Western institutions.
20:31
And there was big differences in, so to
20:34
say, the scientific approach.
20:36
There was different laboratory standards, and there was
20:41
also some skeptics between the different scientific environments.
20:48
And I personally have that view that that
20:51
is influencing how her work was seen.
20:58
I do not have any clear evidence why
21:01
nationality should be, should we say, the main
21:05
focus of the critics.
21:09
But nevertheless, I think that she could be,
21:14
you know, it does not even sound German
21:17
that name, things like that could have happened.
21:21
Furthermore, her work was actually, should we say,
21:26
attacking three major established scientific areas, botanics, archaeology,
21:37
and history.
21:37
If her results was correct, then these three
21:41
areas should have to basically reassess all the
21:45
central views.
21:50
And there, Carl Sagan is cited to say
21:56
that extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence.
22:01
Actually, I think this is extraordinary evidence, because
22:04
the bottom line is that she is not
22:09
attacking all those three.
22:12
The thing is that these three areas, they
22:15
are trying to prove something where the data
22:19
does not match up.
22:21
Her data does match up.
22:27
If we look at it today, if we
22:30
imagine that it happened today, I think that
22:35
the entire case would look completely different, because
22:39
nowadays we can publish a lot of raw
22:42
materials where you simply can have the data,
22:44
you can share this measuring, you can upload
22:49
different laboratory protocols, you can analysis the results
22:56
globally, where in the 1990s, especially in the
23:00
beginning of the 1990s, that was basically local,
23:03
it was slow, and it was very dependent
23:06
of printed magazines.
23:09
So, I think that a lot of these
23:12
conflicts was a lot harder to solve at
23:15
that time than it is today.
23:23
And it's also quite obvious that you have
23:27
two different, should we say, scientific views of
23:31
that.
23:31
If we look at the forensic medicine, then
23:36
it's based on experiments, it's based on laboratories,
23:39
and it's easy to reproduce.
23:42
And that is exactly the opposite of archaeology,
23:45
because that is a historical reconstruction, it's indirect
23:50
evidence, and you have tons of different, should
23:54
we say, explanations.
23:58
So, when these two fields is actually met,
24:01
then it's quite obvious that conflicts on how
24:03
evidence should be analysed is obvious.
24:08
I think that if the case was surfacing
24:11
today, a lot of scientific researchers would say
24:17
something like that Dr. Palabanova was competent, she
24:21
was working well known in toxicology, that her
24:25
analysis was serious, but they would probably say
24:29
that this requires some more independent evidence.
24:33
It's not the same as to say she
24:35
was wrong, but only that the evidence was
24:38
not strong enough to change the history.
24:41
So, I see that as, that language barriers
24:47
was in effect, that we are having different
24:51
cultures between what happened in Germany and how
24:56
scientific work in Germany, then the same goes
24:59
with the rest of the world.
25:02
And then we have a very slowly international
25:04
communication.
25:06
So, even that you have printed your scientific
25:09
research and so on, they were still depending
25:12
on basically are you able to read German.
25:19
And then of course we have the main
25:21
problem that results actually challenged one of the
25:25
most established historical models ever built.
25:30
If we have to dig down a little
25:32
in the some of the results, one of
25:35
the most interesting and results I found in
25:40
Dr. Palabanova was her analysis of the nicotine
25:43
concentrations.
25:45
And some of the mummies was extremely high,
25:48
and in some cases so high that they
25:50
probably must have come from consummation from life.
25:59
If we look at the the priestess Heno
26:03
Tsao, Palabanova found very high concentrations in of
26:08
nicotine in the hair, but also traces in
26:12
the tissue samples and bone samples.
26:16
And the levels was actually higher than, should
26:20
we say, normal smokers.
26:22
That is hard to explain with, should we
26:25
say, random contamination or cigarette smoke in museums.
26:38
Furthermore, the process was that all the hair
26:42
was washed with alcohol, the remaining alcohol was
26:47
analysed, and then afterward the hair sample itself.
26:53
If the nicotine was only outside the hair,
26:56
then it was contamination.
26:57
If nicotine was found inside the hair, then
27:01
it has to come from consummation during life.
27:06
And that is actually a central argument in
27:09
her work.
27:12
But in some cases the nicotine levels was
27:14
very, very high, some of them more than
27:18
30 to 35 times higher than a modern
27:22
smoker, because that generated a new problem.
27:28
These levels could only come from poisoning, medical
27:31
use, or perhaps some materials used in balsamation.
27:37
And Dr. Palabanova actually was number three, that
27:42
the nicotine was coming from balsamation.
27:49
Actually, nicotine is a very strong pesticide against
27:56
insects, and it's a bacteria-killing material.
28:06
Hence this, her suggestion was, a nicotine plant
28:12
could have been used in the then large
28:18
amounts of nicotine was able to go from
28:22
the plant into the tissue and hair after
28:25
death.
28:26
That could generate the very high concentrations.
28:31
The critics of Palabanova's work was having here
28:35
a dilemma, because if the nicotine was only
28:38
on the surface, then it was contamination.
28:41
But if it was found inside the hair
28:43
and in very high concentrations, then contamination is
28:47
hard to explain.
28:49
So today a lot of scientists is actually
28:52
accepting that the nicotine in mummies is a
28:54
real thing.
28:59
But nicotine is not the real controversial problem.
29:05
We know that nicotine can be found in
29:07
a lot of plants that is found locally
29:09
in Egypt and around.
29:13
But so you could say, yes, that Palabanova
29:19
was recording, sorry, was reporting a very high
29:24
levels.
29:25
And her analysis, almost certain, was proving that
29:30
the nicotine was coming inside the body and
29:33
not from surface contamination.
29:38
And here I have in mind that nicotine
29:42
is also creating metabolites in the body.
29:47
And in forensic, that's actually more important than
29:50
the nicotine itself, because it's actually proof of
29:54
consummation.
30:05
In the 1990s, a lot of the analysis
30:09
was actually optimized to find, should we say,
30:12
the source of the measurement, which is basically
30:18
nicotine and not necessarily all the metabolites.
30:24
The thing is with metabolites, that is a
30:27
different degradation rate than cocaine, that's right, than
30:31
nicotine.
30:34
And they can also react with balsamicin and
30:37
so on.
30:38
So after 3,000 years, it can either
30:41
be no longer there or perhaps chemically changed.
30:52
And that is why that the nicotine in
30:55
mummies, that is, should we say, analysis, the
30:58
very, how should I put it, very, just
31:06
the conclusion is not that strong.
31:08
There can be possible explanations, like it can
31:11
be used in balsamicin, contamination, chemical transformation, consumption
31:17
during life and so on.
31:25
The thing is that still nicotine is actually
31:29
able to bind it to keratin in the
31:31
hair, and that is very strong because that
31:33
can be stored for thousands of years.
31:36
So even when all the metabolites are gone,
31:38
it's still there.
31:39
And that's why they are testing it, the
31:42
hairs, in archaeology's toxology.
31:50
From my point of view, a lot of
31:52
this is, should we say, resistance against change.
31:59
Because if you, before you read this, already
32:03
have a clear view that there was no
32:05
commercial trading with South America, and everything you
32:11
do is, you know, the purpose of all
32:15
kinds of samples is to prove that there
32:17
was no trade, then it's quite obvious that
32:21
you have something that only can happen if
32:25
there was trade.
32:27
Then it's quite obvious that you will not
32:32
support this kind of discoveries.
32:37
As I said before, Carl Sagan is supposed
32:41
to say something like, extraordinary claims require extraordinary
32:44
evidence.
32:46
And I go against that, because when something
32:51
is found, and it's able to reproduce, I
32:59
mean, you can take the same mummies again,
33:02
do the same tests again, and it happened,
33:06
and they have this, the same result as
33:10
before.
33:11
Then it's not Balabanuwa that has decided that
33:15
botanics has one view, that commerce has another
33:20
view, and archaeology says has a third view.
33:24
That is something they did, the different, should
33:28
we say, different views.
33:31
So I don't find it as a legal
33:34
argument that it requires a much stronger argument,
33:38
because it's not Balabanuwa that is, you know,
33:43
the creator of that view.
33:49
The German philosopher in science, Thomas Kuhn, he
33:54
actually wrote about this in his theory about
33:58
paradigms.
34:00
A paradigm is the model that scientists works
34:02
inside.
34:03
When a found does not fit that model,
34:07
three things happen.
34:08
First, you ignore it, then you try to
34:12
explain it away, and then at last you
34:15
say, if the evidence is strong enough, then
34:18
perhaps we change the paradigm.
34:20
We have a lot of these examples, continental
34:23
drift, for instance, but also different findings where
34:30
we later have to say that, okay, we
34:37
have now a new worldview.
34:42
Dr. Balabanuwa is an interesting case, because it's
34:48
a grey zone.
34:49
There's no doubt that she was a competent
34:51
toxicology.
34:53
She was working in forensic.
34:55
The analysis was repeated, and cocaine was found,
35:00
sorry, and nicotine was found in different mummies.
35:06
But the thing is that the two major,
35:11
should we say, arguments against her theory is
35:18
that the botanic evidence is missing, and there's
35:21
no archaeological traces for cocaine.
35:25
And because of this, a lot of scientists
35:28
say that they are not against her analysis,
35:31
but they're against the historical conclusion.
35:35
I see it as confirmation bias, because if
35:39
you take valuable materials in historic time, for
35:43
instance, metals, especially iron, but copper and so
35:48
on, gold especially, then it's not something you
35:52
will leave.
35:53
I mean, it's so valuable that you, so
35:56
you will have to melt it into new
35:59
coins or whatever.
36:05
But also the same, why should that not
36:08
apply to, if there was trace with South
36:13
America with cocaine, then it's highly likely that
36:17
this will be treated as valuable materials.
36:21
So that means that you will not just
36:23
leave it around.
36:24
You will try to use every single part
36:27
of it.
36:28
So if you are having it in some
36:30
kind of, I don't know, pottery and so
36:32
on, you will most likely wash it all
36:34
the way to make sure that you have
36:36
used every single milligram of that.
36:42
And the same goes with all valuable things.
36:45
You will try to use it all the
36:47
way.
36:48
Furthermore, I mean, herbs was something that was
36:53
imported from India and so on.
36:57
And to my knowledge, herbs has not been
36:59
found in Egypt, but nobody's arguing against it,
37:03
because you haven't found it.
37:08
But here you have the argument that goes
37:11
the other way around.
37:12
Because you have not found it, then it's
37:14
not there.
37:15
What kind of logic is that?
37:17
If you accept that herbs was used, despite
37:20
that you haven't found it, why should you
37:23
make a different, should we say, evidence requirements
37:27
for that?
37:31
And one of the problems is that you
37:33
could say, if balabanova should be more widely
37:37
accepted, then you probably will require, I don't
37:40
know, new analysis with modern technology.
37:44
You will require an ESO top analysis of
37:47
nicotine and cocaine, and you will require an
37:50
article found of coca and tobacco in Egypt.
37:55
But the thing is that a lot of
37:57
these museums is actually saying that they are
38:00
rejecting new tests.
38:02
And it's actually, it's understandable why they don't
38:06
want the money.
38:07
So I mean, by the end of the
38:09
day, you have to, you know, handle the
38:12
money.
38:13
You have to degrade the money.
38:15
I mean, hair is not something, there's only,
38:20
should we say, a certain amount of hair.
38:23
And the same goes with tissues and so
38:25
on.
38:25
But not only that, if you have to
38:27
take it out of the manta, if you
38:28
have to take it out of the, should
38:31
we say, the storage facilities in order to
38:33
do this test, then it's likely that the
38:36
degradation will be accelerated.
38:38
So the museum does not have, should we
38:41
say, a motive to allow this kind of
38:46
test.
38:47
And then furthermore, a lot of museums, especially
38:51
in this area, they are not that interested
38:55
in having, should we say, tests of their
38:58
crown jewels.
39:01
Because if it actually turns out that it's
39:05
false or something like that, then the museum
39:08
is, you know, worse off than before.
39:13
Because then it's, oh, that's the museum with
39:17
the false mummies.
39:18
Things like that also have something to say.
39:22
So bottom line is, from my point of
39:26
view, is that I think that science in
39:29
general, they are resistance against new ideas.
39:36
But also I find it as, should we
39:39
say, as a false point.
39:41
Because Dr. Balabanova was having three additional laboratories.
39:47
So that, should we say, reduced the possibility
39:52
of, should we say, local errors.
39:56
But it's also that the sampling was not,
39:59
you know, one mistake.
40:05
I know that critics say, oh, the contamination
40:08
could have happened before the sample was divided.
40:13
The laboratories could have analyzed the same starting
40:17
material.
40:18
So the critics basically means that new samples
40:23
of new mummies is, you know, required.
40:34
But critics also argue that if there was
40:39
a stable commercial route for cocaine or tobacco
40:42
to Egypt, then you would expect that you
40:46
could see some samples like plant fibers, pictures
40:53
in arts, commercial documents, containers, or other kind
40:58
of packing materials.
41:01
And since this has not been found in
41:03
an Egypt context, then they see it as
41:07
a possible hypothesis, but it's not confirmed.
41:11
As I mentioned earlier, I don't think that
41:14
is an entire legal argument, simply because if
41:18
it was that valuable, I think that everything
41:21
would have been used.
41:23
Furthermore, the argument that pictures in arts and
41:29
so on, I mean, especially when we're discussing
41:33
Egypt, I don't think that's a consistent claim,
41:39
because you actually find submarines and helicopters and
41:43
so on in the temples of Egypt.
41:48
And the same person says, oh, that's not
41:51
a submarine, that is only something that looks
41:55
like a submarine, but it's not.
41:57
It has to be considered in a different
41:59
view.
42:00
But now, because it's something that challenged their
42:03
view, then we require an exact picture.
42:10
But when you have the exact picture of
42:12
this in the art, then you're objecting, oh,
42:15
that's just because that has to be interpreted
42:19
in a different way.
42:25
One of the key things here is actually
42:27
that if you look at South America, we
42:30
have these sweet potatoes, but that was actually
42:34
found in Polynesia before the Europeans.
42:40
So there seems to be a contact.
42:42
And then, of course, there was also the
42:44
Vikings in North America.
42:46
From a person like me from the Nordics,
42:50
we sometimes smile when you have these requirements.
42:54
One of the key things is actually that
42:57
there was no Vikings in North America, because
43:01
they were only living in Newfoundland for, I
43:04
think it was 160 and 180 years.
43:08
But in order to be recognized as a
43:10
true settlement, it has to be there for
43:12
at least 200 years.
43:14
That is a requirement.
43:16
I mean, we are smiling of it, because
43:19
if you're living there for more than 150
43:21
years, then you're living there.
43:23
It's ridiculous to have this.
43:25
Where does this 200 years come from?
43:28
It seems more like a rule that is
43:32
established in order to not recognize the Vikings
43:35
as the Vikings for the discovery of North
43:39
America.
43:40
But never mind.
43:41
I use it as an example here, where
43:44
you seem to have different measurements.
43:48
When there's something that you need to that
43:51
supports your worldview, then it's okay.
43:56
But if it does not support, then we
43:58
change the rules.
44:10
Furthermore, there's some details I would like to
44:13
say again once more.
44:16
Dr. Balabanuma, she reported that in some mummies,
44:18
there was a very high concentration of nicotine,
44:20
and there were traces of cocaine in hair
44:24
and in tissue samples.
44:27
Some of them was actually quite high, and
44:30
a lot higher than modern smokers.
44:33
If we are discussing first the contamination from
44:35
cigarette smoke, then you will expect to have
44:37
low concentrations.
44:38
You will have it primarily on the surfaces
44:40
of, for instance, hair or tissue.
44:43
But her analysis shows high concentrations, and the
44:47
signal material inside the material.
44:51
So in other words, it was coming from
44:53
the inside and not the surface.
44:56
So when you are discussing toxicologists, they actually
44:59
find that this contamination theory is not a
45:03
good explanation.
45:09
When nicotine is consumed by the body, it's
45:13
transported by blood, it's built in keratin, and
45:17
then it's trapped inside the hair shaft.
45:21
If nicotine is coming from the outside, say
45:23
cigarette smoke, then we're normally being on the
45:27
surface, and it could be washed away.
45:30
And since Balabanuma was using hair shaft analysis,
45:33
where the hair is first washed and then
45:36
analyzed, then if it was environmental contamination from,
45:45
say, cigarette smoke, then it should be washed
45:52
away.
45:53
But if it's inside the hair, then it's
45:55
a different thing.
46:04
Nicotine has been explained by several plants in
46:08
the night shadow family, as I said earlier,
46:11
but cocaine is a lot harder to explain,
46:14
because that's only from the coca plants in
46:16
the Andes areas, in the Andes mountains in
46:20
South America.
46:22
So this is the central thing in this
46:25
case.
46:32
So if I need to sum up what
46:34
we have been discussing today, that is what
46:37
Balabanuma actually did.
46:39
She is a forensic toxicology with expertise in
46:44
analysis of narcotic sampling, in biological sampling, and
46:49
she works in a German institute for forensics,
46:53
and used the same method as to be
46:55
used in today's call.
46:57
In the project, she analyzed hair, tissue samples,
47:01
and bone materials from Egyptian mummies.
47:05
She was using the new methods of the
47:08
1980s, because it happens in 1981, sorry 1991,
47:12
and then she sent it into, in total,
47:22
four different laboratories.
47:24
One was her own, but three additional laboratories
47:27
was finding the same conclusions.
47:33
The nicotine was found in several mummies, cocaine
47:36
was found in some mummies, and in some
47:39
cases in very high concentrations.
47:41
She was using the hair shaft method, where
47:43
the hair is washed before analysis.
47:47
If the nicotine is inside the hair shaft
47:51
after wash, then it is a proof of,
47:55
should we say, contamination during life, and not
47:59
on contamination.
48:02
This is normally accepted in forensic medicine, that
48:07
is the methods that sends people to the
48:09
death row.
48:11
So it is something that is challenged every
48:14
day.
48:21
Her results was reproduced, it was methodologies from
48:28
the forensics, it was high concentrations, it was
48:32
found in hair shafts, and it was found
48:35
in other mummies, especially the nicotine.
48:38
What critics is saying is that, in the
48:43
historical context, that the coca plant is known
48:47
from South America, and there has not been
48:49
found anything related to coca, like fossils, pollen,
48:54
samples, pictures, and so on, in Egyptian context.
49:00
Furthermore, the mummies has a complex history, plundering,
49:05
transportation, museum handling, chemical conservation, and so on.
49:11
This can, in principle, introduce compounds later on,
49:15
that is measured in these tests.
49:26
There are four possible explanations of the findings
49:30
of Dr. Balabanova.
49:32
First of all, contamination, it is an explanation,
49:35
however unlikely it is.
49:38
You have local plants that we still not
49:40
know.
49:40
We know that some plants in the night
49:43
shadow family has the same compounds.
49:46
We have the mummification process, where the mummification
49:54
materials can go inside the body after death,
49:58
and then we have unknown commerce routes.
50:01
I think that the most realistic conclusion today
50:11
is that, based on this documentation, you could
50:15
say that Dr. Balabanova's analysis was serious, they
50:19
was methodical, and they was done with the
50:22
standard of forensic techniques.
50:25
The results shows that there is nicotine in
50:28
the mummies, there are cocaine founds, but how
50:33
it should be interpreted is a different story.
50:39
As I said earlier, I think that the
50:42
ball is not on her side, because the
50:47
methods, the analysis work, the conclusions, and so
50:52
on, are subject every day to scientific reviews
50:55
in courts all over the world.
50:58
So, if somebody wants to challenge them, I
51:01
think they should provide some evidence.
51:07
Thank you for listening.