Popular from the 12th to the 18th century in Europe, ‘Mumia’ or mummy power was a medicinal powder made from the remains of the ancient dead. Claiming to treat everything from headaches, stomach ulcers, to tumors, occultism, exoticism and mystery was deemed desirable in its medicinal advertising, including profound claims about the powders potency to cure all ailments, hence a ‘cure alls’. Once the appetite for mummy powder grew, during the ‘Egyptomania’ of the 18th century, apothecaries took to digging up old desiccated corpses not necessarily of Egyptian origin. The idea that ground up mummy could cure all ailments comes from a confusion of the Persian word for bitumen ‘mumia’ used in ancient times to heal. The same word was used to describe the Egyptian mummification resin ‘mumia’ where the term mummy originates, although that resin was not bitumen.