Yes, it's a lot to take in. The embalmed dead of an ancient civilization, a mythological city that sank into the ocean, and an addictive white-powdered narcotic produced from plant leaves: How could these things possibly be connected? On the surface it seems like a stretch, if not a shark-jumping veer into absurdity land. But there's a simpler tie between the three than might be apparent. Take a dab of global geography, stir it with cross-continental trade routes, toss in a generous serving of religious rituals, and presto: instant deduction.
To start, let's go back to ancient Egypt in northeastern Africa, a civilization that flourished for almost three millennia starting in 3000 B.C.E. Egypt was steeped in mysticism and magical rites. The recently translated "Handbook of Ritual Power" contains spells and invocations to induce love, evoke spirits, cleanse the body of possession and illness, and lots more, per Live Science. Almost the entirety of Egyptian life, in fact, was bent around spiritual preparation for an eternal afterlife, as History Today explains. And like many other cultures, hallucinogens were part and parcel of Egyptian religious life. Case in point: "cocaine mummies" like that of priestess Henut Taui — mummies with traces of cocaine in their bodies (per Cansford Laboratories).
The only problem? Coca doesn't grow anywhere near Egypt — it grows across the ocean in modern-day South America, as the DEA Museum explains. How did it get across the sea, then? Either the Egyptians traveled the Atlantic Ocean, or someone traveled to them.
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