Rarneses I1 and the tobacco beetle P.C. BUCKLAND & E. PANAGIOTAKOPULU" The use of a wide range of narcotic drugs in antiquity has been widely documented, although archaeologists have sometimes been too credulous of apparently scientific data, and have failed to appreciate the post-excavation histories of artefacts, including mummies. This paper examines the discovery of tobacco in the mummy of Rameses II, provides an alternative model for its origin, as a 19th-century insecticide used in conservation, and throws doubt upon the evidence for both cannabis and cocaine in ancient Egypt. Key words: Egypt, narcotics, insecticide, post-excavation contamination Introduction The recent publication of an extensive review of Egyptian trade and industry (Nicholson & Shaw 2000) revives a biogeographic conundrum, which should have been laid to rest over a dec- ade ago. In her chapter on mummification, Rosalie David (2000) refers to the presence of Nicotiana sp. and Anthemideae [sic] in the ab- dominal cavity of Rameses 11, as plant substances utilized in the preservation process by the an- cient Egyptians. Both were discovered during the re-examination of his mummy in Paris in 1976, the former as comminuted fragments of leaf and the latter as massive amounts of pol- len (>500,000 grains/cc) (Layer-Lescot 1985; Leroi-Gourhan 1985). The evidence for Nicotiana, tobacco, was published in 1978 (Anon. 1978), and later with the entomologi- cal data from the mummy by Steffan (1982). The refusal of the Egyptian authorities to per- mit the removal of a sample for a radiocarbon date only served to fuel the controversy of the origins of tobacco in the Old World (cf. Castello 1983).Whilst the family Solanaceae is distrib- uted through both the Old and New World, the genus Nicotiana is a Nearctic, Neotropical and Australasian genus (Goodspeed 1954), although Merxmiiller & Buttler (1975) have described a species from southwest Africa. Whilst some botanists suggested that Layer-Lescot's (1985) identification to the generic level was perhaps over-enthusiastic, Paris & Drapier-Laprade (1985) were able to demonstrate the presence in the mummy of the alkaloid nicotine by gel chro- matography and electrophoresis. Whilst most Egyptologists either did not know of the results or chose to ignore them, a few, and the more popular press, remembering Thor Heyerdahl's successful crossing of the Atlantic on the pa- pyrus raft, Ra 11, favoured a direct connection between Egypt and the New World for this ex- otic substance, whilst others preferred a con- tact via the longer route through Asia and the Far East. Botanists tended to be more circum- spect. Hepper (1990), perhaps mindful of his own find of a maize cob as a contaminant in early Dynastic material from Saqqarah (Hepper 1981), suggested that the comminuted leaves might be snuff, accidentally introduced dur- ing the late 19th or early 20th centuries. Such an explanation, however, did not account for the abundant pollen of Anthemidae, Mafricaria- type, and including the genera Matricaria, Anthemis, and Chrysanthemum, of the origi- nal report. Leroi-Gourhan (1985) had suggested that this reflected the pulverized flowerheads of the plant used to make an aromatic oil of camomile employed in the mummification proc- ess. Species of this group are widespread weeds in Egypt at the present day (Boulos & el-Hadidi 1984), and the explanation is plausible, but it does not solve the related problem of the pres- * Buckland, Department of Archaeology & Prehistory, University of Sheffield, Northgate House, West Street, Sheffield s1 4ET, England. Panagiotakopulu, School of Geography & Environmental Science, University of Birmingham, Edghaston, Birmingham 815 2TT, England. Received 2 October 2000, accepted 3 April 2001, revised 27 April 2001 ANTIQUITY 75 (2001): 549-56