Do Egyptians burn mummies as fuel?
No. What you heard was a mangled version of a classic joke told by one of the masters of the art. But don’t feel bad–people have been falling for this one for more than 130 years. The story isn’t that Egyptians use mummies to heat their food now, it’s that they used them in the 19th century to fuel their locomotives. We owe this wonderful conceit to Mark Twain, who in The Innocents Abroad (1869) writes, “The fuel [Egyptian railroaders] use for the locomotive is composed of mummies three thousand years old, purchased by the ton or by the graveyard for that purpose, and . . . sometimes one hears the profane engineer call out pettishly, ‘D–n these plebeians, they don’t burn worth a cent–pass out a King!'” Lest anyone fail to realize it’s a joke, Twain then adds, “Stated to me for a fact. I only tell it as I got it. I am willing to believe it. I can believe anything.” Didn’t help. To this day you can find reputable organizations such as the BBC solemnly reporting this “fact” as fact. Tw
