Ancient Egyptians Drank Hallucinogenic Cocktails Out of a Dwarf God’s Head

Researchers have found evidence of hallucinogenic cocktails in a 2,200-year-old Egyptian vase, suggesting that ancient Egyptians also liked to trip balls and stare at black light posters while listening to Pink Floyd’s The Wall.

The vase is a Bes mug housed at the Tampa Museum of Art. Bes is an Egyptian deity associated with childbirth, protection, and purification. A mug with this particular deity’s face on it suggests it was used in fertility rituals and spiritual practices while those performing these rituals and practices were ripped to shit out of their gourds.

The mug was donated to the museum in 1984 but it wasn’t until modern scientific advancements came along that researcher Professor Davide Tanasi of the University of South Florida and his team were able to identify the residues in the mug.

Turns out, it was a complex mixture of psychotropic substances containing plans known for their hallucinogenic and medicinal properties like Peganum harmala aka wild rue, Nymphaea nouchali aka Egyptian blue lotus, and a species from the Cleome genus.

The brew wasn’t just a bunch of hallucinogens sloshing around in an ancient version of a McDonald’s movie tie-in promotional mug from the mid-1990s. Like VICE’s own culinary marijuana series Bong Appetit, ancient Egyptians mixed their mind-altering substances with flavoring agents, presumably so it wouldn’t be so putrid to the tongue.

The researchers found traces of honey, sesame seeds, pine nuts, and even human bodily fluids like blood and saliva because these people were freaks. This particular mix of ingredients suggests to the researchers that the beverage might’ve been used to induce hallucinations or prophetic visions of the future.