How to Mellify A Corpse: And Other Human Stories of Ancient Science & Superstition [Paperback]

Vicki Leon (Author), Vicki León (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 6, 2010

In How to Mellify a Corpse, Vicki León brings her particular hybrid of history and humor to the entwined subjects of science and superstition in the ancient world, from Athens and Rome to Mesopotamia, the Holy Land, Egypt, and Carthage. León covers subjects as diverse as astronomy and astrology, philosophy and practicalities of life and death (including the titular ancient method of embalming), and ancient mechanical engineering. How to Mellify a Corpse of course invokes legendary thinkers (Pythagoras and his discoveries in math and music, Aristotle's books on politics and philosophy, and Archimedes' "Eureka" moment), but it also delves deeply into the lives of everyday people, their understanding and beliefs.

A feast for the curious mind, How to Mellify a Corpse is not only for those with an interest in the experimental: it's for anyone who's inspired by the imagination and ingenuity humanity uses to understand our world.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this delightful follow-up to IX to V, her entertaining look at work in the ancient world, León explores the tangled webs of science and superstition in Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and other ancient societies. With her characteristic deadpan humor, verve, and wit, she brings to life the practices of ordinary folks as they sought practical ways to avoid the evil eye, battle stronger enemies, and understand strange and marvelous astronomical events. Copulating during a strong north wind and ingesting magical potions were believed to guarantee a male child. Greeks and Romans placed gouty limbs on electric eels in order to ease their pain. Scythian warriors dipped their arrows in snake venom, human blood, and feces to ensure their targets would die a slow and gruesome death. Many ancient cultures touted the antiseptic properties of honey, using honey-soaked bandages to bind wounds. Many Greeks attributed the visions of soothsayers and diviners to "mad honey" made from the nectar of laurel and oleander plants. León™s rollicking tour helps us see that the daily lives and worries of the ancients were not far removed from our own.
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From Booklist

There was some weird stuff going on in the ancient world, as León's “field trip to a long-ago world filled with science, superstition, and the folks who believed in both” makes abundantly clear. This is an endlessly fascinating book, full of things that are shocking, unsettling, and, of course, just plain weird. Did you know that the existence of the atom was posited about 2,500 years ago, by a couple of Greeks? That Julius Caesar staged full-scale naval battles, in a man-made lake, using enemy prisoners as his players? That the Egyptians had 900 remedies involving honey? (They also used it to preserve the bodies of the dead, a process called mellifying.) Writing in a lightly humorous style, León demonstrates that the ancient world isn't so far removed from our own and that, before we pat ourselves on the back for some invention or other, we ought to make sure somebody didn't beat us to it centuries or millennia ago. --David Pitt

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Walker & Company (July 6, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802717020
• ISBN-13: 978-0802717023
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 7.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #784,088 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

My roots: convinced I was left on strangers' doorstep in the Pacific Northwest, I fled in my teens and began to fill the first of seven passports. Wanderlust is apparently hereditary; my progeny now busy filling their own passports.
My higher education: mostly self-inflicted
I collect: pyramids, ancient cemeteries, seashells, foreign languages, long stays in foreign lands.
Allergic to: gray skies, household routines, watches, gas-guzzlers.
Addicted to: laughter, Spanish aceitunas con anchoas, George Dalaras and other Greek music, foreign films, beach walks, getting a glimpse of animals and birds in the wild.
Am a magnet for: odd facts, weird stories, unusual connections (all of them fodder for my writing)
Am sustained by: a worldwide web of family, friends, publishing colleagues, and readers

My books: 35 titles (about half of them for readers 10 and up). Many, miraculously still in print.

My GOALS as a writer of nonfiction:
1. Dig deeper to find the whole human history, to illuminate the unsung men and women of long ago
2. Leaven my books with humor and humanity
3. Try to astonish the reader on every page. Astonish, from the Latin attonare, "to be struck by lightning." Thus to write in a way that leaves the reader thunderstruck.

My research: more fun than a whodunit. In fact, I go through a lot of shoe leather even when I'm time-traveling.That's why I call myself (partly tongue in cheek) Vicki Leon, historical detective

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Very Informal Look at the Ancient World, July 9, 2010

By 

G. Poirier (Orleans, ON, Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: How to Mellify A Corpse: And Other Human Stories of Ancient Science & Superstition (Paperback)

Many a scholarly tome has been written about ancient science and ancient superstitions. But this book is clearly not one of them. The author has approached these topics by writing a variety of little three-or-four-page snippets - eighty seven of them in total - and divided them into six main sections, each representing a geographical area around the Mediterranean Sea. However, these areas significantly overlap. As a result, the reader often encounters the same individuals and locales from one section to another. The snippets can be read in any order; as a result of this, the book contains a fair amount of repetition in the sense that a given individual may be introduced as many times as he/she appears in the book - and some appear a great many times.

As an ancient history buff, it took me a while to get used to reading this book. The writing style is, well, unusual. Although the prose is friendly, lively, often quite humorous and entertaining, it is laced with "cool", "mod" or "hip" expressions and "with it" ways of saying things, e.g., ( p. 223) "Octavian became the Big Mozzarella of Rome...". There are also some historical inaccuracies, e.g., (p. 227) "Emperor Hadrian summitted [Mt. Etna] on February 5 of the year A.D. 62" when in fact Hadrian was born fourteen years later in A.D. 76. Consequently, this book appears to be aimed at the general reader who is not picky about historical precision but mainly wants to be entertained, a la chilling with some cool ancient dudes. Nevertheless, serious ancient history buffs may find at least some new and fascinating information within its covers. I did.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You could rebuild society with this book, and smile while you did it., July 20, 2010

By 

Esri F. Allbritten "geekishgirl" (Boulder, CO USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: How to Mellify A Corpse: And Other Human Stories of Ancient Science & Superstition (Paperback)

Vicki Leon's books are always entertaining, but I've often thought that they're also manuals for civilization. Her latest is loosely structured around the ways science and superstition have coexisted since earliest times. But mostly, I was astonished at how much B.C. and early A.D societies have in common with our own, and the high level of achievements these early society had in theoretical science (Theory of atoms!), architecture (Concrete we've only just now learned to recreate!) and government (Banking! Rail transport! Chemical weapons!). Makes you realize how dark the Dark Ages really were.

Leon's writing is funny, her research is up-to-the-minute, and her material is riveting. As a bonus, if we ever have to re-invent taxation, coinage, and sewage, or figure out which battle strategies work and which are doomed to fail, well...it's comforting to know that these books exist. Leon's books are equal parts laughter and learning. I can't recommend them enough.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Allie's Review - Hist-Fic Chick, July 8, 2010

By 

A. Greenwald "Hist-Fic Chick" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: How to Mellify A Corpse: And Other Human Stories of Ancient Science & Superstition (Paperback)

Because I worked on the publicity for this book and managed Vicki's blog tour, this is more a "talk" than a review. While I have mentioned books I've worked on in Mailbox Monday before, I've never reviewed or otherwise promoted a book I worked on, although InkWell does have many fabulous historical authors as clients. That being said, I think this book is a totally delightful read and its subject matter is absolutely perfect for discussion on this blog. Now that the boring disclosure part is out of the way, let's get down to business...

In the cheekily titled How to Mellify A Corpse, Vicki León once again (her other credits include the wildly popular Uppity Women series and Working IX to V) takes readers on a journey through the whacky, bizarre, and downright odd practices employed by the early inhabitants of civilization, this time turning her historian's eye to the area of ancient science and superstition. The word "mellify" refers to the process of mellification, an early technique for mummifying a corpse using honey. To me, it sounds like something straight off a modern spa menu - how's that for a body wrap?! - but back before potent chemicals like formaldehyde existed, it was a very real method of embalming. Alexander the Great even specifically requested that his own corpse be preserved in this manner.

The book's chapters are divided geographically by civilization: Athens & Attica, Greece & the Greek Islands, Asia Minor & the Middle East, Rome & Environs, Italy & Sicily, and Egypt, Carthage, & North Africa, so the reader has the option to jump around or read straight through. Topics discussed are as varied as the history behind belief in the evil eye to the invention of the first aqueduct. León states in her introduction, "Meteorite worship; bean taboos; bizarre beliefs about women and their powers over hydrocarbons; it's all here." A trait I love about all of León's books is that she not only focuses on the most famous/infamous people from history, but also unveils the lives of interesting characters not typically mentioned in the history books. Come back tomorrow for a guest post by Vicki in which she highlights the life of Cleopatra and one of her lesser-known contemporaries, Queen Amanirenas of Meroe (a giveaway will also be included with this guest post).

How to Mellify A Corpse is no ordinary look at history; León brings a stylized humor and wit to her writing that makes Greco-Roman culture come alive in a way that is equal parts fascinating and fun. The pages are also illustrated with funny political cartoons and graphics with hilarious captions that compliment her writings perfectly and add that little extra je ne sais quoi. With the spirited panache that has become Leon's trademark, this uppity woman proves learning about ancient science and religion can be a jocular, rollicking adventure.