The discovery of tobacco fragments in the mummiefied body of Ramses II should have had a profound influence upon our whole understanding of the relationship between ancient Egypt and America but this piece of evidence was simply ignored.  Then, sixteen years later, again quite by accident, more evidence emerged. In 1992, toxicologist, Dr. Svetla Balabanova of the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Ulm (Germany) tested the ancient Egyptian mummified remains of Henut-Tawy, Lady of the Two Lands. The results came as a "shock" to this scientist who regularly used the identical testing methods to convict people of drug consumption. She had not expected to find nicotine and cocaine in an ancient Egyptian mummie. She repeated the tests and sent out fresh samples to three other labs. When the results came back positive she published a paper with two other scientists. (Balabanova, S., F. Parsche and W. Pirsig, "First Identification of Drugs in Egyptian Mummies", Naturwissenschaften
79, 358 (1992) Springer-Verlag 1992.)
    If Balabanova was surprised by the results of her tests she was even more surprised at the vitriolic response to her publication. She received a flood of letters threatening, insulting and accusing her of fraud. When she reminded her critics that she was simply applying the very same techniques that she had used for years in police work where her results were considered "proof positive" her critics didn't seem to care. She was condemned as a "fraud."
    Dr. Rosalie David, Keeper of Egyptology, Manchester Museum took
up the challenge of investigating the "cocaine mummies" which she thought "seemed quite impossible." She began by sending tissue and hair samples from her museum out to labs. She was working on the dual assumption that one of two things are true:

        1. Balabanova's tests were compromised ; or
        2. The mummie was not truly ancient" (i.e. it was fake).

Dr. David flew to Munich to review the techniques and excavation records to see if the body, which had originally been purchased by King Ludwig I of Bavaria was genuine or not.  More