Fans of alternative sciences and alternative histories are often trying to upend any standard

model of what we know about our world and our history.

So it's no surprise that plenty of attention has been given to a claim that Egyptian mummies

have been tested and found to contain tobacco, which did not grow in ancient Egypt.

And therefore our entire understanding of human history must be wrong.

Today we're going to see if this really is the conclusion we're forced to land upon.

Or if real science gives us a real explanation that actually meshes well with what we've

already learned.

New World Tobacco in Old World Mumbies is coming up next on Skeptoid.

You're listening to Skeptoid.

I'm Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com.

New World Tobacco in Old World Mumbies.

Today we have a good old fashioned classic detective story.

By way of background, we know that ancient Egyptians never traveled to the Americas.

We also know that tobacco was a plant definitely not found in Egypt at that time in history.

Thus common wisdom has always held that there's no way tobacco could have been found in either

the written records of ancient Egypt or in its many archaeological relics.

But what if it had?

What if we discovered tobacco in ancient Egypt?

This is where our detective story begins.

If the seemingly impossible has happened, then something is very wrong somewhere.

We need to find the undiscovered explanation.

...