It probably goes without saying, but I’ll go ahead and say it anyways in case any intrepid readers have spent the entirety of their lives with their heads underneath rather large rocks. The ancient Egyptians were just plain wild for mummification. When most of us think of mummies today we probably think of the ancient pharaohs and their families getting all wrapped up for their high class journeys to the afterlife. However, mummification wasn’t just for the rich and powerful in Egyptian society. In fact, pretty much anybody who had two pennies to rub together (or whatever it was they used for pennies back then) got themselves mummified when they died. The practice was pretty much as ubiquitous as the embalming of bodies today. It wasn’t just people who were mummified either. The Egyptians mummified literally millions of animals, cats being the most popular choice, which were used as offerings to the myriad of gods who needed such bribes. At least that’s what archeologists think, though in reality who really knows, perhaps the Egyptians were just an entire culture who were super attached to their pets. Anyways, the Egyptians’ love of mummies lasted a couple thousand years, not dying out until Roman times. As a result, the whole region was pretty damn chock full of dried out bodies, which aside from a bit of grave robbing, were largely left alone until the Middle Ages.
Things changed when the Crusaders first entered the area during the twelfth century. Though most of the Crusaders’ time was spent killing random people for not being the right religion, they did happen to notice that the Arabs had some kind of miracle cure for broken bones, fractures, and other such wounds. Decidedly impressed, the Crusaders stopped hacking people to death long enough to inquire where such medicine came from.
What happened next is up for conjecture. It’s possible that some Arabs were playing a practical joke, or that the Crusaders were just dumb asses who weren’t good at translating. Whatever the reason, while the miracle cure was actually a naturally occurring type of asphalt, the Crusaders became convinced that it was the dried embalming fluid of mummies. This information was taken back to Europe where it was mistranslated again, probably by some jackoff who was more interested in drinking wine than doing his damn job correctly, shortening it to just ground up mummies.
You can probably guess what happened next. As a result of people being exactly as they are today, meaning desperate for any kind of miracle cure, a strange sitcom situation developed where people across Europe became convinced that ground up dead guy was a miracle cure. At first it was just for broken bones and the such, but it soon expanded to pretty much anything that might ail somebody living in the Middle Ages, which was a pretty extensive list. The Arabs of Egypt, valuing the money of stupid people more than a bunch of old random dried out corpses, began shipping thousands of mummies across the Mediterranean, where they were ground into a fine powder called Mummia. Before too long everybody in Europe, from the highest king to the lowest serf, was happily self-medicating themselves with the totally useless product.
This fuckery pretty much continued unchallenged until the 16th century when the Renaissance sparked a rash of book learning which increased skepticism towards the whole idea of magic powders. However, it also led to some rather enterprising painters developing a new paint color called Mummy Brown, which of course contained ground up mummy. So overall it was kind of a wash. It was also around this time that the authorities in Egypt made it illegal to sell mummies, what with the whole desecrating the dead thing. While this did little to slow the trade, it did raise the price, leading to some entrepreneurs back in Europe getting the bright idea of making fake Mummia by just throwing random corpses in their ovens.
The use of powdered dead guy remained a widely used medicine in Europe until the 18th century when skepticism finally caught up with reality, though the decreasing supply of mummies just lying around probably had something to do with it too. Painting with ground dead guy didn’t fall out of favor until the 19th century. This was fortunate for the world at large, but unfortunate for those who made their living selling mummies. However, luckily for them, Europe was soon after gripped with a fascination for all things ancient Egypt, which gave the traders a new market selling mummies as items for home decoration, a fad that didn't fade until the early 20th century. The less Feng Shui mummies were sold to be ground up for fertilizer. That's a lot to think about the next time you attend a funeral.
Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:F%C3%A9lix_Bonfils_-_Mumienh%C3%A4ndler.png