How a cup of tea led to a scientific publication that debunked the pyramid peppermint myth

It’s 18 degrees below zero on a February morning in 2021 when Jesse Millek, then a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Michigan, makes himself a cup of tea. The university is closed due to the pandemic, so all that’s left for him is to work from home. His eyes land on an interesting fact on the box of peppermint tea: “Peppermint has been used medicinally for thousands of years – in fact, dried peppermint leaves were found in the pyramids of Egypt in 1000 BC.”

As an archaeologist with expertise in the ancient Near East, the claim piques his curiosity. A quick Google search reveals that the claim is widespread: peppermint is often associated with Egyptian pyramids. “I thought, where did this come from?” he says. “The pyramids are usually empty, except for bats and rubble. So this sounded pretty unlikely.”

He begins to ‘dig’. He searches archives and Google Scholar with various search terms, digging further back in time. His six-month-old daughter becomes his ‘research partner’. “She was often awake in the middle of the night and could only fall back asleep on the couch. I spent many hours behind my laptop there with minimal movement so she wouldn’t wake up”, he laughs.

Many scientific articles mention the claim, but without sourcing. “It feels like the writers consider the claim a fact, like ‘the earth is round'”, the American says.

Yet, he discovers something: references to the discovery of ‘mint leaves’ in Egyptian tombs. A German botanist had identified these leaves as peppermint. “But that’s not correct”, Millek says. Peppermint originally comes from England and was only identified in 1696 by botanist John Ray. “The plants found in the tomb couldn’t have been peppermint, because that species didn’t exist there at the time. It was probably a native mint species”, he explains.

However, the German botanist’s mistake was blindly adopted. A German fragrance and flavour manufacturer cited the discovery in a report, causing the error to take on a life of its own. “Over the years, the story of ‘tomb peppermint’ morphed into ‘pyramid peppermint’ because the largest tombs in Egypt are obviously the pyramids”, Millek explains.

Besides pyramids, peppermint is often linked to the Ebers papyrus, one of the oldest medical texts in the world. According to the myth, peppermint was prescribed as a medicine around 1550 BC. “This claim often pops up in advertisements, like ‘buy our peppermint product – it was already used by the ancient Egyptians!'”, Millek says.

This is also incorrect, he says. Together with colleague Lutz Popko, he looks at the original text. The Ebers papyrus mentions a plant called niania, an ancient Egyptian word that resembles the Arabic nana (mint). “It’s probably some kind of mint, but certainly not peppermint”, he emphasizes.

The confusion emerged during translations. From the Egyptian hieroglyphics, niania was translated into the Latin mentha (mint). In a later German translation, the Latin ‘mint’ was mistakenly converted into pfefferminz (peppermint). When the English version was made, the translator relied on the German text instead of the original source, resulting in pfefferminz being translated as peppermint.

Ultimately, the cup of tea on a cold February morning leads to a scientific publication. The research is complete, the paper published, but Millek can’t enjoy his cup of peppermint tea just yet before dispelling the myths. For him, this case is an example of a bigger issue in archaeology. “Many ideas about the ancient world are based on misunderstandings. In modern research, original sources are often not checked. This causes inaccurate information to circulate”, he says.

The pyramid peppermint myth is persistent because it captures the imagination. “The idea that a pharaoh put peppermint leaves in a jar and was buried with them is more appealing than a boring botanic discovery in England”, he says. “But like with any misinformation, I would prefer the truth, even if it’s less exciting.”