Determination of nicotine in hair samples of pre-Columbian mummies

In the literature, there are reports about the presence of cocaine, nicotine and cannabinoids in the hair of ancient mummies from South America or Egypt. Most of the results have been criticised because of the use of improper analytical techniques or contamination of the sample material. Recently an exhibition of 70 mummies from around the globe was organized at the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen in Mannheim, Germany. It shows exhibits assembled by one of the worldfamous mummy projects, involving various specialists for anthropology, pathology, radiology, molecular biology and toxicology. Within this project, hair samples of eight pre-Columbian mummies were analyzed for drugs using modern routine gas chromatographic-mass spectrometric techniques. The tests revealed negative results, except for nicotine in the hair of three mummies. Nicotine was measured in concentrations of 57.5 ng/mg in the hair of a woman, 14.1 ng/mg in the hair of a child and 11.4 ng/mg in the hair of a further female mummy, but all cases revealed negative results for cotinine. The target analysis was performed with limits of detection of 0.04 ng/mg for nicotine and 0.033 ng/mg for cotinine. The washing solutions yielded negative results for both analytes, nicotine as well as cotinine. In our opinion, even with respect to negative results in the washing solutions, the present results cannot definitely confirm an active consumption with body passage in the life time of the analyzed mummies: An external contamination cannot be excluded, e.g. by transfer from smoking visitors or employees during the early collection history of the objects in the 19th century, as well as in their respective lifetime.