If you ever studied Ancient Egypt in your
history class, then you are probably familiar with the way they buried their pharaohs. When a king of Egypt died, their body would
be entombed in a huge sarcophagus, usually after being mummified. Mummification was the process that the Ancient
Egyptians used to preserve their dead, safeguarding a corpse with special chemicals and the application
of cloth, almost like bandages. This was done to keep cadavers from decaying,
usually because of the belief that this would carry over into the afterlife. And it wasn’t just the Egyptians that practiced
mummification either, mummies of human beings or animals have been found on almost every
continent in the world. Sometimes, a body can even be accidentally
mummified, through exposure to extreme cold, lack of oxygen or other environmental factors
that help keep the deceased preserved. Fun fact, the oldest recorded mummy isn’t
even one left behind by the Ancient Egyptians. It is actually a naturally mummified severed
head estimated to be 6000 years old. It was unearthed in South America in 1936. Yes, corpse preservation techniques can indeed
be strange, but none are stranger than SCP-1176, also known by the nickname “The Mellified
Man.” Now, as you may have already pieced together,
the Mellified Man is a mummified corpse, but not quite like the ones you would expect to
find buried in the Pyramids. Estimated by Foundation researchers to have
been a man in his mid-thirties when he died, SCP-1176 is a corpse that has degraded so
much over the centuries that it has made DNA examination impossible. According to some of the SCP Foundation’s
best minds, SCP-1176 is possibly of Arabian ancestry, and thought to have passed away
sometime during either the 10th or the 11th centuries AD. This is certainly not your ordinary mummy,
and it definitely isn’t like the kind you’d see in a cheesy black and white horror movie
or an old episode of Scooby-Doo. SCP-1176 is absolutely, undoubtedly dead by
all clinical definitions. It doesn’t show any signs of breathing,
and the processes of blood circulation or metabolism have long since stopped. However, despite the decay suffered by the
rest of the body, SCP-1176’s brain seems to have remained intact for almost ten whole
centuries. Not just intact, but active. The Foundation’s researchers have confirmed
that the brain has a constant level of electrical activity, consistent with people experiencing
stage 3 non-rapid eye movement sleep, known colloquially as “deep sleep.” So, a mummy with an active, albeit dormant
brain. How does an ancient culture manage to achieve
preservation like this? Alien technology? Cryogenic sleep chambers? Suspended animation? No, not quite, SCP-1176 exists in its current
state, in part, because the body has been mellified. Now, this was a process a lot like mummification,
but instead of wrapping them in cloth, a Mellified Man or a “human mummy confection” was
created by submerging a dead body in honey. According to historical records, elderly men
in Arabic countries would sometimes willingly volunteer themselves for this process. Why? Because the goal was to turn their bodies
into a healing confection. In other words, an elaborate sweet delicacy
created from a preserved corpse. That’s right, ancient cultures had candy
made from dead people. All the information the Foundation has gathered
about SCP-1176 seems to point to the body being one such mellified man. When extracting the remaining bodily fluids
from the corpse, instead of finding blood and other normal substances, Foundation researchers
discovered that SCP-1176 was full of a viscous, gold colored liquid that they designated as
SCP-1176-1. Further testing of this fluid revealed it
to be, you guessed it, honey. Specifically, it was a type known as clover
honey, made by a species called the Anatolian honey bee. This stuff was everywhere, filling SCP-1176
entirely, so much so that honey was even coming out of the body’s pores. This is due to the nature of the mellification
process. Typically, before death, a person who had
offered to sacrifice their own body would stop eating any food. Instead, their diet would consist solely of
honey, and nothing else. They would even bathe in it, submerging their
entire body in the substance inside and out until their sweat, and even their feces were
pure honey. This honey-only diet would eventually kill
the donor, and their corpse would be placed in a stone coffin, which was also filled up
with even more honey. After approximately one hundred years, what
would be left was human mummy confection, a honey based candy of sorts, that could then
be sold at street markets for a high value price. Why was it so expensive? Well, not just because it was literally made
from a dead person, but also because this confection was believed to possess rare and
powerful healing properties. Everything from the common cold to broken
bones was said to be cured by it. Despite it leaking out of SCP-1176, the honey
doesn’t seem to ever run out, even when tested under varying conditions. It seems like the Mellified Man actively produces
more of the sweet, golden substance, acting as the source rather than a container with
a finite amount. And yes, it’s still edible after several
centuries. In fact, it contains an abundance of essential
vitamins and nutrients. According to the Foundation’s testing, the
honey produced by SCP-1176 can suppress the feeling of hunger for up to eighteen whole
hours, and there are no long term side effects for most that eat it. However, this is not the case for everyone. The Foundation has learned that any person
without the blood type AB+ will have a severe allergic reaction should they consume any
of SCP-1176-1. The symptoms include acute hemolysis, which
means the red blood cells won’t break down properly, and renal failure, which is when
the kidneys stop functioning. This all results in death for most of the
subjects without AB+ blood who were fed SCP-1176-1. The symptoms for these unlucky people were
the same as receiving an incompatible blood type after a transfusion. In 1985, the SCP Foundation launched a raid
on a facility in Asmara, Eritrea, which at the time was owned by a group called the Manna
Charitable Foundation. Agents had been dispatched to this facility
after various rumors and reports that pointed to this location being the source of a strange
honey substance. This anomalous liquid was being shipped to
a number of areas in Ethiopia that had been stricken with famine. Pretty easy to guess where the Manna Charitable
Foundation got all that honey, right? The problem was, because SCP-1176-1 caused
adverse effects on people without AB+ blood, a considerable amount of civilians had died
from consuming it. Hence, the SCP Foundation was forced to step
in. When SCP-1176 was first uncovered, the body
had been stored inside a large stone sarcophagus, as was part of the ancient practice of creating
a mellified man. There was also a copper pipe and spigot, installed
by the Manna Charitable Foundation to extract the honey from within. The lid, sides and the inside of the sarcophagus
itself had a number of Egyptian hieroglyphics inscribed within. These were mostly spells and ceremonial texts,
written as a way to protect the individual that was to become the Mellified Man. There were also inscriptions written in a
dialect that was an early precursor to the Arabic language, however these sections had
been replaced with updated versions in Classical Arabic. One of these read:
“Abdallah ibn Salah ibn Ayyub ibn Nasir, fifteenth son of the great sheikh (illegible),
was put to the fast of honey on the first of Rajab in the year of the Hijra 3(illegible),
and died on the fifteenth of Ramadan. The great imam al-Yusuf has sealed him within
the ancient vessel, marked with the signs decreed by the ancients, to ferment in honey
for one hundred years and bring aid to the people in time of need.” Much like a headstone used to mark the grave
of someone who has passed, the sarcophagus that SCP-1176 was in featured a passage commemorating
a man who gave his life and body to heal others. Sounds nice, right? But there was another inscription, written
elsewhere on the stone sarcophagus, which translated to a dire warning:
“Beware, imam, for the mark of Iblis is upon this one!” According to the rest of the second inscription,
the tomb containing SCP-1176 had been opened before. During a time of great famine, imam Al-Malik
had ordered it to be opened so that the SCP-1176-1 honey could be used to feed the starving people. Jars upon jars were filled with the anomalous
golden liquid and brought to the sheikh, the ruler of the land, as well as sent to the
people suffering from the lack of food. However, the very next day a number of these
people fell ill, stricken by a terrible fever that ultimately claimed their lives. Only the sheikh, his brothers and his sons,
who had all eaten the honey, survived. Any others who hadn’t been killed by the
fever accused the sheikh and his family of sorcery, and these surviving subjects attempted
to destroy the body that had produced this cursed nectar. But when the sheikh’s people found the Mellified
Man, they witnessed in horror as the body stood upright, dancing around as it screamed
and taunted the people. Al-Malik declared that the Devil himself sent
an evil spirit to corrupt SCP-1176. The honey confection was meant to be a means
of healing, but it had been corrupted. The sarcophagus was then sealed, and the inscription
on it finished with the following caution to any that found it:
“May God strike down any who would break these seals.” Countless centuries later, once the SCP Foundation
had recovered SCP-1176 and the sarcophagus containing it, they began testing with the
Mellified Man. Their goal was to determine how much of the
SCP-1176-1 honey the ancient corpse could produce, perhaps in the hopes of using this
substance as a form of hunger relieving field ration for their operatives. Removing the body from its sarcophagus, Foundation
researchers placed SCP-1176 on a metal grate, designed to drain the honey as it was produced
instead of allowing it to build up. Over the course of several hours, more and
more honey seemed to be produced, beginning at a rate of almost a liter per hour, to almost
56 liters every hour. But then, after ten and a half hours of producing
what seemed like an endless flow of honey, something unexpected happened. The deceased body of the Mellified Man, dead
for hundreds if not thousands of years, woke up. Foundation staff detected a spike in brain
activity, if you cast your mind back to earlier, you’ll remember that SCP-1176’s brain
had managed to survive and stay intact long after it should have decayed. The Mellified Man opened his eyes and immediately
started to wildly flail around. He made a number of distressed sounds, the
long dead body trying to crawl towards the outskirts of the testing chamber. Thanks to so many of its organs and muscles
having withered away over the years, SCP-1176 was barely able to see or understand its surroundings. It couldn’t speak, not properly anyway,
given that its tongue had long since decayed. The Foundation’s personnel moved in to try
and restrain the ancient and now animated body, hoping to sedate it before SCP-1176
caused any lasting damage to itself. Eventually, staff were able to force SCP-1176
back into its sarcophagus, slamming the stone lid back in place and trapping it within. They could hear the once human creature screeching
and vocalizing from inside, bashing against the inside of the stone coffin with its head
and limbs. It took three whole hours of this for the
Mellified Man to return to its usual state, by which time its ancient bones were fractured
beyond repair. SCP-1176 is a sad tale of a man who had willingly
given his life to be a source of healing for people in need. He allowed himself to be mellified, turned
into a confection that could bring an end to famine. And yet, somehow, this was corrupted and turned
into something that spread fever and pestilence. For now, the Mellified Man sleeps, but his
brain is still alive inside. While he might be asleep, he may never be
able to rest. Now go check out “SCP-1461 - House of the
Worm” and “How NOT to Kill an SCP - SCP-1609 - Remains of a Chair” for more anomalies
that prove the road to Hell is paved with good intentions!
