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Re:Ancient Egyptian coffins and mystery of ‘black goo’ by ggm on Monday May 25, 2020 @04:25AM (#23299165)
If they had said mastic I would have been there like a shot. Mastic and gum-arabic were used extensively in the ancient world.
Re:Ancient Egyptian coffins and mystery of ‘black goo’ by TheGallopedHigh on Monday May 25, 2020 @05:15AM (#23299424)
Mastica(sp?) is still chewed today in Greece as some kind of chewing gum. I wonder if the word “masticate” zcomes from this ie vice versa
Re:Ancient Egyptian coffins and mystery of ‘black goo’ by twic on Monday May 25, 2020 @05:54AM (#23299580)
It's also used to flavour a kind of festive brioche:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsoureki

And liqueur:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastika

Etymologically, it looks like the root word means "chew", and i would guess that mastikha is named for that, rather than vice versa:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%BC%CE%B1%CF%83%CF%84%CE%B...

Re:Ancient Egyptian coffins and mystery of ‘black goo’ by Udik on Monday May 25, 2020 @05:53AM (#23299575)
> I wonder if the word “masticate” zcomes from this ie vice versa

It does, the plant's resin is named after the Greek verb meaning "to chew".