Bes was a different god. The mocking image of him, depicted as a bearded dwarf with mane sticking out his tongue while going naked, was a far cry from the terrifying pose of most Ancient Egyptian divinities. Worshiped as protector of homes, mothers, children and childbirth, his cult spread throughout the Mediterranean, even reaching Ibiza.

All that bonanza that his figure shows distances himself from some of the rituals that his priests practiced. According to researchers from the University of South Florida, in collaboration with experts from Milan and Trieste, the monks prepared a concoction based on hallucinogenic drugs and human blood that they used in their rituals.

Bes’s followers believed that this drink could provide them “protection against danger, while warding off harm and averting evil with its power,” they write in the article. It was consumed in characteristic glasses, “ceramic containers decorated with the effigy or head of Bes”, known as “Bes glasses”.

To determine the components of the liquid, they analyzed organic residues found in a vase from the 2nd century BC that was on display at the Tampa Museum of Art (USA). “Since the figure of Bes was revered as a protective genius, it could be assumed that the drink from these cups was considered beneficial,” the specialists write.

The results indicated that the concoction contained a psychoactive plant called Peganum harmala, better known as Syrian rue. “The seeds of this plant produce high amounts of the alkaloids harmine and harmaline, which induce dreamlike visions,” they explain in the study.

Currently, Syrian ruda – also known as north African ayahuasca – is sometimes combined with other plants such as mimosa to mimic the psychedelic effects of ayahuasca. Traces of a second psychoactive plant called Nymphaea caerulea, or blue water lily, were also detected.

“Combining all these data, we can conclude that Peganum harmala and Nymphaea caerulea plants were deliberately used as sources of psychoactive substances for ritual purposes in Ptolemaic Egypt (330-30 BC),” the researchers say.

Not content with these hallucinogenic drugs, Bes’s devotees added other components to their potion. The analyzes carried out detected, for example, traces of an alcoholic liquid derived from fermented fruits, as well as honey or royal jelly. But perhaps most surprising, the concoction contained “a high presence of human proteins,” all of which were apparently added for ritual purposes.

“This includes fluids such as breast milk, mucosal fluids (oral or vaginal), and blood,” the authors reveal. In the Myth of the Solar Eye, the ancient Egyptians already explained that Bes curbed the wrath of the goddess Hathor by serving her an alcoholic drink, enriched with a plant-based drug, disguised as blood so that she fell into a deep sleep. So her priests did not hesitate to follow her example.