(PDF) Health and Medicine in Ancient Egypt: Magic and Science

HEALTH AND MEDICINE IN ANCIENT EGYPT

:

MAGIC AND SCIENCE

HEALTH AND MEDICINE IN ANCIENT EGYPT

:

MAGIC AND

SCIENCE

Paula Alexandra da Silva Veiga

Introdution…………………………………………......10

1.State of the art…..…………………………………...12

2.The investigation of pathology patterns through

mummified human remains and art depictions from

ancient Egypt…………………………………………..19

3.Specific existing bibliography – some important

examples……………..………………………………...24

1. Chapter: Sources of Information; Medical and Magical

Papyri…………………………………………………..31

1.1. Kahun UC 32057…………………………..33

1.2. Edwin Smith………………..........................34

1.3. Ebers……………………………………….35

1.4. Hearst………………………………………37

1.5. London Papyrus BM 10059……..................38

1.6. Berlin 13602; Berlin 3027; Berlin

3038……………………………………………………38

1.7. Chester Beatty……………………………...39

1.8. Carlsberg VIII……………..........................40

1.9. Brooklyn 47218-2, 47218.138, 47218.48 e

47218.85……………………………………………….40

1.10. Other papyri.……………………………...41

Ramesseum III, IV e V e VIII a XVI

Insinger

Berlin 3033 (Westcar)

IFAO Deir el-Medina 1, Cairo

Leiden I 343-I 345

Schøyen MS 2634/3

Tebtunis

Yale CtYBR 2081

Louvre

Rubensohn (Berlin 10456)

Vindob 3873

Vindob 6257 (Crocodilópolis)

Turin 54003

Anonymus Londinensis

Louvre E 4864

Borgia

IFAO Coptic Chassinat

Greek Papyri

2.Ostraca……………………….………………………50

3.Mummies…………………………………………….51

3.1. Origin of the word and analysis formula;

«mummy powder» as medicine………………………..52

3.2. Ancient Egyptian words related to

mummification…………………………………………55

3.3. Process of mummification summarily

described……………………………………………….56

3.4. Example cases of analyzed Egyptian

mummies …………………............................................61

2.Chapter: Heka – «the art of the magical written

word»…………………………………………..72

2.1. The performance: priests, exorcists, doctors-

magicians………………………………………………79

2.2. Written magic……………………………100

2.3. Amulets…………………………………..106

2.4. Human substances used as ingredients…115

3.Chapter: Pathologies’ types………………………..118

3.1. Parasitical..………………………………118

3.1.1. Plagues/Infestations…..……….……....121

3.2. Dermatological.………………………….124

3.3. Diabetes…………………………………126

3.4. Tuberculosis

3.5. Leprosy

……………………………………128

3.6. Achondroplasia (Dwarfism) ……………130

3.7 Vascular diseases... ……………………...131

3.8. Oftalmological ………………………….132

3.9. Trauma ………………………………….133

3.10. Oncological ……………………………136

3.11. Dentists, teeth and dentistry ………......139

3.12. Gastroenterological/ hepatic ………….142

3.13. Urinary/Renal ……………….................146

3.14. Psychiatric …………………………......152

3.15. Genetic ………………………………...153

3.16. Respiratory …………………………….153

4.Chapter: Medical-magical prescriptions and used

ingredients.....................................................................156

4.1. Ingredients……………………………....157

4.1.1. Vegetable……………………………...157

4.1.2. Animal………………………………..157

4.1.3. Mineral……………………………….161

Conclusions…………………………………………..163

Bibliography………………………………………….168

Annex I – Egyptian Flora with medicinal-magical-

religious properties.......................................................206

Health and Medicine in ancient Egypt: magic and science

3

« (…)

The hairs in my head are the same as the ones from the

goddess Nun.

My face is the Solar disc of Ra.

The strength of the goddess Hathor lives in my eyes.

The soul of Upuaut

1

echoes inside my ears.

Inside my nose the forces of the god Khenti-Khas are

alive.

My two lips are the lips of Anupu

2

.

My teeth are the teeth of Serket.

My neck is the neck of the goddess Isis.

My two hands are the hands of the powerful lord of

Djedu

3

.

It is Neit, the sovereign of Sais that lives in my two arms.

My backbone is the backbone of Seth.

My phallus is the phallus of Osiris.

My flesh is the flesh of the Lords of Kher-Aha.

My chest is the Lord of the Terrors.

My womb and my back are those of the goddess

Sekhmet.

The forces of the Eye of Horus dwelve in my buttocks.

My legs are the legs of Nut.

My feet are the feet of Ptah.

My fingers are the fingers Of the Double Divine Falcon

that lives forever.

In truth! There is no tone member in my body that is not

hosted by a divinity.

As for Thoth, he protects all my body.

As Ra, I renew myself everyday. »

4

Introduction

Health was a constant concern in life and even the

deceased needed extra care so they can be at their prime

when closed in the sarcophagus, in the possession of

magical ‘weapons’ so that, when they would reach the

Afterlife, they would be in the complete possession of all

their physical abilities. Medicine in ancient Egypt was

trying to restrain all malefic beings from action and to

preserve the well-being of the individual. Thus the initial

statement that magic and science were one and only, a

sole concept, represented by heka .

Through this work, all descriptions and conceptions

observed in the existing legacy of ancient Egypt will lead

to conclusions that attest this unique duality, if we can

name it.

After careful observation, this work was divided in

Chapters, because this form was agreeing with the

1

Or Wepwawet.

2

Or Anubis.

3

Or Osiris.

4

Chapter 42 from The Book of the Dead, translated from the

Portuguese, Sales, 1999: 419.

interconnection of the studied themes, as, investigating

the Egyptian legacy, and comparing it many times with

present examples, part of the pathological patterns in

Egypt did not change much when referring to endemic

diseases.

There are four Chapters, (1. Chapter: Sources of

Information; Medical and Magical Papyri; 2. Chapter:

Heka –«the art of the magical written word»; 3. Chapter:

Pathologies’ types; 4. Chapter: Medical-magical

prescriptions and its ingredients); this theme list being a

description that contemplates from the global perspective

to details, revealing all, from general existing sources to

particular ingredients used in prescriptions.

The first Chapter (1. Chapter: Sources of Information;

Medical and Magical Papyri) briefly lists pertinent

sources of information to the study of medical-magical

practices in ancient Egypt and includes some sources not

quoted in this work, but nevertheless essential to this

research, analysis and conclusive thinking; Egyptian

papyri, written in different languages, ostraca with

medical-magical characteristics, skeletized and

mummified human remains, art depictions, foreign

travelers’ diaries, general literature where pathologies are

mentioned (personal letters), food habits, seasons of

famine and abundance, caused by war or natural

catastrophes as the yearly flood. The reference to the

origin of the word mummia is made and also to the

«mummy powder» used as medicine. Some ancient

Egyptian words are listed either related to health and

body parts or mummification, just as examples. Next, the

mummification procedures are summarily described

according to classical authors and some conceptions of

ancient Egypt regarding the human body. This chapter

ends with some cases of analyzed Egyptian mummies,

referring the used techniques and results. A table was

elaborated listing known cases.

In the second chapter (2. Chapter: Heka – «the art of the

magical written word»), an analysis is made of how the

ancients Egyptian considered magic, both in life and after

death, in the afterlife, its relation to the human body,

magical ‘performances’ and the desired effects, the ‘job’

and its exercise by priests, exorcists, doctors-magicians,

the active practitioners of magic (those who produced

medical prescriptions and applied them), how the medical

diagnosis was made, a table illustrating medical

specialties is shown, some ancient Egyptian words are

listed as related to human body parts and mummification,

a question is made about per-ankh, a hospital-school?,

and also a reference to medical instruments is added.

Next we have a sub-chapter on written magic, spells and

gods related to magic, personal performances, another

sub-chapter lists different amulets and its importance,

mentions also some words used in personal protection,

including human substances used as ingredients in

magical prescriptions with medical intent.

In the third chapter (3. Chapter: Pathologies’ types), some

pathologies are discussed; the ones we can relate to

4

ancient Egyptian society as to have existed mentioning

treatments, when known.

In the fourth chapter (4. Chapter: Medical-magical

prescriptions and its ingredients), the ancient Egyptian

pharmacopoeia is discussed in more detail, distinguishing

the types of ingredients used in prescriptions in vegetable,

mineral and animal items, giving examples.

The conclusions are clear to attest that magic and

medicine did not exist as separate entities, distinct from

each other, as in ancient Egypt, the conception of well

being brings together a mix of prophylactic actions

(generally denominated as magic by modern Western

civilizations), and medical therapeutics with a probable

scientific basis.

1. State of the art

Researching health and medical practices in ancient

Egypt we approach several aspects of life in Egypt,

archaeology, religions

5

, and spoken and written

languages social daily life. It does not seem possible in

this type of scientific approach, according to the extant

data, as those are probably copies of an ancient written

legacy; to chronologically precise the religious-magical-

medical practices in ancient Egypt.

This work is, therefore, using the known sources of

information and concluding without closing dates.

As an example of uncertainty, there is the information

given to us by Saint Clement of Alexandria, born Titus

Flavius Clemens, (c.150 - 211/216)

6

about the possibility

of the existence of scientific encyclopedias such as those

42 volumes originally thought to have been written by

Thoth, six of them about medicine, from the Old

Kingdom

7

, this information is just that: an hypothesis.

Based on this this introduction is built, and here you can

read, intellectually analyze or even risk to state that, it

would have existed these books describing all the

observation, diagnosis and therapeutics involved in

ancient Egyptian science. These volumes would be,

according to Clement of Alexandria, describing the

constitution of the human body; its pathologies; organs;

general medical prescriptions; eye treatments; women’s

diseases’ treatments. It is also important to mention those

who studied at Alexandria in Greco-Roman times but

also those practices in the Coptic and Arabic Periods. It

would have been in this important Egyptian city in

Hellenistic times that the reminiscences of pharaonic

times influenced the knowledge and practices.

5

Lenoir, 2005 : 4-6.

6

Titus Flavius Clemens, first known theologian from the Christian

Church of Alexandria. In his Stromata, or Miscellania, Book I, chapter

XVI, this author states, regarding medicine in ancient Egypt that: «and

they say that Phoenician and Syrian invented the letters first; and that

Ápis, an aboriginal inhabitant of Egypt, invented the healing art before

Io (God, yawveh in Hebrew; Iao in Greek) arrived in Egypt. But then

they say that Asclepius improved the art»

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf02.toc.html

7

London

Observing that, we can still repeat what was done at that

time and have notions of how some present popular

beliefs go back to Pre-Dynastic times, even though we

have no direct written or iconographic evidence of it for

such a remote time of Egypt, but we have oral tradition,

and in that, many of the myths still reflect intertwined

cosmogonies; gods that have several abilities and

competences which are sometimes melt into syncretic

ones. In the Ptolemaic period (c. 305-30 BC) and also in

Greco Roman period (30 BC a 395), Byzantine (middle

IVth century to 642), or even Arabic periods these

medical-magical practices of ancient Egypt persisted,

with more or less adaptations, as we can see from the

iconography, that is in continuous visual change all

through the History but also in the amulets that combine

divinities from different religious beliefs

8

and these are

discussed in (2. Chapter: Heka – «the art of the magical

written word»).

Also of importance for our research are the diaries of

travelers to Egypt since Classical times (doctors in

Alexandria), letters sent from and to other countries such

as Assyria, Palestine and Mesopotamia (not used for this

work but nevertheless, important to mention and to

include as sources of information), Arabs and Europeans

established in Egypt in the XVIII (Napoleon’s

expedition), XIX and XXth centuries.

It is from the Nile that most of the information is taken

for the study of health and personal hygiene of ancient

Egyptians, as they survived thanks to this river.

Herodotus was the one who said that (Vth century BC):

“Egypt was the gift of the Nile”.

Every year the river flood brought life and prosperity,

starting mid-July and ending mid September, with the

deposit of the black land onshore, Kemet (the black land

as the dark color of the water impregnated with nutrients

showed as it rested on the Nile shores), and as an

opposition to Desheret (the red land as a comparison to

the scorching sands of the desert). In today’s Egypt the

endemic diseases are the same and parasitical ones,

affecting the eyes and the digestive tract, are caused by

Nile water infections as a result of bacterial activity.

Nile, the river, iteru, , itrw, was the chain

of life but also the bearer of disease, as contaminated

waters damaged some foods too as they cooked, cleaned

and drank the water from the Nile (as still today in rural

Egypt). Water was seen as a purifying element but this

might only apply in truth to the sacred lakes and even

though, those might be contaminated too by animals and

insects. Those lakes were kept so that priests, pilgrims

and the sick could bathe and cleanse themselves from

impurities, both physical and spiritual.

8

Veiga, Paula, 2008, Preliminary Study of an Unusual Graeco-Roman

Magical Gem (MA E540) in the ational Museum of Archaeology in

Lisbon, Portugal, CRE VIII, Kenneth Griffin (ed.) (with collaboration

with Meg Gundlach), Oxbow Books, Oxford, p.141-150.

Health and Medicine in ancient Egypt: magic and science

5

Running Nile waters and its channels were subjected to

animal and human defecation, sand deposit, wood and

stone debris deposit (from construction works), rotten

carcasses of animals and also decomposing plants from

sun action, insect eggs and larvae and other infectious

elements brought by the flood and manual labor. As the

flood was higher or lower in Egyptian shores each year,

so these populations had more abundance or could

experience famines if the waters did not rise high enough

to plant seeds, This, of course was reflected in the general

population state of health. There were 3 seasons:

Akhet, flood

9

Axt

Peret, water descent

10

prt

Chemu, harvest

11

Smw

There is literature about Great famines and abundant

years as well.

Starting our trip, in the IVth century, in Alexandria,

autopsies

12

and body dissection were already being made,

as Aretaeus of Cappadocia states.

13

Among several

descriptions we can mention Herodotus, Book II,

Histories, published around 430 BC or 424 BC, also

Diodorus Siculus, who’s visit to Egypt can be dated by

the 180th Olympics (60 to 56 BC); Strabo, a geographer

that visited Egypt during the reign of Augustus (27 BC-

14 AD), and Gaius Plinius Secundus, (23-79 AD), known

as Pliny the Elder, who wrote the aturalis Historia,

where he reveals many phytoterapeutical procedures used

in Egypt. This author seemed to have a great knowledge

of human physiognomy and medicine in general.

Jumping to a more recent period of Egyptian History in

the medical point of view, we start from the moment

when Napoleon brought Egypt to the world.

In 1798 Bonaparte brings with him to Egypt thousands of

men among soldiers, men from sciences, letters and arts

and this expedition results in the publication of the

Description de l'Égypte

14

in 37 volumes, published in

Paris shortly after returning from the trip. In this

expedition of 35000 soldiers and 167 ‘wise men’ and

some hundred civilians, the Rosetta Stone is discovered

and this will allow another French, Jean François

Champollion (1790-1832) to decipher the writing of

ancient Egypt some years later.

9

Faulkner, 2006: 4.

10

Faulkner, 2006: 90.

11

Faulkner, 2006: 267.

12

Autopsy: coming from the Greek root meaning "to see for one's self.”

The first documented human dissection was made by Herophilus. He

dissected more than 600 cadavers of condemned criminals (Malomo,

2006).

13

Calne, 2000: 60.

14

Digital version available online at: http://descegy.bibalex.org/

Denon

15

is also in this expedition of 1798 participating in

this adventure, we might say, as the first ‘Egyptologist’.

16

«All my life I wished for this trip to Egypt…», he says at

the beginning of his diary. «Denon is the first European

to describe, examine, draw, measure and comment the

monuments of pharaonic Egypt and by so, giving them

the right to eternity. »

17

He says «…I was going to unveil

a new country…» Regarding healthcare in Egypt, Denon

describes some situations that may not be far from

ancient Egypt: «it was so hot that the Sun burned my feet

through the shoes

18

; «The solstice sun burned our

blood…»

19

; «caused bleedings in the nose, giving us

painful exaltations that covered all body parts randomly,

dried and hardened the skin and made breathing very

difficult. The sunrays, main or even the sole cause of our

evils, made us feel in all the pores a kind of sting, very

similar to the ones produced by syphilis (would he have

suffered from this disease), that become unbearable

when, to lie down, it is necessary to lie down over all

these painful spots.»

20

Even the reference to the symbol of medicine

21

is made

by Denon after these observations: «…we have out it

along a bat and it became the goddess of health. The

Egyptians connected two of them around a globe, so it

would maybe represent the balance of the world system.

»

22

Describing the relationship between magic and

medicine in Egypt, Denon says that «They think that the

spiritual impoverished people, when dead, have powers

and influence; one is the Father of Light and cures the

evil from the eyes. Another is the Father of the generation

and presides all births, etc.», and, further, regarding a

magical tree: «I have found hair tied with nails, teeth,

small bags of leather, little standards and close to tombs,

from isolated stones, a place in the shape of a saddle

under which there was a thick lamp. Hair was nailed by

women to pin down the inconsistency of their husbands.

The teeth belonged to adults that consecrated them to

implore the return of the latter. »

23

There is even a

description of the diseases that struck the human forces of

this expedition: «The heat of the days, the freshness of

nights in that season afflicted the army with a large

number of ophthalmia: this disease is avoidable when

large walks or fatigue are followed by camping in which

the humidity in the air replicates perspiration, these

produces swellings that attack the eyes or the internal

organs. »

24

15

1747-1825.

16

Denon, 2004: 24.

17

Denon, 2004: 19 (introduction).

18

Denon, 2004: 226.

19

Denon, 2004: 200.

20

Denon, 2004: 249.

21

The Rod of Asclepius, a single snake entwined around a stick.

Caduceus used mainly in pharmaceutical themes: two snakes around a

stick; Wilcox and Whitham, 2003, 138: 673-677.

22

Denon, 2004:120.

23

Denon, 2004:126.

24

Denon, 2004:130.

6

The heat is a constant disturbance, as Denon states: «We

are suddenly surprised with a heart pain and no help can

prevent the fainting that follows within which the

unhappy struck collapses. »

25

It did not go without notice

to the participants of this expedition the existence of the

khamsin, a southwest strong wind that swipes across

Egyptian lands for around fifty days (as its name in

Arabic says) between April and June, every year, coming

from the Sahara. It was called a hurricane by Denon: «the

colors of the horizon change, the animals wander about

the fields, in the river the water grows (…) agitating the

bottom of the river under the feet. A Great amount of dust

in the air tears out the eyes clouded by the arisen dust.

Lightning can be seen, it rains a lot and the plague of the

desert grasshopper

26

appears. The Nile course seems to

become straighter and its waters are muddy and stinky,

the winds change in direction and compress the lungs at

such velocity. »

27

As a curiosity there is a reference to the water of the

Wadi el-Ambagi in Qosseir at the Red Sea coast that,

being mineral water in a sterile soil, would give sobriety

to the location inhabitants and this means a low level of

diseases as no doctor was recorded at that place.

28

Wilkinson

29

, in 1847, describes both Egyptian landscapes

and Pharaonic legacy, that there are few diseases there:

«The diseases in Egypt are few. »

30

He says that the

fevers are rare, except in the Mediterranean coast and

those foreigners, (non-Egyptian people) complain about

dysentery and ophthalmia. Furthermore, he presents

medical prescriptions to take in this case, how to protect

the eyes and protect yourself from the climate; speaks of

the ‘plague’, that may be an infectious disease (malaria),

and he advises on the evacuation to Upper Egypt as «…it

never goes above Osioót» (Assiut) or to stay in

quarantine, if you are in Lower Egypt.

According to another French, Desgenettes, (1762-1837),

Chief-Physician of Napoleon’s army, who sets up new

and strict hygiene and prophylactic practices when

commissioned to Egypt, as the cleaning of clothing,

places and the control of food hygiene, «the extreme

sobriety of the Egyptians (…) is a contribution for the

well-being and to extend the existence in this country, as

well as the air and the water (…), diseases that afflict like

plagues, dysentery and chicken pox. The most common,

25

Denon, 2004: 254.

26

Desert locust, Schistocera gregaria

27

Adapted from Denon, 2004: 236, 246.

28

Denon, 2004: 242.

29

Handbook for Travellers in Egypt, 1847, Sir John Gardner Wilkinson

(1797–1875)

30

The diseases of Egypt are few. Fevers are very rare, except about

Alexandria, Damietta, and other places on the coast; and almost the only

complaints, to which strangers are subject in the interior, are diarrhœa,

dysentery, and ophthalmia. The following is a good mode of treatment

for diarrhœa or even for the beginning of suspected dysentery.

Wilkinson, 1847: I, c.

http://scholarship.rice.edu/jsp/xml/1911/9190/1095/WilEgyp.tei-

timea.html (pages 6-7 in the paper edition).

affecting one third of the population [Cairo] is a kind of

disease of the eye; no other town has so many blind

people. Each four or five years, the plague [cholera]

escalates in Cairo in a violent way. (…)». This doctor

observed cases of small pox, scurvy, conjunctivitis and

dysentery.

31

With the discovery and further sale of magical and

medical papyri, the majority of them in the XIXth

century, there are Egyptologists interested in decoding

the medical prescriptions, its ingredients and the

spells/prayers that were recited over the treatments to the

patient. Although in the XIXth century some names are

already referenced as important to the study of medicine

in ancient Egypt. They were mainly French doctors

commissioned in Egypt by French rulers, they were

innovating the health system implanted in the Egyptian

population ad trying to fight endemic diseases. This

naturally arises in them, the curiosity for ancient Egyptian

medicine as its roots are still visible in contemporary

popular beliefs.

Egypt has the visit of Antoine Barthelemy Clot

32

(1793-

1868), a French doctor known as Clot Bei, born in

Grenoble, and educated at Montpellier. After practicing

for some time at Marseille he was promoted to Chief

Surgeon by Muhammad Ali, viceroy of Egypt. In

Abuzabel, near Cairo, Antoine Barthelemy Clot founded

a hospital and schools to teach medicine, and also, with

religious opposition by the Egyptians themselves, the

study of anatomy by dissection of cadavers. In 1832

Muhammad Ali proclaimed him Bei, an important title,

without him having to convert to Islamic religion; and in

1836 he was promoted to general and chief of the medical

board in Egypt. In 1849 he returns to Marseille, but goes

back to Egypt in 1856, and he died in 1868.

In the development of paleopathology in the XXth

century some distinguished names were pioneers in

mummies’ autopsies, as Sir Marc Armand Ruffer,

professor of Bacteriology in Cairo Medical School, as he

said himself «the science of disease demonstrated in

human and animal remains is found in ancient tissue».

33

Also the Belgian Frans Jonckheere (1903-1956), from

Brussels, a surgeon and a gynecologist, counted 82

doctors by name in the Description, made extensive

research on the diseases from ancient Egypt.

34

In Egyptology, the branches of study diversify from daily

life to ancient Egyptian practices regarding hygiene, food

31

http://www.medarus.org/Medecins/MedecinsTextes/desgenettes.html

32

Clot Bei (Antoine Barthelemy Clot), French surgeon, recruited by

Muhammad Ali. He established a medical school, and launched the

basis of the Egyptian Public health Service. His collection of Egyptian

items was sold to the council of Marseille, France,

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/766/sc3.htm; some of his work,

Relation des épidémies de cholera qui ont régné de l'Heggaz, a Suez, et

en Egypte (1832), De La Peste observe en Egypte (1840), Aperçu

général sur l'Egypte, 2 vols. (1840).

33

Ruffer, 1910.

34

There is a prize from L'Académie Royale de Médecine de Belgique

named Docteur Frans Jonckheere sur l'Histoire de la Médecine.

Health and Medicine in ancient Egypt: magic and science

7

and health and these studies start to become relevant in

some Egyptologists’ research, but only at the end of the

XXth century; as until the 1920’s and 1930’s of this

century, literature and linguistics were the main themes in

Egyptology, that began its existence after Champollion

deciphering of the hieroglyphic in 1822. In the following

decades of the XXth century, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, religion

was the dominant theme in published work, although

excavations in Egypt are a constant since the XIXth

century and the antiquity market bringing pieces to

Museums was current practice, what would have

contributed mostly to the advance of biomedical

Egyptology was the evolution of techniques, more precise

thus enabling surprising results.

2. The investigation of pathology patterns through

mummified human remains and art depictions from

ancient Egypt

«The lacuna is the most dynamic factor in the study of

ancient inscriptions. Here everything is to be found»

35

Bearing in mind that, in bone analysis, many diseases do

not last time enough to leave a mark on the bone,

macroscopic observation is the main tool of recognition

and possible attempt to identify diseases.

36

We can say

that, only after the technological availability of

radiological exam

37

and computerized axial tomography

38

– CAT scans – in the 1970’s and 1980’s, we can establish

an autonomous discipline within Egyptology itself.

We can add today to these techniques the MRI (Magnetic

Resonance Imaging), Imagiology (medical exploration

through images like ecography, ultrasound probing) and

the DNA testing (shorterm for deoxyribonucleic acid, the

essence of genetic material in organisms).

From the 1970’s onwards, bioegyptology has expanded

as an autonomous filed of research connecting

archaeology, forensic anthropology, linguistics (reading

rolls of linen around Egyptian bodies and engravings in

amulets found with these bodies and any other inscription

35

Tilde Binger, from Copenhagen, a former preacher now professor of

the Old Testament at the Department of Biblical Studies from

Copenhagen University, http://www.ku.dk/aarbog/97/1/1220.html

36

Notes taken from Prof. Eugénia Cunha in a session of Forensic

Anthropology at the Instituto de Medicina Legal de Lisboa (Forensic

Institute of Lisbon), February 2007. Prof. Eugénia Cunha is one of the

authors of Forensic Anthropology and Medicine: Complementary

Sciences from Recovery to Cause of Death, Humana Press, 2006.

37

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (1845-1923) German physicist from

Würzburg University, that in November 1895, produced and detected

the electromagnetic radiation known as X-ray or Röntgen ray, which

gave him the Nobel prize of Physics in 1901.

38

Godfrey Newbold Hounsfield, from the UK, invents the first machine

in 1967, and in 1968 the complete equipment, in 1972 he records the

patent. In 1973 the famous Mayo Clinic, USA scans the brain and it is

wanted by everyone. Hounsfield gets the Nobel Prize of Physiology and

Medicine in 1979. The Nobel Committee describes Hounsfield as the

central person in computerized axial tomography, a revolutionary

radiological method, specifically in the research for nervous system

diseases.

that is pertinent to the study of mummified bodies),

medicine, botanic and many other sciences if we think of

specialized ones such as chemistry and geology.

The aim of this work is to synthesize information from

ancient Egyptian daily life, everything that has been

written upon it and analyzed until today, throughout the

world, in different perspectives and several languages,

thus giving a contribution for an international research

and also possible future contributions for medicine and

Egyptology. Since the analysis of texts was done from the

linguistic point of view and its interpretation has been

reviewed already, in part, by some Egyptologists in the

XXth century and also some work done in the XXIth

century too, we are driven here to gather the reading of

some sections of medical prescriptions from these earlier

translations, interpretations on them and also some notes,

as well as the the analysis of some hieroglyphic

characters, mainly the ones referring to important parts of

the human body and some of the health concerns; a

comparison of ancient Egyptian practices with present

practices in medicine and pharmacy; analyzing the

efficacy of medicinal properties scientifically proved on

some Egyptian flora species (foreign and endemic) and

their utilization in the prescribed treatments

39

, as well as

the use of human ingredients, other animal and also

mineral ones for the wellbeing of ancient Egyptians.

There are already some general publications on medicine

in ancient Egypt that were used as bibliography for this

work; we are not trying to re-write the matter under the

same perspective, to take too long on linguistic matters

either such as the specific hieroglyph for a specific body

part or even fall under the same theories not yet certified

such as the one on the aaa disease,‘A’, .

We want to demonstrate that it is possible, in a near

future, to complete the Egyptological analysis of the

available sources of information, with new discoveries, to

have a perspective of the daily life in ancient Egypt of

personal and public health concerns, in different

specialties; some more important and known of the

pharaonic civilization, but in an innovative approach, a

particular and constantly in motion approach; as the

bioegyptology branch is still an embryo.

To reach the medical knowledge in ancient Egypt several

advancements have been occurring through developing

elements with new methods (archaeological in

expeditions every season) new models and techniques

examining mummified remains, more precise translations

of medical and magical papyri and a more detailed

interpretation of some hieroglyphs. In the study of

paleodisease progresses have been done using modern

techniques of examination called non-invasive. This is

possible in some medical departments and Museums in

the USA, Canada and Europe and in the National

39

Flora with magical properties studied by Wessely, 1931: 19-26.

8

Research Centre of Cairo that works in collaborative

projects with the KNH Centre of Manchester, UK

40

.

As Manuel Juaneda Magdalena states in his article La

Paleopatología en Egipto: pasado y presente:

« (…) Se

han constituido corpos cientificos de primer orden

(Manchester Museum Mummy Research Project, 1973)

entre otros, para el estudio de las momias y que

actualmente son un referencia con una meta muy clara: el

abordaje científico e interdisciplinario de los restos

momificados y establecer una metodología para cada

investigación y fomentar el conocimiento de la

enfermedad y de las condiciones de vida de las

poblaciones en la antigüedad. (…)»

41

The first woman to be professor of Egyptology in the UK

and the one in charge of the Manchester Mummy

Research for more than thirty years now (established in

1973), is Professor Rosalie David.

42

She has done pioneering work in research using non-

invasive techniques. Today, the KNH Centre for

Biomedical Egyptology in Manchester is the world

Centre for biomedical Egyptology. In the KNH, analysis

are done on tissue samples, more than a thousand, hosted

in a Tissue Bank

43

, with different provenances from

around the world, kept in the Mummy Tissue Bank,

allowing a more rapid development of biomedical

Egyptology. Patterns of disease are studied, with special

attention to schistosomiasis, with the future goal of

developing detection techniques for immunological

diseases identifying more rapidly the causes and finding

possible treatments as these diseases are still endemic to

present Egypt.

44

Still today, and according to Amal Samy Ibrahim,

epidemiologist at the University of Cairo, this bacteria

(schistosome) complicates even more the cancer in the

gallbladder representing 30,8 % of all cancers in Egypt,

40 % in men, being the most common in this country, in

40

KNH Centre of Manchester http://www.knhcentre.manchester.ac.uk/

National Research Centre of Cairo

http://www.nrc.sci.eg/AboutUs/AboutUs.asp

41

Paleopathology in Egypt: past and present:

« (…) First class

scientific Centers have been set up (Manchester Museum Mummy

Research Project, 1973) among others, for the study of mummies that

are presently a reference with a clear purpose: the scientific

interdisciplinary approach to mummified remains and the establishment

of a methodology for each investigation in promoting the knowledge of

disease and daily life conditions of ancient populations”, Magdalena,

2001.

42

Some of her publications, among articles and books, both in paper

and online are crucial for these studies for their scientifical importance

for all research in paleopathology of ancient Egypt:

http://www.ancientegyptmagazine.com/mummy01.htm

43

Lambert-Zazulak P., October 2003 , The International Ancient

Egyptian Mummy Tissue Bank at the Manchester Museum as a resource

for the palaeoepidemiological study of schistosomiasis, World

Archaeology, Volume 35, Number 2, pp. 223-240, Routledge

44

The relation between prescriptions to treat these diseases and the

plants used in them, even the unknown ones, as well as any evidence

left in mummified bodies, are the object of research in an ongoing

project of the KNH: Pharmacy in ancient Egypt,

http://www.knhcentre.manchester.ac.uk/research/pharmacyproject/

the top of the chart, being Egypt the top country with gall

bladder cancer cases. This happens generally around 50

years of age. The disease is more difficult to treat as these

patients attacked by this bacterium have some difficulty

with chemotherapy treatments.

45

In ancient Egypt they already referenced carcinomas

(tumour, aat, , ‘At)

46

but they were difficult to

distinguish from other inflammations such as pustules,

abscesses, blisters, pouches of fluid and cysts.

47

There were both seasons of prosperity and famine as

attested by some material found and some art depictions.

In a cemetery from the reign of Ramesses II seventy

skeletons were found and studied by the team of Manfred

Bietak in the autumn of 2005

48

they were abnormally

small and bad nutrition seems to have been the cause for

this; adult women with only 1, 40 m long (from 1, 37 to

1, 45 m), and adult men with only 10 cm more (1, 50 m).

«Do written sources contradict archaeological findings? »

A paradox, says Manfred Bietak: «Contemporary texts

such as the Anastasi II and Anastasi III Papyri speak of

the town splendor. There are even records where the king

describes the prosperity of the population and he is

praised». Written sources are therefore tendentious – as

opposed to archaeological findings that are objective –

«we must know how to interpret them», explains Bietak.

The cooperation between Egyptology and scientific

subjects becomes more important, determines Bietak.

Archaeology can point out social structures outside

society says Bietak.

The inscription on the «Famine Stela» in Aswan, at the

island of Sehel, done by the priests of Khnum at

Elephantine, states that, under king Djoser, as a

suggestion of his counselor Imhotep, calls all Egyptian to

cultivate the land from the Khnum temple to end the

famine in Egypt. The text was written part under Ptolemy

V Epiphanes: more than two thousand years after the

death of king Djoser, and says:

49

«I was in mourning on my throne,

Those of the palace were in grief,

My heart was in great affliction,

Because Hapy had failed to come in time

In a period of seven years.

Grain was scant,

45

Sheweita e O’Connor, 1999.

46

Nunn, 1996: 217.

47

This differentiation is possible after specific readings that led to the

work presented at the Pharmacy and Medicine in ancient Egypt

Conference at Manchester on September 2008,

http://www.knhcentre.manchester.ac.uk/newsandevents/pharmacyconfer

ence/index.asp, about the paragraphs 857 - 877 from the Ebers Papyrus

following, among others the work of Baillard, 1998: 9-61.

48

http://www.auaris.at/html/index_en.html,

http://homepage.univie.ac.at/elisabeth.trinkl/forum/forum0999/12tell.ht

m,

49

Lichtheim, 1997: 130-134.

Health and Medicine in ancient Egypt: magic and science

9

Kernels were dried up,

Scarce was every kind of food.

Every man robbed his twin,

Those who entered did not go.

Children cried,

Youngsters fell,

The hearts of the old were grieving;

Legs drawn up, they hugged the ground,

Their arms clasped about them.

Courtiers were needy,

Temples were shut,

Shrines covered with dust,

Everyone was in distress. »

50

Between 51 and 49 BC, Egypt suffered a famine period

due to bad crops caused by the drought. Ptolemy XIII

signed a decree on October 27th, 50 BC that forbidded all

shipments of cereals to the exterior with the exception of

Alexandria and that in the inscription of the island of

Sehel, discovered in 1889 by Charles Wilbour, this

famine is recorded to have lasted for seven years under

the reign of Djoser.

Daily life was therefore a preparation for the afterlife (a

much better life we can conclude from ancient Egyptian

thought based on their writings); with gods to whom

oracles were dedicated, requests were made and spells

were prepared with, considering that, in the Greco-

Roman Period the average life expectancy was of 25

years, to the ones surviving birth, between 35 and 40

years of age to those passing the first year of life, and

close to 45 to those able to reach 5 years of age.

51

This demonstrates the difficulties of survival for the

majority of ancient Egyptian people, conditioned by

deficient hygiene standards, plagues grassing in the

country, harsh and aggressive climate conditions, the

heat; desert winds the still waters of the Nile and its

channels, sources of procreation for pathological

microorganisms.

3. Specific existing bibliography – some important

examples

At present there are Egyptologists, paleopathologists,

doctors and scientists from different countries and

nationalities and different academic backgrounds that

have specialized and become interested in ancient

Egyptian medicine writing about it.

52

Some Works are

referenced below as examples among many bibliographic

references used, showing the specificity of some authors

in their research, those referenced below being

generalistic about health, medicine and prescriptions of

50

Lichtheim, 1980: 94-100.

51

Tunny, 2001: 120,

http://www.utexas.edu/depts/classics/documents/Life.html, Bagnall

2006, 90, 104; Nerlich, 2001.

52

Special Note: All German referenced Works here are only quoted

because of their importance for this study but those were not browsed.

prophylactic-palliative characteristics (used ingredients,

magic as an element and all the notions given to us by

ancient Egyptians). A summary appreciation is made here

after the readings, focusing on some notes taken and most

important aspects, in our opinion:

Ebeid, N. I. Egyptian Medicine in the Days of the

Pharaohs, The General Egyptian Book Organization,

Cairo, 1999

In this work from the doctor Nabil Ebeid about medical

practices in the pharaonic era, the author describes some

of the analysis done on mummies in pages 28 to 55; talks

about priests, anatomy, Sekhmet and surgery in pages 70

to 137, with special focus on tumours in pages 102 to

116. The following sections are about orthopedics,

women’s diseases, internal medicine, where we find

information about the liver. He goes on with references to

teeth diseases and their therapeutics, diet, cosmetics and

medicine at the workplace. After that we have chapters

on hygiene and sanitation in ancient Egypt, mentions to

health and medicine related gods and also on physical

deformities. He finishes this work with a chapter on

mummification and its importance for medical sciences

and Egyptian historiography mentioning the main

collaborators on this. The bibliography indicated by this

author, (1999), allows any ancient Egyptian medicine

researcher valid information on complementary sources

of information.

Nunn, John, F. Ancient Egyptian Medicine, British

Museum, London, University of Oklahoma Press,

Norman, Oklahoma, 1996

In this work by the doctor John Nunn, recently retired

from supervision of the Anesthetic Department of the

Medical Research Council in London, and also member

of the EES,

53

translator of some Egyptian medical papyri,

and for twenty years dedicated to the study of medicine in

ancient Egypt, excellent visual diagrams are presented

about body parts’ names in hieroglyphic in the pages 46,

47 and 217 to 226; the author talks about Egyptian

medical papyri, going through human physiology and the

diseases affecting ancient Egyptians, from where we can

gather much information.

Further in this work he goes through the role of magic in

medicine, showing charts of the medical-magical ‘job’ as

shown in pages 118, 119, 121 and 210 to 216. Also

presented here is a relationship between mineral, animal

and vegetable pharmacopoeia, with associated charts,

pages 136 to 162, finally a list of traumatic diseases and

medical specialties. The bibliography mentioned is also

interesting, because, besides egyptological work, he

53

Egypt Exploration Society founded in 1882, presently at 3, Doughty

Mews, London.

10

mentions work done by doctors with knowledge of

Egyptology.

Manniche, Lise, An Ancient Egyptian Herbal, British

Museum Publications, London, 1989.

As medical papyri are one of the main sources of

information for our work because of the medical

prescriptions described in them, it is essential to mention

this work, as Lise Manniche includes in it a chapter on

the ancient Egyptian flora used in medical prescriptions.

The vegetable universe serves one of the groups of

ingredients used in the preparation of prescriptions both

curative and preventive, it is therefore crucial to try and

cross plants’ names and descriptions in the medical

papyri and in other sources of information and their use

in medical care.

54

Illustrated in black and white drawings, this work starts to

mention the use of medicinal plants in page 58. A

complete herbarium lists plant information with its Latin

name, its ancient Egyptian name, also its Coptic name

55

,

and also Greek and contemporary Arabic, when possible.

This is enough to investigate these plants in the present

times to determine their characteristics, active substances

that are now reproduced in pharmaceutical laboratories

by chemical methods thus identifying them and of course,

finding that there are still many we cannot identify as

well. Dioscorides work is also cross referenced to give us

more information and possibility of comparison.

Bardinet, Thierry, Les papyrus médicaux de l'Égypte

pharaonique: Traduction intégrale et commentaire,

Penser la Médecine, Librairie Arthème Fayard, Paris,

1995

In this excellent work, continuing the work done by

Gustave Lefebvre

56

, and completing some issues that

Lefebvre did not mention, Bardinet starts with the role of

the priests/doctors fighting diseases, using magic. He

continues with hieroglyphic definitions of name concepts,

talks about pathogenic elements, anatomy theories and

the largest part of his work is the study of the medical

texts. In these texts we can analyze, in detail, from the

French, some expressions and content of the medical

prescriptions. The knowledge of the medical papyri and

their different translations paying attention to the original

54

The Pharmacy of ancient Egypt Project from the KNH Centre in

Manchester is pursuing this cross-referenced work to try to determine

which are the ‘unknown’ plants referred in medical papyri and their

efficacy in medical prescriptions.

55

Coptic has its origin in the expression het-ka-ptah which means

palace of the ka from Ptah

(http://www.coptic.net/lessons/CopticSlideShow.txt), name of the

temple in Memphis that was spread all over Egypt. The Greeks changed

it to aigyptos; Egypt for us in the Western world, as its actual name in

Arabic today is Misr.

56

Lefebvre, G, Essai sur la médecine égyptienne de l'époque

pharaonique, Paris, 1956.

ones where the hieroglyphic can be compared is of

extreme importance, but the contemporary crossing of

these oldest translations with new insights from medical

science brings together more accurate conclusions.

Ruffer, Marc Armand, Studies in the Paleopathology of

Egypt, ed. Roy L. Moodie, The University of Chicago

Press, Chicago, 1921

Sir Marc Armand Ruffer (1859-1917) was the Pioneer of

paleopathology

57

and, although this publication dates

from 1921 gathering work done by Ruffer since 1909

58

until almost the time of his death, it is still a crucial work

for those studying the patterns of health from ancient

Egyptians. In it we find records of examinations that

Ruffer did to several Egyptian mummies over the years,

with particular remarks, as they reflect precise

conclusions; they are real ‘autopsies’ giving us an insight

of what afflicted ancient Egyptians. He analyzed all kinds

of human tissue; skin, muscle, nerves, organs, bones from

both whole bodies and disarticulated body parts from

mummified Egyptian material. He was a Professor of

Bacteriology in the Cairo Medical School, and he defined

paleopathology as «the science of disease that can be

demonstrated in ancient human and animal tissue

remains. »

The histology of ancient Egyptian tissue material was

described for the first time by Ruffer in 1911, as he found

Schistosoma haematobium eggs in a mummy from the

XXth Dynasty. Until the 1990’s, the analysis methods

included radiology, CAT scans, endoscopy, macroscopic

observation, electron microscopy and serology. Several

infections were diagnosed: schistosomiasis, dracontiasis

(Guinea worm), tricocefaliasis, ascaridaysis and bone

tuberculosis as prevalent diseases in ancient Egyptians.

The recent introduction of molecular identification

methods (PCR) brings new light to the study of

paleopathology.

David, Rosalie e Archbold, Rick, Conversations with

Mummies, ew Light on the Ancient Egyptians, Harper

Collins, London, 2000

57

The term was established in 1892 by an American doctor, R. W.

Shufeldt, from two Greek words: palaios, ancient, and pathos,

pain/suffering.

58

This publication contains several articles by the author: Ruffer, M.,

A., Remarks on the histology and pathological anatomy of Egyptian

mummies, Cairo Scientific Journal, 1910; 4: 3-7; ote on the Presence

of `Bilharzia Haematobia' in Egyptian Mummies of the XX

th

Dynasty

1250-1000 BC. BMJ 1: 16; On arterial lesions found in Egyptian

mummies, Journal Pathology Bacteriology 1911; 15: 453-462; ote on

an eruption resembling that of variola in the skin of a mummy of the

twentieth dynasty (1200-1100 B.C.); Histological Studies on Egyptian

Mummies (Mémoires présentés a l'institut Egyptien), Le Caire, 6, Fasc.

3 (Mars, 1911); Marc Armand Ruffer, Arnoldo Rietti, On osseous

lesions in ancient Egyptians, The Journal of Pathology and

Bacteriology, 1911; Pathological note on the royal mummies of the

Cairo Museum.

Health and Medicine in ancient Egypt: magic and science

11

In this work Rosalie David and Rick Archbold give us the

perspective of the path done by biomedicine in

Egyptology, particularly in the Manchester Mummy

Project but also illustrating other cases of mummies’

analysis important to this research. The 1975

examination, broadcasted by BBC, was decisive for this

branch of Egyptology in the scientific society and in the

international community of Egyptologists. This is a

complete manual of autopsies to mummified bodies that

leads us throughout the whole process, bearing all the

details in mind, from the body itself to its bandages,

footwear, jewelry, and even prosthetics. Several questions

are presented referring to the autopsy made and achieved

results. Obvious references to examinations on mummies

done in the early 1900’s are included (1908) also in

Manchester, by Margaret Murray, as the case of The Two

Brothers, Khnumnakht e Nekhtankh, that were carried out

by the present Manchester Mummy Project.

59

This work

continues with Napoleon’s first Egypt trip and mentions

others such as Denon, remembering the ‘dinner parties’

done by Pettigrew, other mummy autopsies, the work of

Sir Flinders Petrie and Elliot Smith and the discovery of

Tutankhamun’s by Carter.

The mummification procedures are described as well,

with references to the instruments and ceramic vases and

other ‘accessories’ such as the shouabtis

60

. Sarcophagi

and masks, bandages, portraits of Roman Egypt in the

sarcophagi, all this is part of the complex system of

identity preservation for the afterlife. A recent attempt to

mummify a body in order to get to some conclusions is

also mentioned.

The work of Cockburn is mentioned, as he has done

important examinations on mummified tissues, Nakht in

particular. The autopsy done in Paris in 1976 to the

mummy of Ramesses II is also mentioned.

The information about the 1881 discovery of a mass

grave in Thebes containing several royal mummies is

given as an important piece of information for the history

of this field, the Valley of the Kings and its importance is

also discussed.

A reference to the mummy of DjedMaatiuesankh from

the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada, examinations done

on this, applied techniques, radiography and CAT scan,

all the surrounding objects and a possible lifetime path is

given.

Following this we have a description of the DNA

techniques that are even able to identify parasitical

presence in viscera remains. The investigation going on at

Manchester allows the study of malaria among other

infectious diseases.

Showing important images, this work refers summarily

but in a very professional and explanatory way the

59

http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/manchester/pages/the%20two%20brot

hers.htm, R. David (2007) The Two Brothers Death and the afterlife in

Ancient Egypt. Rutherford Press, Liverpool

60

They did all the work in the afterlife for the deceased; hard work like

agriculture. Referenced in Pinch, 1994: 158.

process of mummification from the remains we have in

the present allied to the present available techniques.

Pinch, Geraldine, Magic in Ancient Egypt, University of

Texas Press, Austin, 1994

This is an essential work in the study of magic in ancient

Egypt and it starts by the concept of magic to the ancient

Egyptians, in mythology and the essence of the word

heka. It continues establishing the connection between

the myth and magic, similarities and differences; demons

and spirits; priests’ practices; written magic and the

power of the word; magical techniques; wax figures and

others used in magical performance; the amulets,

essential to life, health and after death; tells us also about

the medical-magical conceptions connected to fecundity;

establishes the parallel between medicine and magic;

continues with funerary myths, practices and concepts of

life after death and ends with the contribution of magic in

ancient Egypt to civilizations after them.

It was very important to the elaboration of this work and

it served as a basis for further research through its

bibliography and notes.

1. Chapter: Sources of Information; Medical and

Magical Papyri

As sources of information for the study of medical-

magical practices in ancient Egypt we have included

(even those that are not quoted but that were used to draw

conclusions and understand better the ancient Egyptian

society):

-Egyptian Papyri in different writings, (hieroglyphic,

demotic, hieratic, Coptic, including Greek),

ostraca, general literature (personal letters), all

of medical or magical content.

61

-Mummified and skeletized human remains.

-Painted and sculptured artistic depictions, in tombs,

objects found in excavations that show physical

deformities, traumas or diseases.

-Foreign travelers’ diaries that, although they are

posterior to the pharaonic era, show

characteristics and habits that are persistent in

Egypt today, since ancient times.

61

Lists with information on medical-magical papyri used: University

College London:

http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/med/healingpapyri.html;

http://www.medizinische-papyri.de/html/medizinische_papyri.html; The

Papyrus Carlsberg Collection, Copenhagen:

http://www.hum.ku.dk/cni/papcoll/index.html; Center for the Tebtunis

Papyri, University of California, Bancroft Library, Berkeley, California:

http://tebtunis.berkeley.edu/collection/index.html; Yale University

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library:

http://www.library.yale.edu/beinecke/brblsear/aboutpap.htm#LDO; The

Schøyen Collection:

http://schoyencollection.com/smallercollect.htm#2634; University of

Charleston: http://www.cofc.edu/~piccione/medbase.html; as listed in

the bibliography.

12

-General literature showing evidence of diseases

(again, personal letters)

62

, food habits, and

famine and abundance periods caused by war or

natural events like the annual flood.

Medical and magical Papyri

Medical and magical

Papyri related to health,

and also mummification

Date

found

Place of

discvery

Berlin 3027

Berlin 3038 c. 1827 Saqqara

Edwin Smith c. 1860 Thebes

Ebers c. 1862 Thebes

Kahun UC 32057

(gynaecological) c. 1889 Lahun

Ramesseum III, IV e V e

VIII a XVI c. 1896

behind the

Ramesseum at

Thebes

Hearst c. 1899 Deir el-Ballas,

south Dendera

London Papyrus 10059

63

? Thebes

Papyri Chester Beatty c. 1928 Deir el-Medina

Carlsberg VIII c. 1939 ?

Brooklyn 47218-02,

47218-138 e 47218-48 e

47218-48-85

? ?

Insinger ? ?

Berlin 3033 – Westcar c. 1825 ?

IFAO Deir el-Medina 1 1928 Deir el-Medina

Leiden I 343-I 345

Início

century

XIX

Thebes

Schøyen MS 2634/3 1969 Alexandria ?

Tebtunis 1900 Fayoum

Yale CtYBR 2081 1966 ?

Papyrus Louvre

64

1953 ?

Rubensohn (Berlin

10456)

65

1908 Abusir or

Elefantine

Vindob 3873 1821 Alexandria

Vindob 6257

(Crocodilepolis)

66

? Alexandria

Turin 54003

67

Yearnymous Londinensis ? ?

Louvre E 4864

68

? ?

62

Pinch, 1994: 150.

63

http://www.britishMuseumm.org/research/search_the_collection_data

base/search_object_details.aspx

64

Irá ser estudado e as suas conclusões publicadas após a exposição

entre 6 de Junho e 6 de Agosto de 2007 no Museum do Louvre, segundo

o seu curador, Marc Étienne.

65

Published in Rubensohn, O., Elephantine Papyri; Ägyptische

Urkunden aus den königlichen Museen zu Berlin: Griechische

Urkunden, Sonderheft, Berlin, 1907.

66

Nunn, 1996: 41.

67

Borghouts, 1978: 23;

http://digilander.libero.it/Egitto_Antico/SDP_CompendioPapiri3.pdf.

Medical and magical

Papyri related to health,

and also mummification

Date

found

Place of

discvery

Borgia 1778 Fayoum

Bulaq 3

Mummification ? ?

Louvre 5158

Mummification ? ?

Carlsberg 13 e 14 (dream

interpretation)

Carlsberg 67 (prayer to

request a cure from Sobek,

at the Fayoum)

? ?

Chassinat Coptic IFAO

69

1.1. Papyrus de Kahun UC 32057

The Kahun Papyrus was discovered by Sir William

Matthew Flinders Petrie in April 1889 near Lahun

70

, near

the Fayoum oasis. Flinders Petrie was the founder of the

British School of Archaeology in Egypt and first Edwards

Professor of Egyptology in the University College of

London

71

; he was awarded Knightship in 1923. Today,

there is a Museum with his name

72

where we can see,

among many priceless artifacts, human samples of tissue

like hair, instruments that may have been used in surgery

objects of cosmetics and unguent jars.

Flinders Petrie published Kahun, Gurob and Hawara

73

,

with a description of the excavation site, drawings of the

objects found, as well as plants and some notes about the

flora and daily life.

The so-called gynecological Papyrus (Kahun) is today at

the University College de London in a bad state of

preservation. Dated from the XIIth Dynasty (c. 1850-

1700 BC), reign of Amenemhat III, it is very

fragmentated. It was published with a facsimile and

translated to English by Griffith in 1898 and then by

Stevens in 1975; it deals essentially with gynecological

issues. It will not be the subject of detailed study in this

work.

74

68

Musée du Louvre:

http://cartelfr.louvre.fr/cartelfr/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=336

0

69

Chassinat, 1921.

70

Between Beni Suef and the Fayoum, el-Lahun village was in the Nile

west bank close to the Fayoum. Hundreds of texts written in hieratic

were found here, in the ancient village of Ro-henet, which means

«mouth of the channel»and is translated to Coptic as Illahun.

71

Chair after Amelia Edwards, deceased in 1892; in January 1893,

William Matthew Flinders Petrie, her favourite archaeologist in Egypt,

became the first Edwards Professor of Egyptian Archaeology and

Philology, at 39 years of age. This Chair was offered to the University

College London, with preference over Oxford and Cambridge, because,

at that time, the UCL was the only place in the UK offering Chair to

women: http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/edwards.html

72

http://www.petrie.ucl.ac.uk/

73

Flinders Petrie, W. M., London, 1890

74

Women’s diseases, childbirth and STD were the object of an article

done for the Second International Conference for Young Egyptologists

Health and Medicine in ancient Egypt: magic and science

13

1.2. Papyrus Edwin Smith

James Henry Breasted, born in 1822

75

, was director of the

Oriental Institute of Chicago, and he published this

papyrus translation to English in 1930 with facsimile,

transcription, comments and introduction. This volume

was put together with some medical notes prepared by

Arno B. Luckhardt. Until today, Breasted’s edition is still

the only considered as a complete work on this text.

The papyrus belongs to the New York Academy of

Medicine and was exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum

of Art de New York in an exhibition about The Art of

Medicine in Ancient Egypt (2005-2006).

76

Dated from

the New Kingdom (c. 1550 BC) found in a Theban tomb,

was out for sale around 1860 by Mustafa Agha and, in

1862, was bought by Edwin Smith, an American resident

in Egypt. When he died in 1906, his daughter donated the

Papyrus to the New York Historical Society. It mentions

diseases and surgery cases, 62 in total, fourteen with

known treatments, and 48 without mentioning any

treatment, maybe chronical diseases difficult to treat or

even unknown diseases. It has seventeen pages and it was

found in the tomb of a doctor.

77

It deals with the

examination of the patient done by the doctor; the

majority of the examples given are of trauma cases. The

Word brain is used for the first time to mention the organ

in question: « (…)Smashing his skull, and rending open

the brain of his skull,” it means the smash is large,

opening to the interior of his skull, to the membrane

enveloping his brain, so that it breaks open his fluid in the

interior of his head. »

78

1.3. Papyrus Ebers

Magic is effective together with medicine. Medicine is

effective together with magic, according to the texts

prescribing treatments; these texts protect the doctor

practicing the treatment.

79

At the same time as Papyrus

Edwin Smith another Papyrus was bought in 1872 by

Egyptologist George Ebers who gave it his name. In

1875, Ebers publishes a facsimile, but it was the

Norwegian Bendix Ebbell in 1937 that concluded the

most exhaustive study of this Papyrus until today.

80

It

contains 877 medical treatises covering physical, mental

at Lisbon, October 2006; a CD version of the Proceedings will be

published soon (To prevent, treat and cure love in ancient Egypt).

75

A curious coincidence: the ‘official’ birth of Egyptology.

76

http://www.metMuseumm.org/special/Art_Medicine_Egypt/medicine

_more.asp

77

David, 2008: 188; Sanchez, 2007.

78

Feldman, 1999; Bardinet, 1995: 236-237, 497.

79

Bardinet, 1995: 39-59

80

Nunn, 1996: 30. Ebers, G. M., Stern, L., Papyrus Ebers, Facsimile

with a partial translation, 2 volumes, 1875; Joachim, H., Reimer,

Berlin, G., Papyros Ebers, The first complete translation from the

Egyptian, 1890; B. Ebbell, The papyrus Ebers, The greatest Egyptian

Medical document, Copenhagen, Levin & Munksgaard, 1937.

and spiritual diseases. The Ebers Papyrus has references

to eye diseases, gastrointestinal, head, skin, and specific

still unidentified diseases; aaa, probably ancylostomiasis

(hookworm - endemic to ancient Egypt).

81

This Papyrus has 110 pages and dates to 1534 BC, reign

of Amenhotep I.

82

It contains spells, a section on gastric

diseases, intestinal parasites, skin, anus diseases, a small

treatise on the heart, and some prescriptions thought to

have been used by gods. It continues with migraine

treatments, urinary tract disturbances, coughs, hair

conditions, burns and different wounds, extremities

(fingers and toes), tongue, teeth, ears nose and throat,

gynecological conditions and a last section on what is

thought to be tumours.

Paragraphs 1-3 have a series of magical spells to protect

the patient from surgical intervention in the diagnosis and

treatment. Following we find a large section on gastric

diseases, and parasitic and intestinal infestations

described in paragraphs 50-85.

83

Skin diseases have three

categories: irritative, exfoliative and ulcerative, in

paragraphs 90-95 and 104-118.

Diseases of the anus are covered in paragraphs 132-164

84

until paragraph 187. Some diseases are more difficult to

translate. They may have recognizable symptoms such as

an obstruction, but they can use a specific word such as

wekhedw or aaa. Paragraphs 242-247 have the

description of some prescriptions thought to have been

used by gods.

85

Paragraph 250 is all about migraines. In

paragraph 251 a drug is mentioned: «knowledge of what

is done with degem (probably ricinus oil), as something

found in ancient texts and useful to man. »

86

Paragraphs

261-283 deal with the urine flux and medicines to «make

the heart receive bread»

87

Paragraphs 305-335 have

medicines for coughing and knees’ disease. The rest is

about hair (437-476), liver diseases (477-481), trauma

wounds, burns and flesh wounds (482-529), and

extremities treatments.

Paragraphs 627-696 deal with the relaxing and

straightening of the metu channels. The meaning of metu

is dubious; they can be blood vessels, tendons or any

other channel of fluid or ligament in the body. The

Papyrus continues with tongue diseases (697-704), skin

conditions (708-721), teeth (739-750), ear, nose and

throat (761-781) gynaecology issues (783-839). It is

somewhat similar to The Edwin Smith Papyrus in the

treatment of limbs hardened and painful, and also similar

to Kahun Papyrus in the gynecology issues.

81

Davis, 2000; Kloos, 2002.

82

Nunn, 1996: 31.

83

Bryan, 1974: 50.

84

Nunn, 1996: 32.

85

Nunn, 1996: 33. Bryan, 1974: 45.

86

Nunn, 1996: 33.

87

Nunn, 1996: 33.

14

1.4. Papyrus Hearst

Housed at the Bancroft Library, University of California,

it was discovered at Deir el-Ballas in Upper Egypt, south

of Dendera, in 1899, and it became a property of the

California American Expedition (Hearst Egyptian

Expedition) when George Andrew Reisner brought it in

1901. Dated from the New Kingdom (c. 1500 BC), it was

published by George Andrew Kingsner (1867-1942), in

Leipzig in 1905, then by W. Wreszinski, Der Londoner

medizinische Papyrus (und der Papyrus Hearst), Leipzig,

1912, in: Medizin der alten Ägypter, II, Leipzig 1912; e

em Deines, H. von, Grapow, H. and Westendorf, W.,

Grundriss der Medizin der alten Ägypter, Berlin,

Akademie-Verlag, 1954-63, 1973. It has 260 medical

formulae, and deals with general clinic cases. Some of the

texts (96) are found in The Ebers Papyrus.

It has eighteen pages, concentrating on the urinary tract

treatments, blood, hair and snake and scorpion bites.

Written in hieratic, its prescriptions go from «a tooth that

has fallen out» (column I, l. 7) to «medicine to treat the

lung» (column IV, l. 8) and even human bites (column Ll

de II. 6-7), pigs and hippopotamus bites also (column Ll

de XVI. 5-7). This Papyrus is in very good conditions. It

has also a chapter on orthopedics.

Fragment 8 deals specifically with metu diseases.

88

1.5. London Papyrus BM 10059

Housed at the British Museum since the beginning of the

XXth century

89

, it belonged first to the Royal Institute of

London. Dated from the XIXth Dynasty (c.1300 BC) and

published by W. Wreszinski

90

has some magical

formulae, with spiritual and magical texts (demon cast-

away spells)

91

; spells against swellings, some unidentified

diseases, one for the placenta, dermatological diseases,

eye diseases, against hemorrhages (in pregnant women)

and burns. It has some 62 prescriptions from which only

25 are medical.

92

We can also find a spell to cast away flies in the Nile

banks when building or planting there. There is, in this

Papyrus, evidence of interchanging with foreign

cultures

93

, specially the mention of new vegetable and

mineral ingredients used more and more in New

Kingdom Egypt.

94

88

Egypt’s Golden Age, 1982: 295.

89

http://www.thebritishMuseumm.ac.uk/explore/highlights/highlight_ob

jects/aes/t/the_london_medical_papyrus.aspx

90

W. Wreszinski, Der Londoner medizinische Papyrus (und der

Papyrus Hearst): Medizin der alten Ägypter, Band II, Leipzig 1912; e

em Deines, H. von, Grapow, H. e Westendorf, W., Grundriss der

Medizin der alten Ägypter, Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 1954-63, 1973.

91

Borghouts, 1978: 21, 23.

92

Leitz, 1999: 51-52.

93

Leitz, 1999: 61.

94

Ritner, 2000: 107-117

1.6. Berlin Papyrus 3038

Housed in the Berlin Museum since 1827, it is probably

dated from the reign of Ramesses II, from the XIXth

Dynasty and it was discovered in the beginning of the

XIXth century in a Saqqara tomb. It was then sold to

William IV from Prussia with other items in 1827, and it

went to the Berlin Museum. Wreszinski made a

translation to German in 1909. It has 24 pages (21 in the

recto and 3 in the verso).

95

It deals with general clinic cases and it is similar to

Papyrus Ebers. It contains 25 pages and 240

prescriptions, three of the pages are written in a different

language. A large part of its index consists in a repetition,

word by word, with many mistakes and careless copy of

some paragraphs from the Ebers Papyrus and also Hearst

Papyrus. Includes sections on rheumatisms, a treatise on

the heart, similar to the one on the Ebers Papyrus, and a

note about it’s’ origin, more detailed than the one found

in the Ebers Papyrus.

1.7. Chester Beatty Papyri

Those are a collection of fragments discovered in 1928 in

the working village of Deir el-Medina (Western Thebes);

they are preserved in different places: Institut Français

d’Archéologie Orientale (IFAO), Cairo; Ashmolean

Museum, Oxford; Chester Beatty Library and Gallery,

Dublin and the British Museum. The London fragments

were donated by the industrial millionaire Sir Alfred

Chester Beatty, and they are in a bad state of

preservation, although some restoration work was done

on them.

96

They were initially published by Gardiner

97

and Jonckheere

98

, and they are part of the Grundriss

(German)

99

.

They are dated from the XIXth Dynasty, and they

belonged to a family of scribes at Deir el-Medina. They

include prescriptions to treat diseases of the anus, spells

against migraines and some prescriptions and spells still

unknown.

Chester Beatty V (BM 10685), in its third section, has

some magical formulae against migraines; Chester Beatty

VI (BM 10686), in its eight pages, divided in 41

paragraphs, is almost entirely dedicated to anus diseases

and it has also some spells for the unknown diseases;

Chester Beatty VII (BM 10687), has magical formulae

95

First studied by Passalacqua, then by H. Brugsch in 1855, Lepsius in

1865, and Wreszinski, W. Der grosse medizinische Papyrus des

Berliner Museums (Papyrus Berlin 3038). Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1909,

Jonckheere in 1958, Ghalioungui in 1983 and Leca in 1988.

96

Nunn, 1996: 36.

97

Gardiner, A.H., Hieratic Papyri in the British Museum, Third Series,

Chester Beatty Papyrus, British Museum, London, 1935.

98

Jonckheere, F. Le papyrus médical Chester Beatty, La Médecine

Égyptienne, 2, Fondation Égyptologique Reine Elisabeth, Brussels,

1947.

99

Grapow (dir.), Grundriss der Medizin der Alter Ägypter, Berlin,

1954-1963 (com suplementos, 1973).

Health and Medicine in ancient Egypt: magic and science

15

against scorpion bites; Chester Beatty VIII, (BM 10688),

the less interesting one, has a prescription for an

unknown disease, among magical texts; Chester Beatty

XI, spells for good health, including the Tale of Isis and

Ra (BM 10691), some others have also spells for good

health, Chester Beatty XII, (BM 10692), Chester Beatty

XIII, (BM 10693), Chester Beatty XIV, (BM 10694),

Chester Beatty XV, (BM 10695), from which only one

page is preserved with some lines on prescriptions to

destroy the «mouth thirst»; Chester Beatty XVI, (BM

10696) and Chester Beatty XVIII, (BM 10698).

100

1.8. Carlsberg Papyrus VIII

These fragments, written in Hieratic, are housed at the

Carsten Niebuhr Institute of Copenhagen. They are dated

probably from between the XIXth and the XXth

Dynasties, but it is reported to the XIIth Dynasty.

101

It was first published by Iversen

102

, then by Buchheim

103

,

and later on by Grapow

104

.

It has some notes in the verso about the Egyptian origin

of some birth prognosis, it deals with obstetrics, being

similar to the Kahun Papyrus and the Berlin Papyrus

105

;

it refers also some pregnancy problems, the determination

of the fetus’ sex and the possibility to conceive. In the

Papyrus’ recto there is a medical treatise dealing with eye

diseases, in bad state of preservation, almost a copy, page

after page from the same section on the Ebers Papyrus.

106

1.9. Brooklyn Papyri 47218-02, 47218-138 e 47218-48 e

47218-85

The place where these papyri were discovered is still

unknown. There was a translation to French done by

Serge Sauneron published after his death, in 1989. These

are housed at the Brooklyn Museum of New York.

Dated from the end of the XXXth Dynasty or beginning

of the Ptolemaic Period but written in Middle Kingdom

style. There are about snake bites and treatment formulae

to expel the venom from the body.

107

1.10. Other Papyri

Ramesseum Papyri III, IV, V and VIII to XVI

100

Nunn, 1996: 37.

101

Iversen, 1939: 4; Nunn, 1996: 39.

102

Iversen, 1939.

103

Buchheim, Liselotte, Das Buch von den Augen und die

Geburtsprognosen. Zwanzig Jahre Papyrus Carlsberg VIII, Die

medizinische Welt 15: 787-8, 1960.

104

Grapow (dir.), Grundriss der Medizin der Alter Ägypter, Berlin,

1954-1963 (com suplementos, 1973).

105

Iversen, 1939: 5.

106

Iversen, 1939: 4; Nunn, 1996: 39.

107

Nunn, 1996: 40.

Ramesseum Papyri III (BM 10756), IV (BM 10757) e V

(BM 10758) e VIII (BM 10761) a XVI; (BM 10762, BM

10763, BM 10764, BM 10765, BM 10766, BM 10767,

BM 10768, BM 10769) are housed at the British

Museum. These were discovered by Quibell in 1896 in a

wooden box at the bottom of a shaft, under some bricks,

behind the Ramesseum at Thebes.

108

Some of those were

studied and published by Gardiner in 1955, then by Barns

in 1956 and also by the Grundriss

109

.

It has sections about eye diseases, gynecology, muscles

and nerves, para-obstetrics practices and also pediatrics.

Gardiner states that they may date from the XIIIth

Dynasty, beginning of the Second Intermediate Period,

written probably around 1900 BC, and dated from the

same time as Kahun Papyrus.

110

Ramesseum Papyri III and IV are magical-medical texts

for mother and child.

111

Ramesseum Papyrus IV is very

similar to Kahun Papyrus; it has many prescriptions

about giving birth, how to protect the newborn at the day

of his7her birth, the viability of the infant (life

expectancy), and an anticonceptional formula using

crocodile dung ending similarly to the one on the Kahun

Papyrus.

112

Ramesseum Papyrus V has some prescriptions on the

metu, being in a bad state of preservation since the

beginning and end of the Papyrus are missing, but it has

about twenty prescriptions on how to treat hardened

limbs.

113

This Papyrus is written in cursive hieroglyphic,

not Hieratic.

114

Ramesseum Papyrus VIII has a text on

migraines.

Ramesseum Papyrus IX has some rituals on how to

protect a house from magic, spirits and snakes.

Ramesseum Papyrus X has magical spells on how to

protect your limbs from snake bites. Ramesseum Papyrus

XI has love spells and Ramesseum Papyrus XII has

invocations to demons to treat fevers. Ramesseum Papyri

XIII and XIV have some healing texts not yet studied.

Ramesseum Papyrus XV has some spells to protect the

body and Papyrus XVI has more spells against snakes

and bad dreams.

Insinger Papyrus

108

Nunn, 1996: 39.

109

Barns, J. W. B., Five Ramesseum Papyri, The Griffith Institute,

Oxford, 1956; Grapow (dir.), Grundriss der Medizin der Alter Ägypter,

Berlin, 1954-1963 (with supplements, 1973).

110

Nunn, 1996: 39.

111

Borghouts, 1978: 43.

112

Bardinet, 1995: 471.

113

Nunn, 1996: 40.

114

Lefebvre, 1958: 174.

16

The Insinger Papyrus is published in several work,

115

dated from the Ptolemaic Period (304-30 BC), mentions

problems that arise from an unhealthy diet and a non-

advisable lifestyle, stating what are the long term effects

of the abuse of alcohol in ancient Egypt, the hangover of

the morning after is mentioned using the French name

hairache (mal aux cheveux); speaks also about obesity,

that was not controlled or criticized than:

« The life that controls excess is a life according to a wise

man's heart.

Vegetables and natron are the best foods that can be

found.

Illness befalls a man because the food harms him.

He who eats too much bread will suffer illness.

He who drinks too much wine lies down in a stupor.

All kinds of ailments are in the limbs because of

overeating.

He who is moderate in his manner of life, his flesh is not

disturbed.

Illness does not burn him who is moderate in food.

Poverty does not take hold of him who controls himself in

purchasing.

His belly does not relieve itself in the street because of

the food in it. »

116

It also states that amulets and spells will only work by the

hidden power of the god that acts upon the world.

117

This

may refer to the practitioner/magician.

Berlin Papyrus 3033 – Westcar Papyrus

Papyrus containing a series of magical tales, probably

recorded in the Old Kingdom, being dated from the

Hyksos Period in ancient Egypt, where a magician shows

his skills in the king’s court.

118

In the tale called The

Birth of the Royal Children, the text shows us how a

delivery was performed.

119

Published by A. M.

Blackman

120

, a transcription from the Papyrus includes

comments on the hieroglyphic and state of preservation

of the Papyrus with images from the original that will

probably be the most ancient record of a magical practice,

c. 2000 BC

Papyrus IFAO Deir el-Medina 1

At the workmen’s village of Deir el-Medina many texts

were found in Papyrus and also ostraca, some are housed

presently at the Institut Français d’Archaéologie

Orientale (IFAO), in Cairo, other at the Ashmolean

115

Leiden, National Museum of Antiquities, F 1895 / 5, 1, (P. Insinger);

Lexa, Papyrus Insinger IV, 4, OMRO 63, 1982 and Lichtheim, 1980.

116

Lichtheim, 1980: 190.

117

Pinch, 1994: 117.

118

Lichtheim, 2006: 215-216.

119

Lichtheim, 2006: 220-222; Pinch, 1994: 127-128.

120

Blackman, Aylward M., The Story of King Kheops and the

Magicians, British Museum Press, London, 1988.

Museum in Oxford, at the Chester Beatty Library and

Gallery in Dublin, and at the British Museum in London.

The Papyri at the Institut Français d’Archaéologie

Orientale (IFAO) in Cairo include personal letters such as

this Papyrus IFAO Deir el-Medina 1, copy of the

Teachings of Ani that has spells for good health.

According to the Institute, these papyri were found in

1928 during excavations at Deir el-Medina but there is no

certainty that they all belong to the same discovery date.

The story of these papyri was reconstructed by Gardiner,

Posener and Pestman; these authors thought that, in the

XIXth Dynasty (13

th

century BC), some of the texts were

copied by Kenherkhopechef, ‘accountant for the project

of the royal tomb’. They may have been housed at the

tomb/chapel, before being moved to where they were

found.

121

Leiden Papyrus I 343+345

At Thebes several Papyri were found that became known

by this designation, in the XIXth century by Johann

d'Anastasi.

122

This fragment, Leiden I 343+345, dated

from the IIIrd century AD, has essentially only magical

texts

123

(spells against demons), written in Demotic. It

has instructions on divination processes, some medical

prescriptions as the treatment for a dog bite, extraction of

venom and a bone stuck in the throat; and even

prescriptions to induce sleep paralysis and death. In the

verso names plants and animals, and presents several

prescriptions for pregnant women, gout, eye diseases and

love spells.

124

It is housed at the National Museum of

Amsterdam, dated from the XVIIIth and XIXth

Dynasties. It was translated by the Jesuit Egyptologist

Adhémar Massart at Leiden in 1954. It is essentially

about magical spells.

125

An example to repel a demon in

these texts invokes divinities of a probable foreign origin

(Semitic), the samana-demon.

126

Schøyen Papyrus MS 2634/3

Its content refers Epidemies II, 6:7 – 10 from

Hippocrates, written in Greek, from Alexandria, dated

from the final of the IInd century BC to the beginning of

the I BC, one fragment from which the last part of the

121

Pestman, 1982: 155-172.

122

Johann d'Anastasi (1780-1857), son of a Greek merchant from

Damascus, that became rich supplying Napoleon’s troops and later vice-

consul of several Scandinavian countries becoming even richer with the

commercialization of grain and using his influence during the reign of

Mohammed Ali Pasha to deal on Egyptian antiquities making those

getting out of the country through Alexandria. A big part of His

collection was sold in 1828 and deposited at the University of Leiden.

In 1885, C. Leemans finished the publication with a Latin translation of

some of the texts.

123

University College of London :

http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/med/healingpapyri.html

124

Griffith, Thompson, 1904: 15-18.

125

DuQuesne, 2002: 243.

126

Borghouts, 1978: 18-19.

Health and Medicine in ancient Egypt: magic and science

17

column, II, 611-22, is at Princeton University, (P.

Princeton AM 15960A). It is probably from the extinct

Library of Alexandria and it was bought from an

antiquities’ dealer in Cairo in 1969 by Anton Fackelmann

Senior, from Vienna. It is the first Papyrus from the

Hippocratic Corpus to be published.

127

The text is divided

to show correspondences, and prove that this was the way

Hippocrates would demonstrate it, because there was

some rivalry among those practicing medicine in

Alexandria from Ptolemaic times to Roman times.

Hippocrates would have saved many medical texts from

oblivion. Only this and some others give us the

opportunity to have a glimpse of the ancient corpus

before Artemidorus Capito is published, and before Galen

interpret these texts. They are exhibited at the

BibelMuseum, Münster since 1986.

128

Tebtunis Papyri

Written in Greek, these are housed at the Bancroft

Library from Berkeley University, California.

129

There is,

in the Fayoum area

130

a crocodile cemetery where more

than a thousand mummified crocodiles were found and

also sarcophagus in 1900. These items did not come only

from the official excavations from the Egypt Exploration

Fund in 1899/1900 and Berlin in 1902, and from the

University of Milan’s excavations in 1929-1936 and 1989

to present, but also much of them were stolen by location

peasant and sold. All the material sold in the beginning of

the XXth century in Egypt is around the world in private

collections. As such, much of this material from Tebtunis

has not been studied and the already studied texts need a

revision.

131

127

M. Gronewald, ZPE 28, 1978: 276-277; A.E. Hanson: SAMR 23,

1995: 26-27; e A.E. Hanson e T. Gagos, Well Articulated spaces,

Hippocrates, Epidemics II 6, 7-22, in Specimina per il Corpus dei

Papiri Greci de Medicina, Firenze 1997: 117-140.

128

The Schøyen Collection:

http://schoyencollection.com/smallercollect.htm#2634

129

Umm el-Baragat, present name of the village next to the old

Tebtunis, SW of the Fayoum, one hour driving from Medinet el-

Fayoum. These texts were found at the temple dedicated to local Sobek,

Soknebtunis at Tebtunis, built during the XXIIth Dynasty inhabited by

Greek and Roman. Excavations were conducted during 1899/1900. This

temple was built by order of Ptolemy I (305-285 BC) and later enlarged

by Ptolemy XII (80-58 and 55-51 BC). Several Papyri were found,

belonging to the priests of Soknebtunis near the temple. Dated

approximately from the IInd century AD;

http://tebtunis.berkeley.edu/collection/tebtunis.html

130

In the fourth season of excavations from another location but also

from the Greco-Roman Period, Soknopaiou Nesos, the island of the

crocodile god at the Fayoum, by the team from the Centro di Studi

Papirologici dell’Università di Lecce, directed by Mario Capasso and

Paola Davoli, in December 2006, among other artifacts, some important

papyri were found, written in Greek and Demotic:

http://tebtunis.berkeley.edu/collection/contents.html#town

131

Abstract by Arthur Verhoogt, ew light on The Family Archive from

Tebtunis, Annual Meeting of the American Philological Association,

Philadelphia, 2002.

http://www.apaclassics.org/AnnualMeeting/02mtg/abstracts/verhoogt.ht

ml

In what remains from this temple many documents were

found from medical texts to administrative and religious.

As a curiosity, the public toilets found date from the IIIrd

century AD. They had showers, stone basins and a stove

to heat the bath water. In the Ptolemaic and Roman

Periods there is an increase in the use of amulets, healing

statuary and magical papyri for personal use.

At Tebtunis, medical practice was probably done by

temple priests. Medical prescriptions were found in

(Tebtunis Papyrus II 676, 677, 689), a very damaged

medical treatise (Tebtunis Papyrus II 678), a collection of

eye medicines (Tebtunis Papyrus 273), a fragment of

Herodotus Medicus (Tebtunis Papyrus II 272), from the

end of IInd century AD and an illustrated herbal

(Tebtunis Papyrus II 679), maybe the first herbal in

history.

132

Its formatting is according to the description from Pliny,

The Elder. Each section has a preface, the name of the

plant followed by a colour illustration and a description

of the medical properties and medicinal preparation that

can be made from it.

Some of these texts seem to have come from inside the

temple, as well as some medical instruments from the

same location, and this indicates that priests were actively

involved in medicine at Tebtunis. The fragments from

Tebtunis Papyrus II 275 consist in an amulet against

fever in the Roman Period (I BC-IV AD). An inverted

triangle is formed by a magical word repeated with

successive omission of the first and the last letters, so it

can be read in any direction.

133

Yale Papyrus CtYBR 2081

Written in Greek and not yet confirmed to be a medical

text and also without evidence of origin, housed at the

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale

University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA. From the

Ptolemaic Period, end of the IIIrd century AD, also with

the reference of Yale Papyrus 123, bought in 1966.

134

Louvre Medical Papyrus

A recent acquisition from the Louvre Museum bought

from the Ipsen Group.

135

It was bought by a private

collector in 1953, brought to France and sold after his

death. It is thought to be the second largest medical

Papyrus (after Ebers Papyrus) with eight sheets (seven

meters), written in Hieratic (both sides) in a New

Kingdom style. In the recto the first scribe (they are two)

collected diagnosis and medical prescriptions; the texts

132

Tebtunis Papyri:

http://tebtunis.berkeley.edu/collection/imagesindex.html

133

http://tebtunis.berkeley.edu/collection/imagesindex.html

134

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Papyrus Collection:

http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/papyrus/SearchExec.asp

135

http://web.culture.fr/culture/actualites/dossiers-

presse/papyrus2007/dp-papyrus.pdf

18

are mythological in their background as the treatments

are divine. Deals with several chefut: pustules, furuncles

and abscesses, indicating how to diagnose them,

presenting medical and magical prescriptions to treat

them.

136

Rubensohn Papyrus (Berlin 10456)

Housed at the Ägyptisches Museum und

Papyrussammlung, Berlin,

137

and written only in the

recto, with prescriptions and tests to cure coughs. Its

specialty is the detailed scientific language which

demonstrates that, in ancient Egypt there was not only

magic and superstition in the cures but also science.

Vindob Papyrus 3873

Combines Hieratic and Demotic and describes the

embalmment ritual of the Apis bull in detail. It is housed

at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, it was

bought at Alexandria in 1821 and in it there is the

description of the priest’s procedures in the seventy days

of mourning; his total depilation for this ceremony, with

details of fasting in this period. It also describes the ritual

of Apopis’ death as a necessary liturgical act to this

procedure. It can be included in this work as a reference

to mummification and how the organs were treated.

138

Vindob Papyrus 6257 (Crocodilopolis)

Dated from the second half of the IInd century AD does

not have any magical texts; lists prescriptions from the

Mediterranean area never mentioned before in Egyptian

medical texts.

139

Turin Papyrus 54003

A medical-magical papyrus, written in Hieratic, with

practical medical advice and magical formulae for a good

«return to life». It has also some formulae to cast away

snakes

140

and protect the eyes. The spell for take a fish

spine stuck in the throat by eating bread it is its ex-

libris.

141

136

Shown at a recent exhibition at the Louvre, from June 6 to August 6,

2007, about the medical arts in ancient Egypt. Marc Étienne, curator of

this exhibition, from the ancient Egyptian Art Department at the Louvre

and also a lecturer on Egyptian Archaeology at the École du Louvre

says that the papyrus is being studied following this exhibition. The

Project will last three years (private e-mail and at an interview to the Le

Monde in June, 7, 2007: http://www.lemonde.fr/web/video/0,47-0@2-

3246,54-919933@51-919937,0.html.

137

Rubensohn worked at Abusir in 1908 collecting papyri found in

Alexandria.

138

The Apis Embalming Ritual, P. Vindob 3873,

Orientalia Lovaniensia

Analecta, 50, 1992.

139

Nunn, 1996: 41.

140

Borghouts, 1978: 91.

141

Borghouts, 1978: 23 e

http://digilander.libero.it/Egitto_Antico/SDP_CompendioPapiri3.pdf.

Anonymus Londinensis

The Anonymus Londinensis

142

is based, in part, in the

history of medicine written in the IVth century BC by

Meno, a disciple of Aristotle. Philolaus of Croton

explained the disease considering three factors: bile,

blood and phlegm.

143

It is a long Papyrus about the

execration theory. The longest Greek papyrus found so

far, written in the IInd century AD. Classified as BM 137,

it has a Latin introduction, and a Greek text with notes.

144

Louvre Papyrus E 4864

It has a small medical text n the verso. Dated from the

XVIIIth Dynasty, c. 1400 BC

145

Borgia Papyrus

Forty to fifty Greek Papyri were found buried in a vase in

the Fayoum area, where Ptolemy Philadelphos has his

Greek veterans. One of these papyri was bought and

ended up in the hands of Cardinal Stefano Borgia in

1778; the others were destroyed as they were thought to

be worthless. Borgia Papyrus (3.5 m) was published tem

years after and records the forced labor of peasants (a

long list of names) building the Nile embankment at

Tebtunis, between 192 and 193 AD.

146

Chassinat IFAO Coptic Papyrus

This Coptic manuscript from the IXth century AD was

found by peasants at Meshaikh

147

and bought by

Bouriant

148

to the Institut Français D'Archéologie

Orientale in Cairo Library, in the winter of 1892-83.

149

The text shows that scientific tradition was not lost

between the pagan period and the Christian era in Egypt;

Publicado por Roccati, A., Papyrus ieratico n. 54003,. Estratti magici e

rituali del Primo Medio Regno, Turin 1970.

142

Diels, Hermann, Anonymi Londinensis ex Aristotelis Iatricis

Menoniis et aliis medicis eclogae / edidit Hermannus Diels, Berlin,

Kingmer, 1893, [xviii]-76 p. Coll. CAG, Supl. 3.1 [231]; Anonymus

Londinensis, University Press, Cambridge, 1947.

143

Huffman, 1993: 88 ; Stanford University, California, USA:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philolaus/

Paris: http://callimac.vjf.cnrs.fr/RSPA/References/References_A.html#

P_91

144

Centre national de la recherche scientifique,

http://callimac.vjf.cnrs.fr/RSPA/References/References_A.html#P_91

145

University College London:

http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/literature/loyalist/sources.html

146

Head, Peter, Tyndale House, Residential Centre for Biblical Studies,

Cambridge:

http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/Tyndale/staff/Head/NT&Pap1.htm;

Bromiley, 1995: 652.

147

Schoff, 1925: 76.

148

Bouriant, U., Fragment d'un livre de médecine en copte thébain,

Comptes rendus de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, série

4, 15, 1887 : 374-379.

149

Chassinat, 1921.

Health and Medicine in ancient Egypt: magic and science

19

native (ancient Egyptian), Greek and Christian traditions

were combined.

Arab rulers of medieval Egypt had much confidence in

Christian doctors and their work was translated from

Coptic to Arabic, although not many Coptic texts of this

type are known today, written in Sahidic

150

possible due

to material deterioration. Another problem is the

identification of the ingredients used in prescriptions; this

text has some symbols from alchemy and pharmacy.

151

It has prescriptions for eye and skin diseases that are

copies from Old Kingdom texts.

152

There are other Papyri with relevant interest for the study

of medicine in ancient Egypt; some Greek fragments of

medical texts spread around the world in different

institutions. These are mentioned next with brief

references as found in the researched bibliography:

Physiology Treaty in three fragments written in the Ist

century BC; Rylands Papyrus 1.21 (John Rylands

Library, Manchester, UK); Berliner Papyrus

Klassikertexte BKT 3.10-19 (inv. 9770) (Staatliche

Museen zu Berlin); Kingnach Papyrus 1.2, Papyrus

Sorbonne (inv.2011) (Institut de Papyrologie de la

Sorbonne, Université de Paris).

153

An ophthalmology treaty in four fragments, from the first

half of the IInd century BC; Rylands Papyrus 1.39 (John

Rylands Library, Manchester, UK); Grenfell Papyrus

2.7b (Bodleian Library Greek E.63 (P), (Oxford);

Heidelberg Papyrus inv. 401 (Heidelberg); Hibeh

Papyrus 2.190 (BM 2963) (British Museum).

154

Ophthalmology questionnaire written in the IInd century

AD; Ross Georg Papyrus 1.20 (P. Golenischeff, Museum

of Fine Arts, Moscow).

155

Scroll with ophthalmology prescriptions with notes on

the verso; Argentoratenses Graecae Papyri (Programm,

150

Probable origins of this name: from Sayhad, name given by the

Islamic geographers to the Ramlat al-Sab'atayn desert, or from the

Arabic as-Said (Upper Egypt). The Bohairic, spoken in the Lower

Egypt, is the present liturgical Coptic language used. Other dialects:

Fayoumic, Akhimic and Licopolitan. An interesting work done on this

matter: Azevedo, Joaquim, A Simplified Coptic Dictionary (Sahidic

Dialect), Centro de Pesquisa de Literatura Bíblica, Tools for Exegesis,

CePLiB 1, Seminário Adventista Latino-Americano de Teologia, 2001.

151

Chassinat, 1921.

152

Some notes were given to me by Nicole Hansen from the Oriental

Institute of Chicago which I thank.

153

Pack, 1965: 126 (2346). In this work by Roger Pack there are about a

hundred references to fragments with medical texts dated from between

the IInd century BC (2344), and the IVth century AD (several) between

pages 126 -128. Many are surely re-editions from ancient Egyptian

texts, but there is no scientific evidence of that yet.

154

Pack, 1965: 37 (342).

155

Pack, 1965: 126 (2343).

Rostock 1901) 8-12 (Papyrus Strasburg inv.Gr.1,

centuries III-IV).

156

Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 1384

From the Vth century AD, it has three medical

prescriptions for purge, a drink to ease urine, for wounds

and two healing legends.

157

1.11. Ostraca

Besides Papyri with relevance to the study of medicine

and health in ancient Egypt, there are ostraca with

therapeutical inscriptions that are important to

mention

158

:

Ostracon Berlin 5570 – Three prescriptions for a non

specified disease

Ostracon Deir el-Medina 1062 – Proverb and magical

prescription for an eye disease

Ostracon Deir el-Medina 1091 – Two prescriptions for

skin treatment

Ostracon Deir el-Medina 1216 – Magic for abdominal

disease

Ostracon Deir el-Medina 1242 – Incomplete prescription

for a non specified disease

Ostracon Deir el-Medina 1414 – Incomplete prescription

for a non specified disease

Ostracon Leiden 334 – Prescription for a non specified

disease

Ostracon Louvre 3255 – Prescription for a non specified

ear disease by fumigation

159

Ostracon London 297 – Prescription for a non specified

disease

Ostracon Turin 57104 – List of body parts

160

Ostracon from Thebes at the Royal Ontario Museum – A

disease’s prevention

161

Ostracon Bodleian Greek 923 – Colirium prescription

(eye).

162

156

Pack, 1965: 127 (2380).

157

Meyer, 1994: 31.

158

Medizinische Ostraka des Alten Ägyptens: http://www.medizinische-

papyri.de/html/medizinische_ostraka.html

159

Jonckheere, Frans, L'Ostracon médical du Louvre, Sudhoffs Archiv

für Geschichte der Medizin und der aturwissenschaften, Wiesbaden,

37,3/4, 278-282, November 1953; CdE XXIX, N° 57, 53-56, 1954.

160

Halioua, 2005.

161

Ostracon with a spell to prevent the attack of a demon. The body

parts where this demon should not «come in» are described. Theban

ostraca: Edited from the originals, now mainly in the Royal Ontario

Museum of Archaeology, Toronto, and the Bodleian Library, Oxford,

1913..According to the Griffith Institute, Oxford, ?50.28-9.

162

(Pack 2427), discovered at Thebes and written in the IVth century

AD, at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

20

1.12. Mummies

«...In fact, almost every mummy has a unique scent...»

163

The first report of radiological research done on an

Egyptian mummy was published by Petrie in 1898.

164

Our present knowledge of disease and health patterns has

been growing with the scientific study of Egyptian

mummified bodies, either to detect traces of trauma and

diseases or to examine parasites in the sarcophagi, as well

as the inscriptions in the sarcophagi, linen bandages and

amulets that cover the mummies.

The «covering bandage of the doctor’s equipment», the

HAyt nt Xn swnw, used the HAyt, a type of bandage used by

the priest that performs the mummification and also by

the doctor.

165

The mummification started to happen naturally in the

bodies left in the Egyptian underground, hot and dry,

being «hot-dried» by the sun; the very hot climate favours

the drying out of the body do body keeping it in a good

state of preservation. It is almost impossible today to try

and date the process beginnings as an usual practice, but

there are traces that it must have began, after visualizing

how the bodies left in the desert were preserved

166

,

around the IV Dynasty (2600 BC). Records of

mummification practice are only recorded in the New

Kingdom but the oldest mummies found until today, are

the ones from the Pre-Dynastic cemetery from

Hierakonpolis, HK43 in Upper Egypt, Wadi Khamsini.

Research in this cemetery began in 1996, and, after five

seasons, 260 graves were found containing close to 300

individuals, probably workers from the Naqada Period,

IIA-C (3600-3400 BC)

167

.

3.1. Origin of the word and analysis formula;

«mummy powder» as medicine

«...mummy: human remains, resin, wrapping, and all...»

168

So, where did this word come from, so connected to

ancient Egypt?

The word , scH

169

, (sarcophagus,

wi

170

), meant mummy in ancient Egyptian,

but also bitumen or «bitumen material», as an allusion to

the black colour of the Egyptian mummified bodies when

unwrapped, this comes from the medieval Latin word

163

David, 2000: 12

164

Petrie, W.M.F., Deshasheh, 1897, Fifteenth memoir of the Egypt

Exploration Fund, London, 1898.

165

Győry, 2006: 1.

166

Moodie, 1931: 19.

167

Hierakonpolis, http://www.hierakonpolis.org/site/hk43.html

168

David, 2000: 40.

169

Faulkner, 2006: 215.

170

Faulkner, 2006: 56.

mumia

171

, loaned from then Arabic mūmiyyah, ةيموم,

which means bitumen. According to Abdel Latif, an Arab

doctor of the XIIth century, who travelled to Egypt, this

substance would have its origin in the Persian mūmiya,

bitumen, as this was flowing down from a mountain and,

mixing with ice turned into water, originated this

substance that was thought to have medicinal

properties.

172

From the XIIth century onwards, travellers going to

Persia spoke about mummies with miraculous properties,

healing wounds instantly and mending broken bones.

When Persian travellers went to Egypt and saw the

mummified bodies covered by a black substance similar

to mummia, they misinterpreted it and mummia became

the name for the body covering and the body itself. Then,

a real ‘hunt for Egyptian mummies’ began. The highest

selling point in History would have been in the middle

Ages and again in the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries.

Many boticaries diluted this substance in wine, honey or

water. In some cases the substance was not powdered, but

as pieces of the body or in a paste.

A surgeon from Bretagne, Ambrósio Paré (1510-1590),

was one of the first to criticize this medicine. His critic

was based upon what was told to him by Gui de la

Fontaine, doctor of the king from Navarra. He would

have travelled in 1564 to Alexandria. There he knew

about a Jew who dealt in mummies and this one

confessed that the bodies were not older than four

years.

173

In 1658, Sir Thomas Browne, a philosopher, referred to

mummy powder as: «mummy is become merchandise,

mizraim cures wounds and pharaoh is sold for balsama»

and maybe before the XIIth century, doctors prescribed

this medicine to their patients.

174

The work Rates for the Custom House in London

mentions «crushed mummy»; and in 1657 the work The

Physical Dictionary contained the definition: «Mummy,

something like resin that is sold in boticaries; some say it

is extracted from ancient tombs». In Spain, Benito

Jerónimo Feijoo (1676-1764), a Benedictine monk,

Professor of Theology and Sacred Scriptures, a big

defender of ascetic medicine, was a big critic of mummy

powder.

175

The physician John Hall é is referenced as having used

this «medicine» in two of his patients:

«William Fortesque, aged 20, was troubled with the

Falling-sickness, by consent from the Stomach, as also

hypochondriac melancholy, with a depravation of both

171

It meant, in Latin, to lie down in aromatic resins, one of the last stage

of mummification procedures; Ebeid, 1999:422.

172

David and Tapp, 1993: 37.

173

Jofre, 2004:1.

174

Ebeid, 1999: 423; David e Tapp, 1993: 11.

175

In El Teatro Crítico Universal o Discursos varios en todo género de

materias para desengaño de errores comunes, tomo 4º Discurso 12: 25,

Feijoo speaks of mummy powder:

http://filosofia.org/bjf/bjft412.htm#t41220; Jofre, 2004:

http://www.Egyptlogia.com/content/view/565/91/

Health and Medicine in ancient Egypt: magic and science

21

Sense and Motion of the two middle Fingers of the Right-

hand" (p.50, observation XXIX); Melvin Earles'

comment: In this condition the patient exhibits a morbid

preoccupation with ill health. [...] at the onset of a fit the

patient was made to inhale a vapour formed by burning a

mixture of the aromatic resin benzoin, powdered

mummy, black pitch and juice of rue." (p. 55); Patient

Mr. P. (Observation XIII, page. 196) was "afflicted with a

Flux of Semen, and Night-pollutions, by which he was

much weakened". He had a pill prescribed with gum

Arabic, tragacanth gum, Armenian bole, carabe (amber),

mummy powder and Mandibule Lucii piscis

176

or jaw of

pike, all items believed to hinder or stop fluxes. Melvin

Earles comments in a footnote on p.197: "Mummy was

included in the London Pharmacopoeia of 1618. It was

said to pierce all parts, restore wasted limbs, cure

consumptions and ulcers, hinder blood coagulation and

stop fluxes. A shortage of the genuine article resulted in

recipes for making artificial mummy from the newly

dead" (cf. Webster's White Devil, I.1.17ff) »

In 1833, Thomas J. Pettigrew, later known as ‘Mummy

Pettigrew’, bought a mummy for 23 pounds when Henry

Salt’s collection was put to sale, and he unwrapped it at

the Charing Cross Hospital in London, where he was a

Professor of Anatomy. In 1834, he presented a mummy

to the Royal College of Surgeons and, in the next twenty

years, it was one mummy after another, always with a full

house. In 1852 Pettigrew mummified the body of

Alexander, the tenth Duke of Hamilton, by His request

177

.

The mummy was preserved in an Egyptian sarcophagus

in the Duke’s property mausoleum; he was a traveller to

Egypt, a collector for the British Museum, and for

himself.

Sir Marc Armand Ruffer (1859-1917), pioneer of

paleopathology, developed a formula to study the

mummified tissues softening them with alcohol and 5%

of sodium bicarbonate.

178

Ruffer says: «...Indeed, it is a

striking fact that up to the present I have never found

bitumen in any mummy, even in those of the Ptolemaic

period. (March 1911). »

179

Nevertheless we went from mummy powder as a

medicine to biochemical research in mummies with

scientifical purposes. The inorganic substances used in

mummification, according to Alfred Lucas

180

, would

have been natron and salt. In the resinous material from

the mummies’ bandages traces of natron are also found.

176

Lúcio (peixe de rio): http://web2.bium.univ-

paris5.fr/livanc/?cote=00216x04&p=490&do=page

177

Spindler, 1996: 5.

178

Ruffer, 1921: 64.

179

Ruffer, 1921: 21, 54.

180

Lucas, 1926: 110-125.

3.2.Ancient Egyptian words related to

mummification:

-linen bandage

181

wt

-embalming action

182

sdwx

- linen bandage

183

swdwd

-natron

184

Hsmn

-place of embalming

185

, wt

-embalmer, bandager

186

, wt

-mummy sarcophagus

187

, wi

-priest (pure)

188

, w'b

-purification tent

189

where the process of

mummification began and the body was

cleansed. Next to water (river or channel)

ibw

-place of embalming (temporary adobe buildings)

190

;

kitchen or refectory close to tomb, where the

body was taken to after being purified. The uabt

neb ut would have been the embalming place to

prepare the bodies of highest ranked individuals;

it was next to the adjacent tomb wt

Ex: tomb of Kai, priest of the kings Khufu and Khafre in

Giza.

191

-«beautiful house»; funerary house

192

where the body

was eviscerated, dissected, embalmed, bandaged

with linen, soaked in resin and out into the

sarcophagus, pr nfr

181

Faulkner, 2006: 71.

182

Faulkner, 2006: 256.

183

Faulkner, 2006: 218.

184

Faulkner, 2006: 178.

185

Faulkner, 2006: 71. There is an alabaster embalming table, probably

from the IIIrd Dynasty, c. 2650 BC, found in the enclosure of Djoser’s

pyramid, in Saqqara.

186

Faulkner, 2006: 71.

187

Faulkner, 2006: 56.

188

Faulkner, 2006: 57.

189

Faulkner, 2006: 15.

190

Faulkner, 2006: 71.

191

Zahi A. Hawass, Opening the Lost Tombs: Live from Egypt, first TV

documentary about an Egyptian excavation for the Western world, done

by FOX, 1999.

192

Faulkner, 2006: 89.

22

3. 3. Process of mummification summarily described

The preservation of the human body after death was an

essential pre-condition to extend the existence of that

person. This ancient Egyptian thought is probably based

on the Myth of Osiris, the first mummy, made by Isis.

The written literature on this subject is detached from

Classical authors such as Herodotus (deceased c. 406 BC)

and Diodorus Sículus, about 440 years after the first.

Their descriptions may not represent exactly the practices

done over a thousand years before their existence, when

embalming deceased people was common in ancient

Egypt.

The Embalming Ritual is described in two Papyri,

probably copied from the same ancient source, dating

from the Greco-Roman period, and housed in Cairo:

Papyrus Bulaq 3, and at the Louvre, Papyrus 5158.

193

In

this last one, the embalming is said to begin only four

days after death, the linen bandaging 46 days after, so 42

days are left for the rituals. They used incense oil

194

and

the used resin worked as glue so it should be sticky to

make the linen bandages stick well.

There are also references to this ritual in the Rhind

Papyrus (c. 1650 BC, where the scribe Ahmes

195

states

that he copied this text from an ancient document from

the XIIth Dynasty, c. 1800 BC), housed today at the

British Museum.

Studying the process of mummification and its

procedures has been supplying new information about

what treatment was given to the bodies of the deceased

and, even better for our kind of research, diseases, diet,

daily life and family interactions in ancient Egypt.

Regarding children and infant’s mummification there are

scarce examples from the beginning of the XXth

century.

196

A detail: the Seven Sacred Oils mentioned in the Opening

of the Mouth Ritual in the Pyramid Texts. These oils

were also used for medicinal purposes, perfumes and

massages, as well as for kitchen use and home lighting.

There are examples of little tables with seven cavities for

the Seven Oils with hieroglyphic inscriptions as the one

found in the tomb of Qar, a physician from Saqqara.

197

At the centennial commemorations of the Egyptian

Museum in Cairo, one of these tables, contained the

following inscriptions, from left to right: Sethh-heb,

perfume used in the festival; sefeth, unknown; hekenu,

from the first class resins ab and antiu, to oint the divine

193

Colombini, 2000: 19; Brier, Wade, 2001: 1.

194

Fragranced resins, Boswellia africana and arabica was used in the

embalmment, as well as the Sudanese Boswellia papyrifera Rich; Liber

Herbarum. http://www.liberherbarum.com/Index.htm

195

Or Ahmose, that lived in the Second Intermediate Period. University

of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA:

http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/VideoTestbed/Projects/Mummy/eg

ypt.html

196

Moodie, 1931: 19.

197

http://www.osirisnet.net/docu/centennial/centennial.htm

members (formula at the wall from the temple of Edfu

next to the king’ statue); nemu, unknown; tUSAt,

unknown; ha-ach (from the Conifera tree, Albies alba,

cedar tree); haentehennu (from Libia).

198

More examples of these tables can be seen at the British

Museum (6122, 6123, 29421).

199

Mummification was a religious practice but it can also be

seen as a precocious scientific activity that gave the

embalmers much knowledge about the human body.

200

The techniques used in the analysis of Egyptian

mummified bodies have developed from the X-rays to

endoscopies (a different equipment used in mummies

from the one used in living people as mummies have no

fluids), to CAT scans (computerized axial tomography),

and more recently to DNA studies. In 1985 Svante Pääbo,

a Swedish molecular biologist from the Uppsala

University, extracted DNA from an Egyptian mummy,

although his results cannot be reproduced.

201

Herodotus’ reports continue, nevertheless, to be the most

complete.

202

The embalmer extracted the brain out

through the nasal cavity with the help of a hook, breaking

the ethmoid bone

203

and twisting the hook (usually a

bronze one) to liquefy the brain matter and ease it out

through the nostrils. Next, the cavity was filled with

resin, bitumen and unguents. A spoon was used to do

this, covering the cavities (inside of the skull and

nostrils). Once they considered the heart the centre for

emotions and thinking, brain matter was discarded as they

found no useful or sacred meaning for that. From the IVth

Dynasty onwards evisceration was practised doing a left

incision on the abdomen, with an obsidian knife

204

and

afterwards removing the organs by hand.

There are cases found were evisceration was not practised

and others where

205

an evisceration per anum was

performed.

206

In the precise spot where the incision was

made, it is sometimes found a Horus eye drawn as to

protect the body entry/exit.

207

The ancient Egyptian divided the body in 36 parts; each

one ruled by either a dean or a demon, who presided the

triple divisions from the twelve signs of the Zodiac. A

sort of ‘theological anatomy’ was made by Champollion,

based upon the ‘great funereal Ritual or book of

Manifestations’.

208

198

Budge, 1996: 30;

http://www.osirisnet.net/docu/centennial/centennial.htm

199

Budge, 1996: 30.

200

Fleming, Fishman, O’Connor, Silverman, 1980.

201

David, 2000: 150.

202

David, Tapp, 1993: 42.

203

David, 2000: 70.

204

Sharp knife from Ethiopia: Ebeid, 1999: 427; David, Tapp, 1993: 44;

obsidian is a volcanic glass from outside Egypt (Ethiopia) documented

in several collections (different knifes) Manchester Museum (a piece of

obsidian), Petrie Museum, London.

205

Ebeid, 1999: 431,434.

206

David, Tapp, 1993: 44.

207

Pettigrew, 1838: 11.

208

Pettigrew, 1838: 12: “...This is expressed, on various mummy-cases,

in hieroglyphics.

Health and Medicine in ancient Egypt: magic and science