Medical activity in ancient Egypt: Effectiveness and Magical Aspect

Petrovics, Alica and Ferencz, Andrea and Fehér, Daniella and Blázovics, Anna and Győry, Hedvig (2022) Medical activity in ancient Egypt: Effectiveness and Magical Aspect. In: Aegyptus et Pannonia VIII. : Acta Symposii anno 2021. Magyar-Egyiptomi Baráti Társaság, Ókori Egyiptomi Bizottság, Budapest, pp. 63-108. ISBN 978-615-6571-02-1

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Abstract

Egypt, as one of the most important cradles of ancient civilization, is known for its advanced medicine. Greek and Roman writers report on this in their works, while the original material came to light by the decipherment of the rediscovered Egyptian medical papyri, beginning with the last quarter of the 19th century. Nowadays, advanced technical devices aid healing, the development of which – we like to believe – can be attributed to the result of the technical development of the past 200 years. However, this is not entirely true, since in ancient times doctors knew many healing processes from practical experience,and we see from the ancient texts that certain knowledge of modern medicine was already known thousands of years ago, the roots of which can be traced back to ancient Egypt. While studying ancient Egyptian medicine, rational and irrational approaches are conspicuous. Rationality is based on practice and observations during centuries, passed on orally and in writing; while irrationality is based on their approach to life: they would observe seemingly the same medical case treated the same way, resulting differently. They could only rely on their naked eye, which could see no reason. Invisible factors had thus interfered, which meant to them the divine world. To approach it meant religion, which also incorporated magic. In the light of recent researches, these two points of view went hand-in-hand throughout the whole history of ancient Egypt. Sources for the Old Kingdom are scarce, but mythological anatomy and snake spells are well attested, and the grammar and the vocabulary of the Smith surgical papyrus (written down during the 18th Dynasty) show many features of this time.We also know that special medical books were used then. From the Middle Kingdom, again we have snake charms and other magical healing papyri, some of them found together with rational ones, such as the medical papyri in the Ramesseum. From the New Kingdom more medical papyri survived, but also iatromagical or irrational/magical ones, and new genres were developed on both sides. The situation did not change later either; many iatromagical texts are known, but there are also traditional prescriptions, not to mention the Brooklyn ophiological papyrus, with the scientific description of the various types of snakes and accurate descriptions of the consequences of their bite, or other Brooklyn papyri, presented also at this conference. In this article we try to answer what materia medica (in particular the use of plants in prescriptions, and their application) were used by ancient Egyptian healers of the New Kingdom, and how and why their effectiveness made them so famous. For this purpose, we investigate samples from both practical and magical points of view, and compare them, when possible, to modern scientific data. For this purpose, we use both references to the papyri, earlier and later literature, both from medical and phytomythological points of view, material remains and results of new scientific investigations. We have focused on the usage of plants. Besides presenting the results, we also cover some difficulties in the research.

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