Tashia Dare
Introduction
When studying the history of medicine, names such as the Greek physicians Hippocrates (circa 460–circa 375 BCE) and Galen (129 CE–circa 216 CE) immediately come to mind. Modern medicine is indebted to the ancient Greeks, but it is equally important to study the development of medicine in the ancient Near East before the Hellenistic period. As this section will demonstrate, we are just as indebted to the ancient Egyptians as we are to the Greeks.
Medicine in ancient Egypt incorporated both conventional (rational) medicine and religious practices. Religion played a major role in ancient Egyptian daily life. There was an overlap between the priesthood and healers in addition to the frequent employment of incantations, amulets, and imagery related to deities such as Horus and Seth.[1] The Egyptians’ religious life and views helped shape their understanding of the human body, how it functions, and how to heal it.
Ancient Egyptians recognized health and illness as expressions of an individual’s relationship with the world, which comprised people, animals, spirits, and gods.[2] Although they saw a distinction between the mundane/mortal and the supernatural/divine, they saw these worlds as frequently interacting with one another. Maat (order, balance, justice) was an integral part of this, governing people’s actions and approaches to healing illnesses and injuries (fig. 1).
One’s good health meant that maat was balanced, while illness, injuries, and other issues indicated that maat was not in order. Health depended on this balance just like Egypt depended on the Nile River to maintain life.[3] Purity preserved maat and thus the body guided views on the relationship between the mortal world and the divine. Being pure was particularly important when one was coming into contact with the divine, including priests. To not be so could anger the gods.[4] The swnw (conventionally pronounced as “sewnew”), wab priest, and sau were healers who focused either on the divine or mortal aspects of an illness or injury.[5] They turned to the religious idea that illness was a message from divine entities with access to heka (magic power). Symptoms were a result of a disturbance of maat, which could be repaired by heka, supplication, spells, and ritual.[6]
Much of what we know about ancient Egyptian medicine comes from human remains, visual representation as seen in tombs and temples, among other places, and through written texts. The beginning of organized medical care and the development of Egyptian medical science may be credited to Imhotep, during the reign of Pharaoh Djoser of the Third Dynasty (circa 2686–2613, Old Kingdom). Clemens of Alexandria (150–215 CE) noted that this knowledge may have existed much earlier with Athothis of the First Dynasty (circa 3100–2890); (son of Menes, the first pharaoh and who united Upper and Lower Egypt) and who may have authored a volume on anatomy.[7]
The Corpus of Medical Papyri
Much of what we know about a