Medical Theory and Practice in Ancient Egypt

Pre-defence seminar with Sofie Schiødt.

External examiner: Professor Joachim Quack, Heidelberg.

Abstract

Information on medicine in ancient Egypt is based largely on textual material surviving from the New Kingdom (c. 1550-1070). The corpus of medical papyri is, however, extremely small, and considerations of its representativeness of Egyptian medicine as a whole must therefore be taken into account. Significantly, a largely unpublished medical papyrus has recently come to light, belonging partly to the Papyrus Carlsberg Collection and partly to the Louvre Museum. The text dates to the beginning of the New Kingdom, and contains treatises dealing with aspects of medical theory and practice that are not otherwise attested in the small corpus of medical texts from Egypt. Of entirely unique character is pLouvre-Carlsberg’s herbal treatise, the earliest known herbal attested, which will be the main focus of the pre-defense. Another exceptional treatise in the papyrus is that dealing with skin diseases, which transposes these diseases into the divine sphere in order to explain their etiologies. This treatise will also be considered at the pre-defense, although to a lesser degree.