Medicine was practised from early times in Egypt and Mesopotamia, two great contemporary centres of civilisation. The first extant textual evidence of healing treatments is recorded in cuneiform script on clay tablets towards the end of the third millennium BC, but there may have been an equally early Egyptian tradition which has not survived because it was recorded on papyrus, a far less robust writing material.
Previous studies on ancient Egyptian medicine have generally categorised and described diseases and medical conditions identified in textual, iconographic, archaeological, and palaeopathological sources. These include medical papyri, and archaeological evidence from buildings, tomb reliefs, physicians’ stelae, votive offerings, surgical instruments, and equipment owned by magico-medical practitioners, as well as human skeletal and mummified remains.
Our research has taken a different, innovative approach, considering the subject afresh from the perspective of both healing professionals and the recipients of their care. We have examined the training and individual roles of the various groups of healers, and their interaction with each other and with their patients, and assessed their contribution, knowledge and expertise, and the extent to which the various treatments they used were efficacious.
Mobility in mortuary contexts