Posts tagged egypt
Mummified head of Pharaoh Ramses II, with artificially enhanced nose.
Did you know that the first plastic surgery was performed in Ancient Egypt? No, not on the living, but it was considered crucial to the Egyptians who were mummified.
In the afterlife, the only physical feature believed to be completely retained was the facial structure, but mummification dried the body such that the face was often unrecognizable. Ramses II was known for his elongated nose, so to ensure he would be recognized as a king in the afterlife, bone and seeds were surgically inserted under the skin of his nose after the desiccation of mummification, to restore and exaggerate its original shape.
Read more about plastic surgery, from Ancient Egypt to Tagliacozzi, to Harold Gillies’ wartime facial reconstruction in my mental_floss article!
Image: Catalogue General Antiquites Egyptiennes du Musee du Caire; The Royal Mummies. G. Elliot Smith, 1912.
Tuberculous spondylitis - Historically known as “Pott’s Disease”
Pott (or Pott’s) disease was named after Percivall Pott, who wrote several lectures on the nature and treatment of this condition.
The name “tuberculous spondylitis” comes from the disease tuberculosis, and the Greek “spondylos”, meaning spine, and “-itis”, meaning swelling. This is actually a form of chronic osteomyelitis, generally found in the lower thoracic or upper lumbar spine of adults. It’s also one of the oldest chronic conditions for which we have archaeological evidence.
Before tuberculosis had effective treatment modalities, this was one of the most common bone afflictions in adults. There were often internal abscesses that the infection drained into, which, while generally not the primary concern, could rupture and cause peritonitis or generalized infection of the thoracic cavity.
As the condition advanced, the degeneration of the bone often caused spinal cord compression and so-called “Pott’s paralysis” - a form of paraplegia that was actually reversible if the pressure was taken off the spinal cord soon after it started. This was usually done by stiff metal or (later) plastic braces or medical corsets. Once the infection advanced to the point that paralysis was caused, it often caused a complete collapse of the affected vertebrae, and could result in thoracic kyphosis, or “hunchback”.
The images above show a mummified priest of Ammon, from the XXIst dynasty (1000 BCE) of Egypt, with the characteristic lateral protrusion of the spine (left image) that hasn’t yet advanced to a collapse of the spinal discs. There is also a large sac in the abdomen (right image) that was soft when mummification occurred, and which would have been the abscess where the infection drained. There was evidence that the priest lived for over a decade with this condition, and it was probably not what killed him in the end.
Studies in the Paleopathology of Egypt. Sir Marc Armand Ruffer, 1921.
Anyone else sick of hearing about the US election yet? My OZ friends are all getting social media reminders to vote today, and they’ve never even been to the US…well, it’s all over soon, but let’s do some cute in the mean time!
House Sparrow - Passer domesticus
In the temple at Dier-el-Bahari
The sparrow is one of the limited number of species distinctly benefiting from human settlement. Where humans are, sparrows are, often en masse. Go just a half-mile into the wilderness beyond a settlement, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find even one individual. Other closely-related passerines (“songbirds”) like finches and thrushes can survive where humans live, but none have adapted to the point that they’re rarely found in the “wild” any longer, and few other avian species have thrived as well as sparrows in settled lands.
The sparrow is perched on a wall at the temple at Dier el-Bahari, most well-known for Hatsheput’s tomb. It’s next to an engraving of Horus, depicted as a Lanner falcon (Falco biarmicus) carrying a Shen ring, a symbol of eternal protection.
Egyptian birds for the most part seen in the Nile Valley. Charles Whymper, 1909.
Medicine in History: Ancient Egypt - Basics of Life
The Insinger papyrus, from the Ptolemaic period, states:
A man spends ten years as a child before he understands death and life,
He spends another ten years acquiring the instruction by which he will be able to live.
He spends another ten years earning and gaining possessions by which to live.
He spends another ten years up to old age, when his heart becomes his counselor.
There remain sixty years of the whole life, which Thoth has assigned to the man of god.
From the age of 40 to the expected 100, a man could enjoy the best years of his life, using the fruits of his labor and knowledge.
Of course, most people did not live to be 100, but by the Ptolemaic period, the average age of those whose ages were noted (meaning they likely had a burial of at least middle-class status) was 54 years for men, and 58 for women. The long lifespan has been attributed to a generally healthy lifestyle, a diet with adequate grains and proteins, and a society that generally revered their elders and cared for them, even when they were not able to physically contribute to society.
When You Lived a Long Life…
The workers on the pyramids (and within the royal court) also had pensions, which is the first time in history that this concept was recorded. They received grain rations that, while smaller than what the workers got, was more than enough to sustain an elderly citizen.
It was also expected that the children (especially the oldest son) or nieces and nephews would help attend to the needs of the elderly. Of course, this did not always happen, and there have been wills and manifests found expressly disinheriting children for being disrespectful or not caring for their parents in their frail dotage.
Of Course, Lots of People Still Died Young:
The lifespan was, of course, not always nearly 60 years. From the Old Kingdom onward, the lifespan slowly increased, from a starting point of around an average of 22-30 years of age.
Analysis of over 3000 Egyptian mummies and medical papyri have left behind information about many different diseases that people suffered and died from.
During the spring and summer (the dry season), the much smaller amount of water available led to concentrations of people in a very narrow region along the banks. This created ideal conditions for infectious diseases, like dysentery, smallpox, typhoid, and relapsing fever.
When the rainy season came, malaria was, of course, very prevalent, thanks to standing water in the flooded fields, which served as ideal mosquito breeding grounds.
A few of the other diseases and ailments found in mummies included:
- Atherosclerosis: A hardening of the arteries, prevalent especially in non-clergy Egyptians. Their healthy lifestyle and diet led researchers to hypothesize that the atherosclerosis originated from the repeated inflammation due to parasitic diseases. There is also the possibility that salt-preserved foods contributed to unhealthy arteries.
- Dental caries: The corn in Egypt was very coarsely ground, and to more finely grind it, sand would be added. This, combined with lots of other coarse foods, would lead to fairly rapid decay of teeth, exposure of the dentin and pulp, and chronic infections. These infections would be routinely drained by physicians, using a thin hollow reed.
- Bone trauma: There was a LOT of this. I mean, they hauled around huge blocks of stone, what would you expect? Broken arms were very common. Unsurprisingly, physicians were fairly good at setting broken bones, and if the skin wasn’t broken (allowing in infection), the splinted limbs had a decent recovery rate.
Portrayals of Dentistry in the 17th Century
I had the privilege to get a chipped filling extracted from my gingiva and to have the filling re-done earlier today, in a process that was about as fun as, well, getting an enamel chip dug out of your gums and then getting a large filling right over the seriously-inflamed gumline.
Of course, as much as I piss and moan about how much it hurt, my pain is nothing compared to people in the 17th century. Well, at least according to the artists of the era. There seems to have been a particular interest in the pain inflicted by the dentists and barber-surgeons of the time, and the fascination of the people around the “patient” in the apparent misery they’re going through.
Dentists were largely seen as below barber-surgeons until the very late 1600s-early 1700s, when one Pierre Fauchard took massive steps towards legitimization of the profession.
Top: “The Dentist” Gerard van Honthorst, 1622.
Center Left: “The Quackdoctor” Jan Steen, 1651.
Center Right: “The Extraction of Tooth” Gerard Dou, ca. 1630-1635.
Bottom: “The Toothpuller” Caravaggio (probable), ca. 1608-1610.I hate going to the dentist. I actually have an appointment tomorrow :(
Egypt was bloody amazing when it came to medicine. The coarse corn they ate gave them dental caries fairly frequently, and it was apparently widely known that to drain an abscess caused by the caries with a thin reed would not only alleviate the pain, but would keep the teeth intact much longer than leaving it be or simply yanking out the tooth (as was the practice in Europe).
The earliest evidence of ancient dentistry we have is an amazingly detailed dental work on a mummy from ancient Egypt that archaeologists have dated to 2000 BCE.
The work shows intricate gold work around the teeth. This mummy was found with two donor teeth that had holes drilled into them. Wires were strung through the holes and then around the neighboring teeth.
via metalonmetalblog
n90_w1150 by BioDivLibrary on Flickr.
Little Owl (Athene noctua)
Egyptian birds for the most part seen in the Nile Valley
London,A. and C. Black,1909.
biodiversitylibrary.org/item/34605
Medicine in History: Ancient Egypt - Pharmacology
Putting aside the major strides forward the Egyptians made in establishing medicine, some of their cures were still pretty wild, even without the mysticism aspect. A few of them (from the writings of Herodotus, the Kahun Gynecological papyrus, and the Ebers and Edwin Smith papyri):
- For cure of baldness: “Fat of lion, fat of hippo, fat of crocodile, fat of ibex, fat of serpent, mix together thoroughly and annoint the head of the bald.”
- For all diseases of the eye: “Human brain, [comparatively easy to obtain given its removal during mummification] divide into its two halves, mix one half with honey, smear on the eye in the morning, dry the other half, mash, sift, smear on the eye in the morning.”
- Laceration to eyeball: “Take sawdust, acacia leaves, galena, goose fat. Bandage with it”
- Constipation of a child: “An old book, boil in oil, apply half on the belly to reestablish evacuation.”
- Common cold: “Milk of a mother who has given birth to a son, untainted and fresh.”
- Carcinoma Uteri [cancer of the uterus - characterized by a peculiar smell]: “Fumigate her with every sort of roast meat, the smell of which she emits”
- Tooth or jaw pain during pregnancy - “toothache of the womb”: “When thou hast fumigated her with grease and incense in a frying-pan, pour on her vulva the urine of an ass that has begotten its like [a sire of a male ass], one day old.
- Swelling of the abdomen: “1/64 hekt of Malachite, pound, grind fine, cook in mehui (?) of cow’s milk, drink for four days.”
- Pain in the upper arm, chest, and side of stomach [heart attack]: “Something has entered his mouth. Death is approaching him. Prepare for him an enlivening remedy of herbs, cooked in oil, to be drunk by the man.” [This is one of the only cases where a condition known to be fatal is given a treatment, most are noted that they should not be treated]
- Another cure for baldness: “Carapace of a turtle, cooked and crushed, added to fat from the leg of a hippo, anoint forthwith very very frequently”
- Female Baldness [Used by Shesh, the mother of the pharaoh Teti]: “1 leg of greyhound, 1 stone of date, 1 hoof of donkey, cooked vigorously in oil and applied forthwith.”
- Headache: “Skull of a catfish, boil in oil, anoint the head with it for 4 days”
Well, ancient Egypt may not have had treatments quite as bizarrely specific and complicated as medieval Europe, but they certainly had their fair share of odd “treatments”.
Medicine in History: Ancient Egypt - Basics of Life
The Insinger papyrus, from the Ptolemaic period, states:
A man spends ten years as a child before he understands death and life,
He spends another ten years acquiring the instruction by which he will be able to live.
He spends another ten years earning and gaining possessions by which to live.
He spends another ten years up to old age, when his heart becomes his counselor.
There remain sixty years of the whole life, which Thoth has assigned to the man of god.
From the age of 40 to the expected 100, a man could enjoy the best years of his life, using the fruits of his labor and knowledge.
Of course, most people did not live to be 100, but by the Ptolemaic period, the average age of those whose ages were noted (meaning they likely had a burial of at least middle-class status) was 54 years for men, and 58 for women. The long lifespan has been attributed to a generally healthy lifestyle, a diet with adequate grains and proteins, and a society that generally revered their elders and cared for them, even when they were not able to physically contribute to society.
When You Lived a Long Life…
The workers on the pyramids (and within the royal court) also had pensions, which is the first time in history that this concept was recorded. They received grain rations that, while smaller than what the workers got, was more than enough to sustain an elderly citizen.
It was also expected that the children (especially the oldest son) or nieces and nephews would help attend to the needs of the elderly. Of course, this did not always happen, and there have been wills and manifests found expressly disinheriting children for being disrespectful or not caring for their parents in their frail dotage.
Of Course, Lots of People Still Died Young:
The lifespan was, of course, not always nearly 60 years. From the Old Kingdom onward, the lifespan slowly increased, from a starting point of around an average of 22-30 years of age.
Analysis of over 3000 Egyptian mummies and medical papyri have left behind information about many different diseases that people suffered and died from.
During the spring and summer (the dry season), the much smaller amount of water available led to concentrations of people in a very narrow region along the banks. This created ideal conditions for infectious diseases, like dysentery, smallpox, typhoid, and relapsing fever.
When the rainy season came, malaria was, of course, very prevalent, thanks to standing water in the flooded fields, which served as ideal mosquito breeding grounds.
A few of the other diseases and ailments found in mummies included:
- Atherosclerosis: A hardening of the arteries, prevalent especially in non-clergy Egyptians. Their healthy lifestyle and diet led researchers to hypothesize that the atherosclerosis originated from the repeated inflammation due to parasitic diseases. There is also the possibility that salt-preserved foods contributed to unhealthy arteries.
- Dental caries: The corn in Egypt was very coarsely ground, and to more finely grind it, sand would be added. This, combined with lots of other coarse foods, would lead to fairly rapid decay of teeth, exposure of the dentin and pulp, and chronic infections. These infections would be routinely drained by physicians, using a thin hollow reed.
- Bone trauma: There was a LOT of this. I mean, they hauled around huge blocks of stone, what would you expect? Broken arms were very common. Unsurprisingly, physicians were fairly good at setting broken bones, and if the skin wasn’t broken (allowing in infection), the splinted limbs had a decent recovery rate.
![Stumpfkrokodil [Dwarf Crocodile]
The dwarf crocodile is the smallest extant crocodilian species, generally reaching only five feet (1.5 m) long or so. Though they no longer live along the Nile River, there have been confirmed skeletons/mummies of dwarf crocodiles in the areas surrounding the sacred lakes at temples devoted to the god Sobek.
Sobek was a frightening god to many Egyptians; he was a literal deification of the crocodile itself. This was an animal that could easily incite fear, and lived within the river that the Egyptians relied upon so heavily. According to legend, he rose out of the waters of Chaos to create the world. But in many places, that was not the important aspect; it was much more important that he was the crocodile god. People hoped that by praying and making sacrifices to him, they would be safe from harm by his minions/children.
Brehms Tierleben. Alfred Brehm, 1911.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lsteuapyey1qk931ho1_400.jpg)
Stumpfkrokodil [Dwarf Crocodile]
The dwarf crocodile is the smallest extant crocodilian species, generally reaching only five feet (1.5 m) long or so. Though they no longer live along the Nile River, there have been confirmed skeletons/mummies of dwarf crocodiles in the areas surrounding the sacred lakes at temples devoted to the god Sobek.
Sobek was a frightening god to many Egyptians; he was a literal deification of the crocodile itself. This was an animal that could easily incite fear, and lived within the river that the Egyptians relied upon so heavily. According to legend, he rose out of the waters of Chaos to create the world. But in many places, that was not the important aspect; it was much more important that he was the crocodile god. People hoped that by praying and making sacrifices to him, they would be safe from harm by his minions/children.
Desert Cat
The desert cat was ubiquitous in Egypt when it was settled by the first agricultural humans, thousands of years before recorded history. For a while, since the desert cat (and other cat species) did not compete with them for food or try to eat them, humanoids invited them to come around and did not attack them. The cats controlled the mice and snakes that frequented the valuable granaries and got easy meals; humanoids got grain that wasn’t spoiled or consumed by rats and mice, and were not threatened by the snakes that came around to eat them.
Though cats did not contribute significantly to the actual survival of humans, they were still seen as intelligent, motherly, a manifestation of fertility and protection, and loved as much as relatives.
When a cat belonging to someone died (as opposed to the semi-ferals that still wandered the granarie,s long after domestication), they were expected to go into the same level of mourning as proceeding the death of an immediate family member, including shaving off their eyebrows, somber dress, and (if they could afford it) commissioning their cat to be mummified.
Handbook to Carnivora. Part I: Cats, Civets, and Mungooses. Richard Lydekker, 1896.
Monkey Represented on an Egyptian Tomb
This representation is most likely of a vervet monkey. Many primates still inhabit the Nile river valley that were also there when the ancient Egyptians were around, but the vervet monkey is not one of them. Wild vervets now live significantly more south than the Egyptians regularly traveled.
Though many species of monkey were extant in ancient Egypt (and most were kept as pets at some point), only a few were considered “holy”, or representative of their more important gods. The vervet monkey, while kept as a pet by both the working class and they royalty, was not generally venerated in the same way as, say, baboons were.
General Introduction to the Natural History of Mammiferous Animals, with a Particular View of the Physical History of Man, and the More Closely Allied Genera of Quadrumana, or Monkeys. W. C. Linnaeus Martin, 1841.
Skull of Ancient Egyptian
Excavated at Memphis, the capital of the first administrative subdivision of Lower Egypt, Aneb-Hetch. In modern terms, Memphis is almost directly south of Cairo. It probably had about 15,000 inhabitants, though estimates range between 6,000 and 30,000. Either way, it was an important city, as it was the capital for over eight consecutive dynasties during the Old Kingdom, and a lot of important people were buried there.
Skeleton of the African Elephant
The African elephant averages 3 meters high, but the largest one ever measured was a specimen shot in Angola in 1956, and was almost a full meter taller than average. The smallest elephants were the dwarf elephants that existed in Crete (and whose funny skulls are strongly suspected to have led to the cyclops tales), and they were no bigger than a large pig.
A Manual of the Anatomy of the Vertebrated Animals. Thomas H. Huxley, 1879.
Contraception in ancient Egypt: Crocodile dung, mixed with sour milk, rolled into a pessary, and inserted into the vagina.
Well…it would keep any amorous encounters to a minimum…
But! The acid in crocodile dung is strong enough to be an effective spermicide, even without the fact that, well, there’s crocodile crap in your vagina. The sour milk made the dung more easily pliable and contributed to the acidity; water would have diluted it, and using fresh milk would have been a waste of food.
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A blog for all biological and medical ephemera, from the age of Abraham through the era of medical quackery and cure-all nostrums. Featuring illustrations, history, and totally useless trivia from the diverse realms of nature and medicine.
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