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Medicine and Healing Practices in Ancient Egypt provides a new perspective on healthcare and healing treatments in Egypt from the Predynastic to the Roman periods. Rather than concentrating exclusively on diseases and medical conditions as evidenced in ancient sources, it provides a ‘people-focused’ perspective, asking what it was like to be ill or disabled in this society? Who were the healers? To what extent did disease occurrence and treatment reflect individual social status? As well as geographical, environmental and dietary factors, which undoubtedly affected general health, some groups were prone to specific hazards. These are discussed in detail, including soldiers’ experience ...
The lector is first attested during the 2nd Dynasty and is subsequently recognised throughout ancient Egypt history. This study challenges previous approaches to studies on the Lector and explores his diverse functions in a wide ranging review of the relevant evidence.
In the 660s BC Egypt was a politically fragmented and occupied country. However, this was to change when a family of local rulers from the city of Sais declared independence from the Assyrian Empire, and in a few short years succeeded in bringing about the reunification of Egypt. The Saites established central government, reformed the economy and promoted trade. The country became prosperous, achieving a pre-eminent role in the Mediterranean world. This is the first monograph devoted entirely to a detailed exploration of the Saite Dynasty. It reveals the dynamic nature of the period, the astuteness of the Saite rulers and their considerable achievements in the political, economic, administrative and cultural spheres. It will appeal not only to students of Egyptology but also, because of the interactions of the Saite Dynasty with the Aegean and Mesopotamia worlds, to anyone interested in ancient history.
Whether it is the binding of shattered bones or the creation of herbal remedies, human agency is a central feature of the healing process. Both archaeological and anthropological research has contributed much to our understanding of the performative aspects of medicine. The papers contained in this volume, based on a session conducted at the 2010 Theoretical Archaeology Conference, take a multi-disciplinary approach to the topic, addressing such issues as the cultural conception of disease; the impact of gender roles on healing strategies; the possibilities afforded by syncretism; the relationship between material culture and the body; and the role played by the active agency of the sick.
"Were there countervailing cosmic realms ruled by Yahweh and Asherah in late pre-exilic Israel? Brian B. Schmidt presents five case studies corroborating the existence of a daimonic realm replete with intermediary protecticve spirits and a pandemonium that wreaked havoc upon both the living and dead. Having converged with Egypt's protective deities Bes and Beset, YHWH and Asherah also possessed the enhanced powers to govern a counteractive apotropaic realm from which Asherah mediated divine portections for humanity." -- bck cover
In the midst of academic debates about the utility of the term “magic” and the cultural meaning of ancient words like mageia or khesheph, this Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic seeks to advance the discussion by separating out three topics essential to the very idea of magic. The three major sections of this volume address (1) indigenous terminologies for ambiguous or illicit ritual in antiquity; (2) the ancient texts, manuals, and artifacts commonly designated “magical” or used to represent ancient magic; and (3) a series of contexts, from the written word to materiality itself, to which the term “magic” might usefully pertain. The individual essays in this volume cover most o...
An archaeological, historical, and art historical study of a remarkable early church excavated at Amheida in Egypt's Dakhla Oasis Early Christianity at Amheida (Egypt’s Dakhla Oasis): A Fourth-Century Church. Volume 1: The Excavations is an archaeological, historical, and art historical study of a remarkable basilica-church excavated at Amheida in Dakhla Oasis. This church, excavated between 2012 and 2023, dates to the fourth century CE and therefore is among the earliest purpose-built churches in Egypt. It also contains one of the oldest, if not the oldest, excavated Christian funerary crypts in the country. The church at Amheida thus offers a wealth of new data on early Christianity in Egypt, particularly with respect to the earliest phases of Christian art and architecture and burial customs. Aravecchia presents a systematic treatment of the stratigraphy, building techniques, materials, features, architecture, decoration, and finds of the church, carefully contextualized in contemporary developments in early Christianity in the late antique Great Oasis and Egypt more broadly.
An unprecedented art-historical account of practices of image ingestion from ancient Egypt to the twentieth century Eating and drinking images may seem like an anomalous notion but, since antiquity, in the European and Mediterranean worlds, people have swallowed down frescoes, icons, engravings, eucharistic hosts stamped with images, heraldic wafers, marzipan figures, and other sculpted dishes. Either specifically made for human consumption or diverted from their original purpose so as to be ingested, these figured artifacts have been not only gazed upon but also incorporated—taken into the body—as solids or liquids. How can we explain such behavior? Why take an image into one’s own bo...
The mummy of Takabuti is one of the best known antiquities in the Ulster Museum, Belfast. Takabuti was a young woman who lived in Egypt during a tumultuous period, c. 600 BC. Her mummy was unwrapped and investigated in Belfast in 1835. While the focus of the book is on Takabuti, it shows how the combination of archaeological, historical and inscriptional evidence with multidisciplinary scientific techniques can enable researchers to gain a wealth of information about ancient Egypt. This not only relates to the individual historical context, ancestry and life events associated with Takabuti, but also to wider issues of health and disease patterns, lifestyle, diet, and religious and funerary customs in ancient Egypt. This multi-authored book demonstrates how researchers act as ‘forensic detectives’ piecing together a picture of the life and times of Takabuti. Questions addressed include – Who was Takabuti? When did she live? Where did she come from and where did she reside? What did she eat, and did she suffer from any diseases? Did she suffer a violent death, and how was she mummified and prepared for burial?
Urban Religion is an emerging research field cutting across various social science disciplines, all of them dealing with “lived religion” in contemporary and (mainly) global cities. It describes the reciprocal formation and mutual influence of religion and urbanity in both their material and ideational dimensions. However, this approach, if duly historicized, can be also fruitfully applied to antiquity. Aim of the volume is the analysis of the entanglement of religious communication and city life during an arc of time that is characterised by dramatic and even contradicting developments. Bringing together textual analyses and archaelogical case studies in a comparative perspective, the volume zooms in on the historical context of the advanced imperial and late antique Mediterranean space (2nd–8th centuries CE).