The Quick And The Dead: Biomedical Theory In Ancient Egypt (Egyptological Memoirs)

THE QUICK AND THE DEAD

EGYPTOLOGICAL MEMOIRS Managing Editor Geerd Haayer

Edited by

Jacobus van Dijk, Betsy M. Bryan and Dieter Kurth

BRILL • STYX LEIDEN • BOSTON 2004

EGYPTOLOGICAL MEMOIRS 4

THE QUICK AND THE DEAD Biomedical Theory in Ancient Egypt

Andrew H. Gordon and Calvin W. Schwabe

BRILL • STYX LEIDEN • BOSTON 2004

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gordon, A.H. The quick and the dead : biomedical theory in ancient Egypt / Andrew H. Gordon and Calvin W. Schabe. p. cm. — (Egyptological memoirs, ISSN 1387-2710 ; 4) ISBN 90-04-12391-1 1. Medicine, Egypt. 2. Veterinary medicine–Egypt–History. I. Schwabe, Calvin. II. Title. III. Series. R137.G67 2004 610 .932–dc22 2004058093

ISSN 1387–2710 ISBN 90 04 12391 1 c Copyright 2004 by Styx/Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Danvers MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS

To Arline and Irving Gordon for loving support of their son despite doubts that years spent studying biology and Egyptology could ever lead to anything useful

CONTENTS Figures and Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv Transliteration and Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi Chapter 1. Sources of Egyptian Biomedical Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Magic and Processes of Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Egyptological Sources of Evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Biological Sources of Evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ethnographic Sources of Evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 1 4 9 10

Chapter 2. Life and Death . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Egyptian Priests’ Preoccupations with Problems of Death and Rebirth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Textual Sources and Portrayals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rituals and Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ka as a Concept Underlying Ritual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Animal Associations with Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Animal Associations with Death . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

15

Chapter 3. Predynastic Egypt as ‘Cattle Culture’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bos primigenius and Wild Bull Hunts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cattle Domestication and Milk Drinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pharaoh as Bull, People as Cattle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sun and Gods as Bulls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bovine Gods of Fertility and Power: Living Bull Gods . . . . . . . . . . . . Some Comparisons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bovine Sacrifice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Egyptian Temple Herds and Cattle Wealth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Baboons as Bulls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

31 35 38 43 45 46 47 48 52 54 54

Chapter 4. The Approach of Comparative Biomedicine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Analogy and Biomedical Progress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Animal Dissections in Egypt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Continuing Importance of Comparative Biomedicine . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Microbiological Revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

57 59 61 63 64 71

vii

15 16 17 18 23 27 30

Contents Chapter 5. ‘Live Flesh’: Rudiments of Muscle Physiology . . . . . . . . . . . . Motion and Irritability as Evidences of Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Opening-of-the-Mouth Ritual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Laboratory Reenactment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ka as the Animating Principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Comparison of Ka to Nilotic Ring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Other Comparisons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

73 73 75 79 82 86 90 92

Chapter 6. Physiology of the Spine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Spine and Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Keeping the Body Intact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bone Marrow and Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Particular Importance of Thoracic Vertebrae . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Meaning of Ankh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Theories about Ankh’s Origin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . as Thoracic Vertebra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Clinical Proof . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Spine and Death . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mtwt and a Physiological Analogy between Opposites . . . . . . . . . Comparative Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Principal Supporting Vertebrae for the Body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Djed and Backbone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . as the Sacral and Lumbar Spine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Other Theories of Djed’s Origin Subsumed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Comparative Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

95 95 96 97 99 102 102 104 108 108 109 112 114 115 119 122 124 125

Chapter 7. The Male Reproductive System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Male’s Role in Reproduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Was-Scepter, Penis and Dominion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dominion as a Behavioral and Social Phenomenon . . . . . . . . . . . . Baboons and Sexual Exercise of Dominion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gods’ Penises and Dominion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Penis Analogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . as Bull’s Penis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Additional Biological Evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Ancient Egyptian Mindset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . as the Male Reproductive System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Semen Analogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

127 129 130 130 131 135 137 138 141 145 146 146 148

viii

Contents Chapter 8. The Egyptian Healing Establishment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Egyptian Healers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Some Comparisons With Greece . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Per Ankh, Hut Ankh and Their Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Some Comparisons With Greece . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Kahun Veterinary Papyrus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

149 149 152 154 159 162 165

Chapter 9. Egyptian Biomedical Science: Theories and Implications . Structure of the Body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Functions of Organs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Egyptians’ Synthesis: A First Approximation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pathogenesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Comparative Reproductive Physiology and Medicine . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Further Word about Materials and Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Boundaries to Biomedical Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Natural Laboratory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Episodic Biomedical Progress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Secrecy and ‘Turfs’ as Antiscience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chance Observations and the Prepared Mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

167 168 168 169 172 175 177 180 182 183 187 189 194

Epilogue. Broader Implications of Healing in a Fused or Integrated Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Integrated Societies Revisited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Broader Implications of the Boundaries-Bull Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Some Final Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

197 202 203 204

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 General Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

ix

FIGURES AND TABLE 3.1 Bulls’ skulls with clay ‘flesh’ (or clay skulls) with actual horn cores on terrace of First Dynasty mastaba S 3504 at Saqqara (Source: Emery, 1954, Pl. 6). 3.2 Dinka burial mound for an important elder in the shape of his favorite bull, with the actual bull’s horns (Source: redrawn after Titherington, 1927). 3.3 Portion of a palette portraying the first pharaoh Narmer as a bull goring his enemies (Source: redrawn after Asselberghs 1961: Pl. 93, fig. 167). 3.4 Geographical range (broken line) of the wild aurochs ancestor (Bos primigenius) of Africa’s domesticated cattle. Areas (in solid black) where indigenous human populations do not drink the milk of cows or other non-human animals (Source: Majok and Schwabe, 1996, after Simoons, 1979, and Clutton-Brock, 1981). 3.5 Locations of early ‘cattle culture’ sites in Upper Egypt and the Western Desert as far as the Diyala (Source: after Van Lepp, 1990, with additions by Wendorf and Schild, 1998.) 3.6 Young pharaoh Amenhotep II sucking milk from the teat of the Cow Goddess Hathor (Source: Egyptian Museum, Cairo). 3.7 Old Kingdom priest-healer, Wenennefer (left), who bore the titles swnw and Priest of Sekhmet, supervising dissection of a sacrificial bull (Source: Ghalioungui, 1973: 64 fig. 1). 3.8 Egyptian herdsmen casting a bull for sacrifice by a technique still used by veterinarians (Source: Egyptian Museum, Cairo; from Meydum, c. 2500 BCE). 3.9 Mummified head and shoulders (amputated at the level of the first thoracic vertebrae) of a deceased Apis bull god (Source: Agricultural Museum, Cairo). 5.1 Old Kingdom Egyptian bull sacrifice showing the first stage of vivisection, amputation of one forelimb from the tomb of Idut. Note the secure three-leg restraint of the bull (Source: Macramallah 1935: Pl. 15). 5.2 One of the detailed scenes from the Opening-of-the-Mouth ritual for the deceased in the Eighteenth Dynasty tomb of Rekhmire. Priest presenting one amputated forelimb of a sacrificed bull to the deceased; xi

Figures and Table another forelimb is on the ground before the officiant (Source: Davies, 1943: Pls. 105–106). 5.3 (a) Nilotic Nuer warrior-herdsman from the southern Sudan dancing with arms and hands above his head in imitation of the horns of a bull (Source: Evans-Pritchard, 1951); (b) Eighteenth Dynasty relief showing a bull with an operated left horn and a human head and shoulders between its horns (Source: Temple of Luxor; after Seligman, 1932: Pl. 74). 6.1 Skeleton of a bull, with position of its penis also shown. (1) Four ankh vertebrae hidden by the scapula (2) of the bull’s forelimb; (3) The penis is connected to the bull’s first coccygeal vertebrae by its white retractor penis muscles. 6.2 One of the larger of the thoracic vertebrae of a bull shown in caudal perspective. Note its long spinous process with slightly flared end portion and median line, the two lateral processes and the vertebral canal through which passes the spinal cord. 6.3 (a) Amen-Re passing his hands down the spine of the kneeling pharaoh while fastening his crown; (b) goddess suckling the pharaoh (Source: Budge, 1934: 35). 6.4 Hour Twelve of the Night in which the bark bearing the deceased is drawn by gods and goddesses through the spine of a snake from its tail to its mouth, Amduat (Source: Piankoff and Rambova, 1954: Fig. 87). 6.5 (a) The deceased passing through the spine of a bull retracing the path of semen (Source: Piankoff and Rambova, 1954: 153, Fig. 37); (b) The deceased riding on the spine of a bull in the tomb of Sennedjem, Thebes (Source: tomb opened by courtesy of Mr. Ibrahim Kamal, Inspector of Antiquities for Thebes, 1957). 6.6 (a) Personified djed holding the flail and scepter of Osiris; (b) personified djed (bull’s sacrum plus three lumbar vertebrae) in correct anatomical sequence with more cephalic ankh (bull’s thoracic vertebra) then ka (imitation of the bull’s horns) enclosing the sun (called bull). (Source: Book of the Dead of Ani, after Budge 1911, I: 51). 6.7 Djed immediately behind (bracing, giving added stability to?) the spine of the creator god Ptah. The god in Predynastic form grasps in front of him another djed from which emerges (in correct anatomical relation) the was staff (bull’s penis; see Chapter 7) (Source: Budge, 1934: 13). 6.8 The bull’s sacrum with its five fused vertebrae (only the most cephalic of which bears a pair of transverse processes) and the bull’s last three lumbar vertebrae (with their transverse processes). Note the sacrum’s xii

Figures and Table caudal flare immediately posterior to which would attach its coccygeal (tail) vertebrae and the white retractor muscle of the penis (see Fig. 6.1). 7.1 (a) Ankh-djed-was correctly sequenced anatomically and held like an erect penis by the god Montu-Re (Montu was also often portrayed as a bull), who also grasps a sword with the same hand (Source: Chariot of Tuthmosis IV, after Carter and Newberry, 1904: Pl. 12); (b) Osiris holding a was and giving life, stability and dominion to the mouth of Seti I in the form of ankh-djed-was (Source: Budge, 1911, I: 267, after Mariette, Abydos, I: 52). 7.2 (a) Bull’s thoracic vertebra in cephalic perspective, (b) bull’s last three lumbar vertebrae and sacrum in dorsal perspective and (c) dried bull’s penis, together representing the bull’s generative system ankh-djed-was. 7.3 Bull’s penis dried after wrapping about a stick (as a djam scepter). 7.4 Double exposure of a dried bull’s penis with (lower image) and without (upper image) a several kilogram weight suspended from its distal end. In strength, flexibility and texture, the dried penis resembles a fiberglass fishing rod. 7.5 Head of a was represented in (a) a typical Egyptian painting, (b) a typical stone relief, by (c) a bull’s penis dried after partial dissection and positioning of its epithelium just posterior to its glans, (d) head of a present-day Nilotic Turkana was-like staff used for herding animals, constructing thorn-bush corrals for animals and religious purposes, as fashioned from a tree branch. 8.1 The feline goddess Mafdet as Mistress of the Hut Ankh probably grasping the was with her right forelimb. A missing fragment is reconstructed with dotted lines (Source: redrawn with reconstructed forelimb [dotted lines] after Wilkinson, 1999: 289). 9.1 The priest-healer Irenakhty smelling the sacrificed bull’s blood on the fingers of the dissector and saying ‘it is pure’ (Source: Paget et al., 1898: Pl. 36). Epilogue: 1 Predynastic palette of Narmer (recto) showing the pharaoh preparing to strike his enemy with a club held in his upraised right arm. On both sides he is shown under the protection of the cow goddess Bat (Source: Emery 1961: 44 fig. 4). Epilogue: 2 Hypothetical pastoral migration routes between the drying Sahara (see Chapter 3) and permanent oases and the Upper Nile as postulated by Van Lepp (1990) (Source: map reproduced by courtesy of Jonathan Van Lepp). xiii

Figures and Table Table 1.1 Social characteristics, mindsets and man-animal relationships within pastoral versus other type economies (Source: Majok and Schwabe, 1996, employing concepts and terminology of Riggs, 1957, 1973).

xiv

PREFACE ‘Consider the connection of things.’ – John Woolman, 1763 ‘To lift us out of a Ptolemaic or anthropocentric into a Copernican or universal medicine.’ – Sir Clifford Allbutt, 1888

One of the human species’ most important attributes is its inquisitiveness, an urge to speculate about and understand the workings of the world around it. This inquisitiveness about things observed in nature led early on to attempts to explain how things observed related to people themselves. However, as some scholars have looked back upon the world of ancient man and woman, including societies such as those of the early Egyptians, Mesopotamians and Greeks, they have tended to consider certain aspects, especially the religious practices and beliefs, as a hodge-podge of conflicting traditions we can never fully understand, as if their religions were divorced in some fashion from the physical world these people occupied and observed. Moreover, there has been a scholarly tendency to view ancients’ interests in – and their understanding and treatment of – other animals as an inferior line of study to that about humans per se, one being scarcely related to the other. Because of those two tendencies, we have been led to view the ancients as non-critical thinkers whose rituals were meaningless beyond their own groups and/or as peoples whose relationships to their animals were as peripheral as they seem in today’s increasingly industrialized world. We believe both perceptions are untrue. For ancient Egypt, we shall attempt to illustrate the importance of curiosity about the natural world – especially about relationships of other animals to people – to the Egyptians’ ways of thinking overall and to the society they developed. We will pusue this largely in the context of their evolved religion and its relevance to the emergence of a rudimentary scientific approach to understanding nature, including the heavens, the land and its living creatures. For that purpose, we shall view the available evidence not only from an Egyptological perspective, but also, where appropriate, from complementary biological and ethnographic ones. Through such a synthetic process, we will focus on some of the biomedical consequences of the Egyptians’ observations of animals, especially of cattle, a species of altogether extraordinary importance among them. Our most specific intent will be to identitfy, and exxv

Preface plore the derivations of, some of humankind’s first theories about vertebrate physiology. By relating origins for these observations and theories to early Egyptian speculations about life and death, we hope to throw light on the emergence from healing magic of an incipient process of biomedical science, including experiment. From the earliest Egyptians’ ‘cattle culture’, the ritual sacrifices of bulls by their priests in the presence of the nobility and king led to observations not only of anatomy, but also of physiology. Correct and and incorrect explanations for some of these could then be transferred by analogy to people. Such an analogical approach to biomedical unknowns – employment of ‘animal models’ or comparative medicine – has continued until today as an indispensable key to medical progress. In Chapter 1, we lay out in greater detail our cross-disciplinary approach, one still uncommonly applied to the types of problems we explore here. Our intended audiences are Egyptologists and historians of medicine in the first instance and more general historians of science and members of the healing professions in the second. Consequently, some seemingly divergent background information has been required. As this information varies among audience groups, forbearance is asked of all readers for points made and illustrations given, especially in Chapters 2–4, which may be common knowledge to one group though largely unfamiliar to another. We hope our compromises meet the basic needs of all. This book’s birth has followed a prolonged and uncertain pregnancy, and it sometimes seemed our baby would never come to term. Professor Carlton Hodge of the Department of Anthropology, Indiana University, deftly prevented a late first trimester miscarriage. He suggested the second author rearrange results of the initial ankh studies; provided better texts for several points explored; and urged us to follow up that work with complementary studies of djed and was. During that second trimester, beginning in the late 1970s, our dual parenting began – prompted when the first of us agreed to tutor the second in rudiments of the Egyptian language. During the latter half of the 1980s, while we were both affiliated with the University of California, Davis, we produced preliminary working papers through its Agricultural History Center (AHC), which presented evidence for our hypotheses beyond the initial ankh studies. We distributed these to interested colleagues in Egyptology and the history of biomedical sciences for comment and criticism. Four of these papers-in-progress, which were not to be quoted without express permission (and which were not with one major exception), appeared between February 1986 and March 1989. The first three, AHC Working Paper Series, Nos. 31, 32 and 53, concerned the ancient Egyptian was-scepter and its origins and uses in relation to our initial ankh hypothesis about the male’s role in reproduction. The former two have now been published (Schwabe and Gordon, 1988, and Gordon and Schwabe, xvi

Preface 1995). The third called, ‘The Egyptian w As-scepter: A possible origin as a dried bull’s penis in relation to an ancient theory on bones as the source of semen’, has not been published in final form, at least by us.1 Part of the fourth, AHC working Paper Series No. 54, which dealt with ‘Live Flesh’ and rudiments of muscle physiology, has been published (Gordon and Schwabe, 1998). At the annual meeting of the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) in 1990, we presented short papers outlining our Egyptological, ethnological and biological reasons for ascribing a largely veterinary origin to these scientific underpinnings of Egyptian medicine. These were published without footnotes in KMT 1 (issues 2 and 3). At the annual meeting of ARCE in 1993 we delivered three other papers on the ka, ‘live flesh’ and the Opening-ofthe-Mouth ritual, and at the Seventh International Congress of Egyptology in 1995 we outlined our hypotheses about the relations of that ritual to observations on animation of mammalian flesh and derived Egyptian beliefs about the ka (Gordon and Schwabe, 1998). Several times during the third trimester, both parents have temporarily abandoned the baby to pursue other interests, only to return with fresh enthusiasm. The first author would especially like to thank David Lorton, John Foster and Dennis Forbes for encouraging him to return to his parental responsibility. He would also like to thank Malcolm Mosher and Robert Rush, who at their bimonthly meetings, over dinner and wine, consented to listen to his ramblings on the animal origins of ancient Egyptian medicine and the importance of the bull’s foreleg to the ancient Egyptians’ conception of life. He would also like to thank Mickey Brass for allowing him to read an unpublished paper on the Predynastic development of the cattle cult. Without the help of many other individuals, this dual effort might not have been brought to parturition. For valuable assistance during initial work in Egypt between 1957 and 1962, the second author thanks Dr. Marharam Kamal of the Egyptian Directorate of Antiquities for access to the documentation for, and permission to photograph, the collections in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, but especially for soliciting the cooperation of his staff in the field. Mr. Mohammed Munir Abdou of the Agricultural Museum, Cairo, granted similar permission to photograph. Introductions to both were pro1 We would like to express our thanks and appreciation to Richard Lobban, who after requesting our working papers, decided that our hypothesis on the origin of the ancient Egyptian wasscepter as a dried bull’s penis was so important and timely that he decided to publish it as his own, not once but twice, first in Anthrozoos (1997) with a student co-author and later by himself in the semi-popular magazine KMT (1999). His doing so has freed us from the agonizing dilemma of whether to publish our findings as a separate scholarly paper or to include it as a previously unpublished part of our book. Now we do not have to make a choice. Upon finding out that we were going to publish a book on our findings, including on the was, Lobban wrote to KMT in 2000 (11,4: 8) that he looked forward to seeing what new insights we might supply.

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Preface vided by Dr. Dimitri Baramki, formerly Professor of Archeology and Director of the Archaeological Museum of the American University of Beirut, where the second author was then professor of medicine and public health. Professor Charles F. Nims of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago in Luxor extended kind hospitality and help on those early occasions, suggesting one valuable lead in pursuing further our anatomical hypothesis of the ankh’s origin. For logistical, translating and other aid in conducting interviews among the Dinka and other migratory cattle culture pastoralists in the southern Sudan, we are grateful to Mr. Martin Marial Takpiny, former Provincial Commissioner, and Dr. Peter Kpoti Tartizio, former Assistant Commisssioner for Animal Resources, of Lakes Province. Dinka interviewees to thank especially include elder Kamilio Kuot Deng; bany bith priest Makuer Gol; cattle camp chief Mayom Agany; and traditional healers Mou Cawul, Agany Maluou, Makur Carek and Yang Majok. As guide and interpreter between Dinka and English, veterinary assistant Isaac Makuet Kuojok was of irreplaceable help. The second author’s good friend, former student and colleague, Dr. Aggrey Ayuen Majok, once Director of Veterinary Services for the southern Sudan, has also been an indispensable source about his people’s beliefs, customs and practices. Other valuable conversations about the Dinka have been held with diplomat and scholar, Dr. Francis Mading Deng, and Episcopal Bishop of Rumbek in the southern Sudan, the late Reverend John Malou Ater. Each very kindly reviewed early drafts of some ethnoarchaeological sections of our manuscript. UNICEF officials in the Sudan, particularly Drs. Samir Basta and Christopher Schwabe and Messrs. Uffe König, Bijaya Mallapaty and Joseph Maker, have been helpful logistically and otherwise. Drs. Christopher Wood, Calum Macpherson, Thomas Romy and Eberhard Zehle of the African Medical and Research Foundation rendered similar assistance in Kenya’s Turkanaland. For arranging a lengthy interview with a very senior Maasai elder we are grateful to University of Nairobi Dean and Professor of Animal Physiology Goeffrey ole Maloiy, himself a Maasai. Professor Karl-Hans Zessin and Dr. Maximillian Baumann, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit and the veterinary faculty of the Free University of Berlin, assisted in field observations in Somalia on two occasions. During those later years, Professor Paul Ghalioungui offered hospitality in Cairo and exchanged ideas about our hypotheses both in person and through correspondence. Generous assistance was also forthcoming then from staff members of the Cairo University and Khartoum University libraries, the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, and the Sudanese National Museum, Khartoum, as well as from others in the History of Medicine library of the University of California, San Francisco and libraries of the University of California, Berkeley and Davis. xviii

Preface Critical support has also been given us by the School of Veterinary Medicine of the University of California, Davis (UCD), especially a research grant to the first author which enabled us to begin our collaboration. Other staff of the veterinary school’s Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine lent indispensable assistance. Historian Joyce Adams was an essential research collaborator as well as efficient translator from several languages during studies on the ankh. Ms. Harod Ortmyer assisted in some of those same tasks during our subsequent work on ‘live flesh’. Help was also forthcoming from staff of UCD’s Agricultural History Center in the preparation and circulation for critical comment of Center Working Papers outlining our preliminary findings in several subject areas. Especially has our colleague in the Agricultural History Center, Professor Frederick Simoons – preeminent authority on the historical geography of food habits and man-animal relationships – been a sharer of ideas and enthusiasms for many years. Some of these culminated in our jointly sponsoring a very successful multidisciplinary AllUC Conference on the History and Prehistory of Man-Animal Relationships during the 1980s. Simoons’ insights, encouragement and friendship have been much enjoyed and appreciated, especially in our thinking through some of the basic man-animal concepts we explore here. For consultations about baboons and their sexual behavior, plus guidance to that literature, we thank other colleagues at UCD: Drs. Sarah Hrdy, Department of Anthropology, and William Mason and Sally Mendoza, California Primate Research Center; also Drs. Benjamin Hart and Lynette Hart, School of Veterinary Medicine, and Dale Lott, Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Biology, who advised on urine-marking and related behavior of ruminants and canids. Muscle physiologist Robert Ashmore, Professor of Animal Science, not only made available his experimental abattoir and provided bulls for dissection, but searched relevant literature on the early history of muscle physiology. His technician, J. Sehnert, helped with some of our bull dissections and experiments. Organizations which have aided these efforts more indirectly, by permitting essential field portions of them to be ‘piggy-backed’ on other projects on disease control and pastoral development in Egypt, the Sudan, Kenya and Somalia, included the American University of Beirut, the University of California, Makerere University of Uganda, the University of Khartoum, the Fulbright Fellowship Board, the World Health Organization, the UN Environmental Programme, UNICEF, the African Medical and Research Foundation, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit and the Rockefeller Foundation. We would also like to thank our editors at Styx and E.J. Brill for their help in seeing this manuscript through to publication. We would like to give a special thank you to Professor Dr. Jacobus van Dijk, editor at Styx, for his support and encouragement during the last three years. xix

Preface Last, but not least, we thank Nancy, Daniel and Marissa Gordon for being orphaned without too much protest during critical periods of their husband/father’s confinement and Tippy Schwabe for listening with good humor for more than 35 years to tales about the source of bulls’ sexual prowess and the significance of bovine knee-jerks to possibilities of an afterlife.

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TRANSLITERATION AND ABBREVIATIONS Ancient Egyptian, a language of the Afroasiatic Phylum (previously called the Hamito-Semitic family), was written in hieroglyphs. The hieroglyphs were either ideograms or phonograms. Ideograms are hieroglyphs that express either the idea the sign represents or a closely related idea. For example, the hieroglyph may either represent the sun or a related concept, such as the day. Phonograms are hieroglyphs with phonetic or sound values. Such hieroglyphs may be uniliteral or alphabetic, representing a single consonant, for r. They may be biliteral, representing two consonants, such such as as (dd) or triliteral, representing three consonants, such as (#nh). Deter˘ ¯ minatives, a type of ideogram, go at the end of words after their phonograms to help the reader understand the meaning of the words. For example, a seated after the uniliteral phonogram (s) indicates the word is ‘man.’ man Hieroglyphs are generally written from right to left, but may also be written left to right or top to bottom. Therefore, for greater clarity to non-Egyptologists, we have frequently used modern alphabetic renderings for common Egyptian words unless the picture itself (or its transliteration) conveyed better what we were saying or illustrating. As examples, the triliteral phonograms (#nh) and (w As) are ˘ expressed in the Latin alphabet (with vowel sounds supplied) as ankh and was respectively. Hieroglyphs identified by a letter plus a number in the text, for example R11 for (dd = djed), refer to the classification of hieroglyphs ¯ in Gardiner (1957). The first author’s and Faulkner’s translations (1969, 1973–1978) have been used for the Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts and the first author’s and Allen’s (1974) for the Book of the Dead, unless otherwise indicated. For the hieroglyphic texts of these see Sethe (1960), de Buck (1935–1961) and Naville (1886). We have also used several standard abbreviations in the text. These are: AEO BD BM CDME CT HA JARCE JEA JNES LÄ

Ancient Egyptian Onomastica (Gardiner, 1947) Book of the Dead British Museum Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian (Faulkner, 1972). Coffin Texts Historia Animalium Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt (1962–) Journal of Egyptian Archaeology (1914–) Journal of Near Eastern Studies (1942–) Lexikon der Ägyptologie (Helck and Otto, 1975–1992). xxi

Transliteration and Abbreviations PT URK WB ZÄS

Pyramid Texts Urkunden des aegyptischen Altertums Wörterbuch (Erman and Grapow, 1926–1931, –1963) Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde (1863–)

Societal Types (after Riggs)

I. Folk

II. Agrarian

III. Industrian

‘Optical Analogs’ (after Riggs)

‘Fused’ or ‘Integrated’

‘Prismatic’

‘Diffracted’

TypeEconomies

Hunter-gatherer & Pastoral (nomadic, transhumant)

Village-based, mixed plant-animal agriculture

Industrial with increasingly intensive monocultural agriculture

Modern Equivalents

Economically undeveloped

Economically developing

Economically developed

Associated Mindset

Integrating

Intermediate (e.g., platonic, taoist reasoning)

Differentiating (catagorizing, emphasizing spatialtemporal distinctions)

Mindset Results (after Riggs)

Slight division of labor (age, sex, priests, warrior-herders); no differentiation among institutions (e.g. religion, healing, animal husbandry); close linkages among values, loyalties, functions with respect to families & larger social structures

Considerable division of labor & differentiation of institutions; slightly separated conceptions of values, loyalties, functions at the different levels of social structure

Extreme division of labor & differentiation of institutions (e.g. ‘disciplines’ such as natural sciences, sociology, political science, religion, philosophy); compartmentalization/fragmentation of values & loyalties in individual lives at different levels of social structures

Animal Roles

Particular species & individual animals completely integrated culturally & economically within social fabric

Individual animals fulfill multiple utilitarian purposes central to the family & wider economy

Species & individual animals with highly specialized functions & relations as direct food providers, close personal companions, providers of esthetic & recreational pleasure

Table 1.1. Social characteristics, mindsets and man-animal relationships within pastoral versus other type economies (source: Majok and Schwabe, 1996, employing concepts and terminology of Riggs, 1957, 1973).

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CHAPTER ONE. SOURCES OF EGYPTIAN BIOMEDICAL KNOWLEDGE Our life has a boundary, but there is no boundary to knowledge. – Chuang Tzu, 4th–3rd C BCE The sublimation of the self-transcending emotions has transformed ‘magic’ into ‘science’; but there is no hard-and-fast boundary between the two. – Arthur Koestler, 1964: 261

By Early Dynastic times Egyptian priests appear to have elaborated two physiological theories relative to life, death and revivification. One was about an inherent principle in flesh (muscle) responsible for its movement. A second theory concerned the male’s role in reproduction. In this introductory chapter we outline the bases for our cross-disciplinary approach to their origins and their significance to the beginning emergence in ancient Egypt of some rudiments of biomedical science from healing magic.

Magic and Processes of Science There is no general agreement among scientists, philosophers of science and historians of science as to what ‘science’ actually means. And, until comparatively recently, historians of science, and especially of biomedical science, have infrequently confronted ‘the question of the validity of the category “science” as epistemologically demarcated from “nonscience”’ (Rochberg, 1992: 540). Nevertheless, science is popularly conceived as an area of knowledge, the natural sciences, i.e. astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, etc. Each of them not only has major subdivisions, but broad areas of overlap, such as astrophysics, physical chemistry, biophysics and biophysical chemistry. Science is alternatively viewed as an ‘approach to problems’ or unknowns (‘the scientific method’).1 In the first instance, science may be thought of simply as what (natural) ‘scientists’ actually do, while science as method needs to be distinguished from other realms of inquiry or creativity, such as philosophy or art. Here 1 Recognizing that important elements of that approach also characterized activities over a broader realm, as in law and other facets of public debate.

1

Chapter One. Sources of Egyptian Biomedical Knowledge we shall consider science to be an attempt to describe and explain – i.e., yield closer and closer approximations of the true state of – nature through a process of reason, evidence and argument (Hull, 1988: 2). Most scientists also feel that, except for its purely theoretical aspects, science usually involves personal generation of new evidence. While much of this evidenceproduction has been observational, experiment has particularly distinguished scientists’ inquiries from other pursuits of knowledge. However, in attempting to trace historical origins of an experimental approach to understanding nature, one must conclude with Thorndike (1923: 2) that magicians were among the earliest experimenters and that it is difficult to distinguish rudimentary science from magic in ancient times. Indeed from the ancient point of view, magic was often considered to be what the gods used to maintain nature in order and balance (Ritner, 1993: 8). Moreover, since medical practice (healing) has been commonly considered both an applied science (or technology) and an art,2 elements of healing have always included both experiments and more equivocal forms of magic (spells, incantations, secret potions; illusions, faith and other forms of suggestion; exploitations of coincidence, including, especially, spontaneous recovery). For our purposes it is enough to note at this point that secret medical magic overwhelmingly predominated in ancient times. Lloyd (1973: 41, n. 163) directed attention to Greek statements emphasizing secrecy in religious healing especially,3 and magic was not absent from the armamentarium of early medicine’s most scientifically inclined practitioners (Thorndike, 1923: 167).4 Even Galen in the 2nd century CE not only defended his belief in a particular amulet, but opined that his diagnostic skills gained him a considerable reputation for magical powers (Lloyd, 1973: 152). One rule of thumb in distinguishing less than obvious magic from science – from a present-day perspective – is that the latter not only ‘appears to work’ but is devoid of intentional fraud or illusion, or of overriding religious faith as its justification.5 We shall say more about secrecy and healing, especially in Chapter 9.

2 Science, like art, is often a creative process. Partially because of its ‘argument’ (publication) aspect, science has been characterized more as a system normally involving slow stepwise progress (‘art is I, science is we’) rather than great creative (original) leaps into the unknown (i.e., ‘scientific revolutions’, such as the Microbiological Revolution in biomedicine; see Chapter 4). 3 For example, ‘Holy things are revealed only to holy men. Such things must not be made known to the profane until they are initiated into the mysteries of knowledge.’ See Chapter 9. 4 ‘Only during recent times has [the practice of human] medicine come to differ significantly from what it was in the distant past. The differences in medical and surgical procedures as practiced in ancient Egypt, in post-Socratic Athens, in a medieval palace at the Versailles court, or in a primitive African tribe today correspond not so much to differences in factual knowledge as to differences in medical philosophy’ (Dubos, 1965: 320). 5 For an interesting discussion of Jewish religious infallibility with reference to scientific questions, see Sternberg, 1994–1995.

2

Magic and Processes of Science We would note, too, at the onset that biology, partially because of greater variability in living matter, is regarded as a softer science6 than chemistry or, especially, physics. That problem is most prominent within the biomedical sciences, those subdivisions of biology concerned with bodily structure (anatomy) and function (physiology) reflected in health versus disease, as well as with causes of diseases and death and elucidation of rational approaches to disease prevention and treatment. Be all that as it may, it is popularly held that, within 4th century BCE Greece, for ill-defined reasons, there was strikingly rapid formulation of ‘rules of evidence’ generally and their melding with a new (logical) perspective over a wide range of phenomena, problems and areas of debate.7 Many regard direction of such ways of thinking then to examination of structures and phenomena of the natural world as the birth of science. Others hold that, while rules of evidence were first made explicit then, some were being implicitly observed by individuals within the Greek world sometime before (Lloyd, 1966). However, students of early medical history outside of Greece, including of possible influences of one people upon another (as with Saunders, 1963, for Egypt upon Greece), have seldom demonstrated independent beginnings elsewhere of a similarly more rational approach than magic or totally random trial and error to biomedical information acquisition and theory formulation. 6 Hardness and softness are variously defined, but often according to precision of methods, constancy of evidence obtainable, reliance upon mathematics or the like. 7 This interesting debate over ‘mentalities’, which we are not equipped or intent to enter, has been considered in detail by Lloyd (1990) in one of the latest thrusts to his long-term efforts to better elucidate what actually happened in classical Greece that has been so closely associated by diverse scholars, and the public, with the ‘birth of science.’ Lloyd’s discussions are especially valuable not only in comparing and synthesizing the ideas of classicists and philosophers of science with insights of sociologists, cultural anthropologists, psychologists, linguists and others, but in exploratory comparisons of Greek with Chinese experience and, more preliminarily, of Greek experience with the Indian. Surely these latter illustrate possibilities for serious cross-disciplinary research by specialists in these different areas of the humanities (Schwabe, 1978a). While helpful to us, our focus remains more restrictively upon Lloyd’s 1966 examination of the relations of emergent science to classifications as opposites and sames, and especially the analogical process associated with the latter and so prominent in the whole course of biomedical progress. With respect to mentalities or ‘mindset’, per se, we stress more in this inquiry about Egypt – as also does Lloyd more generally (1970: 7, 10) – the problem in such historical inquiries of attempts, as of some Egyptologists such as Gardiner, to force a ‘modern mentality’ upon activities of and statements by the ancient Egyptians. In that connection, the second of us was strongly impressed after he had begun to work on health aspects of development among Middle Eastern and African pastoralists during the 1950s with the very practical distinctions in such regards that he as an American had to make to be successful in communicating with pastoralists and accomplishing anything useful or lasting among them. Of vital help to his own thinking in that process was exposure to the quintessentially practical perspectives of Fred Riggs (especially 1957 and 1973), a student of comparative public administration in development efforts. At the level of particular sciences, many notions of mentalities vis-à-vis sciences generally also interdigitate with Kuhn’s revised 1970 definition of ‘disciplinary matrices’ and how these change over time.

3

Chapter One. Sources of Egyptian Biomedical Knowledge We endeavor to identify and elucidate beginnings of a similar evolutionary process within Egypt, most specifically to explore earliest Egyptian sources of information about bodily structure and function, theories and methods these engendered, and attempts made to apply such more rationally acquired information to healing practice. For those purposes, we resorted not only to the conventional Egyptological approaches of studying extant texts, portrayals and other archaeological materials, but also to complementary biological and ethnographic sources for new evidence, confirmation or interpretation.

Egyptological Sources of Evidence The traditional explanation for the origin of Egyptian medicine (especially with regard to anatomy) is that it had a dual origin in treatment of wounds and in the process of mummification. In that view, after a battle, healers would have been able to observe portions of the internal anatomy of wounded and dead soldiers. Another opportunity to view the internal anatomy of people would have been during embalming of dead bodies, in which organs were extracted from the body cavities. Warren R. Dawson and G. Elliot Smith, two men who have influenced many subsequent writers on Egyptian medicine, state this view clearly. Following the assumption that surgery began ‘in the attempt to repair the ravages of man’, Dawson (1929: 74) goes as far as to give to the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, which dates from the 16th century BCE8 and describes the treatment of wounds, ‘the honor of being the earliest known scientific document.’ With regard to mummification, Smith and Dawson go into great detail on its importance in relation to medicine and pathology. While acknowledging that there was little evidence for acquisition of exact anatomical knowledge by that route, Dawson (1929: 89) still stated that ‘mummification, involving as it did, the removal and handling of the viscera, had an enormous influence on the growth of science, for it provided for the first time opportunities for observations of Comparative Anatomy [italics added].’ However, he failed to discern the implications of a comparative (i.e., animal studies) approach to biomedical unknowns or its bases in Egypt. In considering these and some other accounts of early Egyptian medicine, we need to be aware of biases on the part of different investigators. Almost all of them either were physicians – such as Smith, Marc Armand Ruffer,

8 Although some would hold that earlier versions than the extant papyrus must have existed. While Breasted and Westendorff believe that its origin was Old Kingdom (c. 2700–2000 BCE) because of its grammar and vocabulary, others have recently questioned this due to the penchant of Egyptians to deliberately introduce archaic features to give a text greater age and therefore reverence (Nunn, 1996: 27).

4

Egyptological Sources of Evidence Frans Jonckheere, Ange-Pierre Leca, Paul Ghalioungui and Guido Majno – or they received their information from physicians, as the case with Dawson, J.R. Harris and Hermann Grapow, who was made an honorary doctor for his work on Egyptian medicine. From that bias, they all saw ancient Egyptian medicine developing from the study of human beings and regarded the study of animals – veterinary medicine – as a lower and derivative form of inquiry and practice, or altogether ignored it and its possible implications to the early history of human medicine. For example, the Kahun Veterinary Papyrus, which deals with diseases of several different animal species, and which is one of the earliest medical papyri known, was relegated by Dawson to an ‘Other Documents’ section following medical papyri in his Magician and Leech, and Nunn (1996) did not even discuss it. And, while Grapow (1954: II, 88) indeed postulated from his study of this papyrus that ‘the forms of the [Egyptian] physician’s language were developed in veterinary medicine and only from that transferred to human medicine, [translated into English]’ he quickly rejected that idea as preposterous, conjecturing instead that the Kahun Veterinary Papyrus was so similar to later human medical papyri because it must have been based upon a (lost) book on human medicine. Ghalioungui (1973: 138), as well, assumed that the practices indicated in the Kahun Veterinary papyrus (see Chapter 8) were modeled upon human medicine, acknowledging nonetheless that the Egyptian veterinarian was so well trained that he must have been a physician as well. That the latter was originally the case need not, however, be predicated, as Ghalioungui assumed, upon the former, for Egyptian medicine then was probably undivided (see Chapter 8). Moreover, as Ghalioungui had acknowledged elsewhere (1973: 47) ‘the study of anatomy was helped by study of animals – which preceded the study of human beings.’ With regard to such views of the origin of ancient Egyptian medicine, we would suggest that, in light of the above and since there is, in fact, no evidence for a strict division between practitioners of human and veterinary aspects of medicine in Egypt before the Ptolemaic Period (see Chapter 8), ‘healer’ would seem a more neutral and appropriate term than ‘physician’ to apply to Egyptians who treated illnesses and injuries in more ancient periods.9 In fact, the apparent absence of a word for veterinarian in ancient Egyptian (Nunn, 1996: 119–120) implies to us that the word (swnw) usually translated as ‘physician’, may mean someone who treats people and animals. Ghalioungui (1973: 138), based on the Kahun Veterinary Papyrus, believes that veterinarians were so well trained that they must have been physicians, but doesn’t see the reverse, that physicians must have been veterinarians as well. Equally unfounded as the almost universal resort to terms like 9 Lloyd (1992: 568) discusses this same semantic problem more restrictively with respect to Greek healers of people only.

5

Chapter One. Sources of Egyptian Biomedical Knowledge ‘physician’ – which has distinct and obfuscating modern connotations – has been the illustrated tendency on part of students of medical history more generally to conclude, often with little or no evidence, that whenever common features have been recognized between the two present-day branches of medical practice, those in veterinary medicine must be derivative of those in human medicine. However, as we have pointed out elsewhere (Schwabe, 1978: 5–6), ‘this seemingly basic assumption of historians not only contradicts a vast body of evidence … but also necessitates that veterinary medicine … be almost always viewed historically solely as … an art of curing lower animals.... As an inevitable result …, many veterinary relationships to general medical progress are omitted from published accounts or mentioned only when alternative interpretations are absolutely impossible.... Consequently the interested reader … is left with the general impression that for the entire five thousand years of historical records, veterinary medicine … [recedes to a] … non-creative backwater, to a purely parasitic relationship with human medicine.’

Another example of trivialization of veterinary linkages in the Egyptological literature is that people who ritually dissected animals are called ‘butchers’ by many modern researchers, rather than priestly or veterinary ‘sacrificers’ or ‘ritual slaughterers.’ Here the underlying assumption appears to be that one who cuts up a man is an ‘anatomist’ or ‘doctor’, while one who cuts up an animal is a ‘butcher.’ For example Alan Gardiner invariably referred that way to the temple personnel who sacrificed bulls and to the flesh of the sacrifice as ‘meat’ or ‘joints.’ Pierre Montet, Guido Majno, Serge Sauneron and Arne Eggebrecht, among many others, have evidenced similar mindset biases.10 As one important example of the consequences of these biases, Gardiner (1947) first thought that a list of forty-one anatomical terms on the Ramesseum Onomasticon (Pls. III–IV) – which is dated to the Middle Kingdom – must have been from the tomb of a ‘doctor or magician’ and had to refer to human anatomy (see his captions), then only later admitted (in the subsequently published translations) that these in fact referred to the anatomy of the bull. He wrote (page 15) that a reconsideration of the list showed that several terms only referred to cattle, and, then, that ‘this indicates that the scribe was here writing with an eye to the butcher [sic], rather than the surgeon or medical practitioner.... Thus it can barely be disputed that the lists of objects determined with … are concerned with sacrificial joints.’ But, according to Sauneron (1960: 70), ‘the priests who slaughtered the sacrificial 10

This ‘commensurability’ bias problem on part of historians of ancient science is discussed more generally vis-à-vis understanding ancient science by Rochberg (1992: 548–549) and Lloyd (1992: 566–567).

6

Egyptological Sources of Evidence beasts were apparently not simple butchers: the Greek texts identify them as lower [temple] officiants, and certain Egyptian texts rank them among the personnel of the House of Life, showing that … their function greatly surpassed a simple material act’ (see Chapter 8). Having introduced traditional explanations for the origin of ancient Egyptian medical knowledge, and having identified some of the biases of researchers, let us now look at some evidence which may enable us to form a different theory about biomedical knowledge acquisition. Initially let us state that there are problems with the explanation for the origin of ancient Egyptian anatomical knowledge in the examination of either battlefield or accidental wounds. If the patient were alive and presumably in pain, there would be little time to examine his wounds in detail. On the other hand, if the patient were dead, the general taboo, evident among almost all primitive peoples, against dissection of human beings would most likely have been operable. Barring widespread cannibalism, cultural and religious considerations would prevent dissection. In fact, in the Egyptian Predynastic archaeological record, there is no evidence of the dissection of human bodies. This naturally leads to the other postulated origin of anatomical knowledge – through mummification. As stated by Dawson, Smith and others, there is no evidence for mummification with the extraction of internal organs before the First Dynasty, about 3050 BCE. In fact, while early evidence of wrapping a mummy in linen strips impregnated with a resinous substance may occur as early as the Badarian Period about 4500–4100 BCE (Jones, 2002: 7), and continues during the Gerzean Period about 3500–3200 BCE (Midant-Reynes [2000: 53]), the first evidence for extraction of internal organs does not occur until the start of the Fourth Dynasty. Even presuming a Predynastic extraction of internal organs – against all evidence – we would still run into a serious problem. As admitted by Harris (1971: 125), ‘contrary to common belief, the process of mummification will have afforded little opportunity for the study of internal anatomy, the viscera being roughly drawn out of the abdominal and thoracic cavities through a ventral incision with no concern for finesse, nor is there any evidence to show that [human] dissection was practiced before the Ptolemaic Period.’ Majno (1975: 138) added that ‘too much has been said about lessons that medicine may have learned through embalming … [and] I see no evidence that the embalmer’s crude handling of organs advanced the knowledge of anatomy any more than did the butchers.’ H.E. Sigerist (1967: 352) had opined beforehand that ‘the chief sources of anatomical knowledge [for the ancient Egyptians] were the kitchen and the cult.’ With respect to such conclusions about ‘butchers’ and ‘kitchen’ per se vis-à-vis cattle, we shall suggest other possibilities. Despite the weaknesses of these commonly postulated origins of anatomical knowledge, Manetho, in his early Ptolemaic Period chronology of the kings of ancient Egypt, stated that Athothis, second king of the First Dynasty, 7

Chapter One. Sources of Egyptian Biomedical Knowledge was an anatomist and healer whose works were still extant. If Athothis was dissecting something, all evidence suggests that it was animals not people. From the onset of Dynastic times, and very likely for Predynastic times as well, the animals most frequently sacrificed were cattle. Being present during these ritual sacrifices of animals (so common to Egypt and other ancient cultures; see Chapter 3), could have caused Athothis, as religious as well as political leader, to become interested in bovine anatomy and physiology. Although we are speculating in this instance of Athothis, it is clear that the Egyptians derived their hieroglyphs for internal organs and many external organs from those of animals, chiefly from cattle, rather than from organs of human beings. Some examples, according to Dawson and Ghalioungui, included the origin of the hieroglyph for ‘heart’ ("ıb) as that of an ox; the word for ‘throat’ (hh) determined by the head and trachea of an ox; the hieroglyph for ‘womb’ ˘("˘ıdt) being the bicornuate uterus of a cow.11 Of particular interest to the lines of inquiry we shall pursue, several hieroglyphic signs representing the spine were also derived from animal anatomy, and as we shall suggest later (see Chapters 6 and 7), that fact was scientifically and Egyptologically important. Therefore, even Dawson (1929: 90 & n. 1), who believed in wound examination and mummification as the dual origins of Egyptian healers’ anatomical knowledge, had to admit: ‘It is a noteworthy fact that the various hieroglyphic signs representing parts of the body, and especially the internal organs, are pictures of the organs of mammals and not human beings. This shows that the Egyptians’ knowledge of the internal structure of animals is older than their knowledge of that of man; it shows further that they recognized the essential identity of the two, for they borrowed the signs based upon the organs of animals and used them unaltered when speaking of the corresponding organs of the human body.... From which it follows that the custom of mummification, old as it was, was of relatively late growth’ (italics added). Majno and Ghalioungui among others made similar admissions, but failed to infer from them the importance of this study of animals to the origins of Egyptians healers’ other factual knowledge. However, since hieroglyphic writing apparently originated before the start of the First Dynasty, such early animal origins for anatomical information also suggest possibilities that further biomedical observations and/or experiments may have been carried out by early Egyptians, the results of which were then used to derive theories or apply in practice. Be that as it may, given even this most commonly acknowledged anatomical information, it should not be especially surprising, therefore, that one 11

This assumption that the human uterus was bicornuate like the cow’s continued through the works of Galen, in fact until dissections of human females during the Renaissance (see Chapter 9).

8

Biological Sources of Evidence of the two oldest surviving biomedical papyri, dating from approximately 1800 BCE, was a veterinary one. In fact, an originally Old Kingdom date is suggested by its archaic grammar. Moreover, this Kahun Veterinary Papyrus is one of only two medical documents written in cursive hieroglyphic columns rather than hieratic lines and is the only medical papyrus written in the first person. Its surviving portion gives descriptions of diseases and their treatment for cattle, dogs, birds and fish. Thus, this papyrus is unique in that it presents a comparative (i.e., analogical, inherently scientific) view of medicine (see Chapter 4) in lower animals. Compared to all but a few medical papyri of later date, it is also more rational in organization and content (see Chapter 8). For one thing, all but one of the descriptions in its surviving fragments involve the eye. Those characteristics, a probable Old Kingdom date of original composition, first person authorship and use of retrograde cursive hieroglyphs – as found in religious texts – all suggest the Kahun Veterinary Papyrus’ early use by priest-healers in maintaining the health of a variety of animals. Taking all of the above into consideration, we would postulate a paradigm in which important elements of factual biomedical knowledge in ancient Egypt followed from observations of animals. Given the importance of animals in general and cattle in particular to the ancient Egyptians, we postulated (Schwabe, 1978: 70–77) that rudiments of biomedical science may have begun to emerge in the Nile Valley from ritual bull sacrifice and dissection, plus the maintaining in health12 of such bulls and other temple animals. While the sacrifice itself was religious and magical, the observations of priest-healers led to a rudimentary understanding not only of anatomy but, as we shall further suggest, also of physiology, including some rational bases for healing animals and, through analogy,13 people. In Chapter 3, we suggest why the maintaining in health of large herds of animals, such as cattle, was so important.

Biological Sources of Evidence A complementary source of evidence in inquiring about such possibilities could be the ability to repeat firsthand certain procedures clearly portrayed by the ancient Egyptians – sometimes with no or only brief textual accom12

Gifford-Gonzalez (2000) has suggested that the entrance of cattle into new biogeographic zones would expose them to infections of related wildlife species in those new areas. Until healers knew how to avoid or manage those new diseases, the accumulation of large herds of cattle would be significantly slowed. For the Egyptians, the maintaining in health of cattle included several bulls as living gods incarnate (see Chapter 3). 13 Analogy being one of the earliest sources of implicit ‘rules of evidence’ for emergence of science (Lloyd, 1966 and see Chapter 4).

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Chapter One. Sources of Egyptian Biomedical Knowledge paniments – or ones implied by other lengthier but otherwise enigmatic texts. Moreover, current dissections and experiments, plus prior biomedical or other veterinary knowledge, could be used to identify not only origins of additional anatomical hieroglyphs for which the objects represented have not been clear to Egyptologists, but to indicate other things Egyptian sacrificers and dissectors must having observed during these frequently performed procedures. Our inclination to use such scientific tools and information for these purposes plus other resorts to a cross-disciplinary approach overall to this research reflects the particular backgrounds of both of us.14 As we shall indicate through specific instances of information acquisition by these means, some information about ancient Egyptian biomedicine could not possibly be derived otherwise.

Ethnographic Sources of Evidence As a second complement to the study of the ancient medical record per se – or other records possibly related but difficult to interpret – ethnoarchaeology assumes that, since ‘some behavioral elements of sociocultural systems have material correlates; if they are incorporated in the archaeological record, such residues may be used to develop inferences about the behaviors with which they were associated’ (Kramer, 1979: 1).15 Some anthropologists and historians have employed such an approach to better understanding of ancient myths/legends (e.g., Lawson, 1910), technologies (e.g., Heyerdahl’s use of the reedboat-making techniques of Iraq’s marsh Arabs), particular artifacts and the like which have apparently survived from the ancient past to the present. Others, ourselves included, have been more interested in using this complement to other evidence to help identify, interpret and employ to scholarly advantage differences in the ‘mindset’ of an ancient people and 14

The first author was trained as a geobiologist and paleontologist before becoming an Egyptologist. The second author is a zoologist, veterinarian and public health scientist with long-term research interests in pathophysiology, parasitology, epidemiology and medical history. 15 With others, Watson (1979), while emphasizing the value of ethnography in helping generate hypotheses about the past, stressed the necessarily probationary status of such evidence and cautioned about the need to constantly examine any interpretive analogies against the archaeological record itself. In inferring from the material record left by early Indo-Europeans factors possibly responsible for emergence and characteristics of a pastoral way of life, Lincoln (1981) considered comparatively circumstances, beliefs and practices among Africa’s present day Nilotic pastoralists. The resulting hypothesis was that common ecological factors in natural grasslands determine similar social responses (e.g., hierarchical/caste patterns) independent of other place and time factors (see Chapter 3 and the Epilogue). In his own applications of a similarly analogical approach to understanding the evolution of pastoralism in southwest Asia, Hole (1979: 196) emphasized, however, that ‘if we have a specific problem in culture history, … it seems most expeditious to confine our ethnographic investigations to the geographic area in question or to the closest counterpart we can find.’

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Ethnographic Sources of Evidence that which, by virtue of their own experiences and backgrounds, modern scholars tend more or less to bring to various portrayed activities, texts or material artifacts. With respect to ancient Egypt, Winifred Blackman (1968) and others have examined portions of the archaeological and early historical records in terms of practices and beliefs of modern day Egyptian fellahin. However, most Egyptologists recognize that, among special temporal liabilities in that case, are the substantial cultural veneers superimposed by Christianity, then Islam. Some caution also that the pastoral and transitional pastoral-agrarian systems, prevalent in Egypt before drying of the countryside bordering the Nile made maintaining large cattle herds difficult (Table 1.1 and see Chapter 3), existed under very different environmental conditions than the agrarian system that prevails in rural Egypt today. Therefore, several scholars have suggested that more apropos ethnographic analogs to Egyptian Predynastic and Early Dynastic conditions might be forthcoming among present-day pastoralists on the upper Nile. Henri Frankfort (1948: 162 ff.), in referring to the apparent cattle culture beginnings of ancient Egypt (see Chapter 3) and limitations of research dependent solely upon surviving documents and portrayals, noted that ‘the profound significance which cattle evidently possessed for the ancient Egyptians allows us to bring an entirely fresh kind of evidence to bear on the problem. For some modern Africans, related to the ancient Nilotes, display a similar attitude toward cattle; and these living adherents to a point of view so utterly alien to us [can] open our eyes to possibilities which our own experience could never have suggested.’ Budge (1899a) had opined earlier that ‘facts concerning [present day] Sudani beliefs … are not so remotely connected with the beliefs of the dynastic, and even predynastic, Egyptians as may appear … at first sight, and the writer believes that a large amount of information … awaits the investigator, who will devote the necessary time to living [with] … the black people who dwell on the … Nile.’ Gordon Childe (1969: 6–7) added that ‘it really looks as if among these tribes on the Upper Nile social development had been arrested at a stage that the Egyptians traversed before their history began’ and Cyril Aldred (1965: 21–22) concluded similarly that ‘from the material remains of this first phase of prehistoric cultures, we are able to build up a picture of the early Egyptians … [which] can have differed little from the culture of the pagan tribes of the Upper Nile today.’ In other words, among still pastoralist Nile basin-dwellers much less influenced by Christianity, Islam or climate change, several students of ancient Egypt have suggested not only disclosures of actual survivals of artifacts, beliefs or practices from antiquity, but the value of the improved perceptions (a new mindset) such studies might yield. It is that latter more conservative objective which has guided our own work. On the other hand, none of those scholars were themselves equipped by training or other circumstances to follow through on such suggestions 11

Chapter One. Sources of Egyptian Biomedical Knowledge personally. In fact, only in the case of an English physician-anthropologist interested also in Egypt, Charles Seligman (1932), have we seen early efforts to identify some apparent cultural carryovers in the Nile valley from the ancient past to present-day Nilotic pastoralists.16 Recently, however, a dialogue is evidently developing between anthropologists and Egyptologists (Lustig, 1997; O’Connor, 1997). Our own interest in this research adjunct was stimulated when one of us decided to look further at the most unusual and convincing example of cultural continuity Seligman described (a unique horn operation on cattle) to suggest (Schwabe, 1984a) that practice originated in black Africa in ancient times, was passed on to Egypt in periods of close interactions between these peoples and the Egyptians and has been preserved among pastoralists still inhabiting the upper Nile.17 The possibility for us to pursue in the field this ethnographic research adjunct resulted from (1) the second author’s more than 40 year association with development efforts among pastoralists in the Middle East and northeastern Africa (Majok and Schwabe, 1996), including epidemiological research which followed methodologies similar to those of cultural anthropologists, (2) his concurrent interests in cattle lore and traditional healing among such cattle culture pastoralists as the Dinka, Turkana and Maasai and (3) fortuitous circumstances which enabled our joint medical history objectives to be ‘piggy-backed’ upon such other activities in so far as transportation, official contacts and logistic support were concerned. At the same time others (e.g., Robbins, 1973) have approached the material culture of some of these present-day Nilotes more generally from an archaeological perspective. According to one historical linguist, the prototype language of the Eastern Sudanic branch of Nilo-Saharan languages spoken by them today appears to have originated from at least 3000 BCE in ‘the areas north of the Sudd region between the White Nile and the edges of the Ethiopian highlands, around 10°N latitude’ (Ehret, 1982). 16 Nilotic pastoralists in the southern Sudan (such as the Dinka, Nuer and Shilluk), and their ancient ancestors speak/spoke languages of the Nilo-Saharan Phylum, which extended into the Sahara and included Nubian of the northern Sudan (Voegelin and Voegelin, 1977: 264 ff., 318 ff.). The ancient Egyptian language was in the Afroasiatic Phylum, which includes the Semitic, Cushitic, Omotic and Chadic languages, and also extending into the Sahara as among the Hausa of the West African Sahel. 17 Skulls of actual bulls with these operations have been found in an ancient Nubian C-group cemetery and also are portrayed on rock drawings of presumably ancient date, as well as in royal Nubian pyramid tombs at Napata. Other portrayals, without illuminating texts, occur in a number of Egyptian tombs from the Fourth Dynasty on, almost exclusively in periods of intense interactions between Egypt and black Nubia and mostly in tombs of individual Egyptians known or presumed to have had some Nubian connections. It is not known who performed this operation in ancient times. The point to note, however, is that this very distinctive form of surgery on bulls has been carried out in the Nile Valley for at least 4,500 years and, apparently, nowhere else (see Chapters 3 and 8).

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Ethnographic Sources of Evidence The major overall insight we ourselves have gained from this tertiary approach is to understand that, like these present-day Nilotic pastoralists, Predynastic Egyptians were not only cattle culture people (see Chapter 3), but examples of what Fred Riggs (1973) first defined as ‘fused’ societies (Table 1.1),18 and we now prefer to call integrated societies (Schwabe, 2004), ones in which areas of concern and activity as diverse and distinctly regarded today as religion, healing and animal husbandry were all inextricably linked. It has been the inability of some contemporary Egyptologists like Gardiner to free themselves from a modern mindset in such matters that has resulted, in his insistence upon ‘butchers, meat and joints’, his consequent non-recognition of the close relationships between veterinary and human medicine, including his inability to understand the logic of the varied functions described for the ancient Egyptian Per Ankh or House of Life (Gardiner, 1938, 1938a and see Chapter 8). Some earlier Egyptologists living more animal-dependent lives themselves, sometimes had, we believe, a truer perspective about such matters in ancient times.

18

Riggs (1957, 1973) was a post-World War II political scientist interested in teaching public administrators and other Third World development specialists from industrialized societies how to relate effectively to counterpart personnel from very different agrarian or pastoral societies (Table 1.1 and see the Epilogue).

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CHAPTER TWO. LIFE AND DEATH Life follows death, and death is the forerunner of life. Who can know their ways? […] Compare birth with death, compare death with life, compare … what is not possible [to know] with what is possible. – Chuang Tzu, 4th–3rd C BCE

‘Men may seek salvation from … illness, … fear of death .... What they seek may be healing; the elimination of evil agents; a sense of access to power, … the promise of life hereafter, … resurrection from the grave, … [or] transformation of the social order. […] Two responses [to evil as in illness or death] are widely found among the less-developed peoples – the thaumaturgical and the revolutionist … . The many little failures of magic are less disturbing to believers than the one big periodic failure of the millennium, and are easily explained away’ (Wilson, 1973: 492–493). To members of such integrated societies (Table 1.1) the ultimate form of medical treatment would be revivification of the dead, the ultimate consequence of preventive care, assurance of an individual’s long life. The ancient Egyptian elite were firm believers in ultimate treatments and healing powers. Death clearly preoccupied them. Consequently, the priests among them developed intense interests in what constituted the ‘magic of life.’

Egyptian Priests’ Preoccupations with Problems of Death and Rebirth The Egyptian elites’ architecture, drawings, sculpture and literature suggest that they were so preoccupied with death during their lives that many of their waking hours were devoted to preparing for it. Pictures in their tombs1 indicate a special fascination with rebirth in the afterlife. An extensive funerary literature found both in papyri and on these tomb walls talks of this passage from death through rebirth, and how to accomplish it successfully. Some of the spells in this literature indicate the secret nature of the sources it is revealing. From our modern perspective, enormous and 1 Excavations of tombs have yielded a large number of funerary objects from stone sarcophagi and wooden coffins to amulets found on the deceased, statues of the deceased and his family, shabtis (i.e., generally mummiform statuettes of the deceased supposed to work for him in the next world), vases of stone and pottery, clothing, food offerings, flowers, etc.

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Chapter Two. Life and Death highly disproportionate wealth and physical effort were devoted by the ancient Egyptians to burial rituals and the construction of tombs, especially for their kings.2 Textual Sources and Portrayals These preoccupations of Egyptian priests come through especially in their mortuary literature. Particularly were they concerned with the preservation of the physical body so that an individual might be reanimated. While this literature is in large part magical (Morenz, 1973: 226), we shall suggest that portions of it were based upon observations of nature, particularly during the sacrifice and subsequent dissection of large animals. Some of this mortuary literature has illustrations or vignettes accompanying its texts. Besides such sources, the Egyptians also portrayed independently numerous scenes of the sacrifice of animals, chiefly bulls, and scenes of the burial rites connected with the tomb owner. We believe that these two types of scenes are connected. The oldest known body of mortuary or religious texts is the Pyramid Texts, which are found inscribed on the inner chamber walls of the pyramids of the last king of Dynasty 5, Unas (c. 2490–2460 BCE), and the kings and some queens of Dynasty 6 (c. 2460–2200 BCE). They include spells to help the king make the journey to, and to be reborn in, the afterlife, as well as parts of rituals that deal with the journey, plus pieces of mythological stories. The Coffin Texts were a similar collection of texts, which include some Pyramid texts as well as new material, inscribed on the wooden coffins of non-royal, but high-born individuals, emerging during the First Intermediate Period (c. 2200–2040 BCE) and flowering during the Middle Kingdom (c. 2040–1674 BCE). Since no royal mortuary texts have survived from that period, these Coffin Texts provide the only indication of their possible nature. From the New Kingdom (c. 1552–1068 BCE), the Books of the Dead were similar compilations of texts on papyri. These were placed in non-royal tombs and were intended to assure the preservation of the body on its way to the afterlife and its subsequent rebirth. Also, during the New Kingdom, priests developed for the kings the Books of the Netherworld. These are found on the 2 For a discussion of ‘Death and the Dead’, see Morenz (1973): 183–213, and Zandee (1960). While their priests seem to have possessed such an optimistic view in which life naturally led to death then rebirth, ordinary people appear to have also held the more pessimistic and dualistic view in which death was the negation or enemy of life. Thus, in the Instruction of Hordedef from Dynasty 5 (Old Kingdom, approximately 2510–2460 BCE): ‘Humiliating for us is death; life we hold in high esteem.’ From a Middle Kingdom tomb comes the lament, ‘O you love life and hate death, say (a prayer for me).’ From a New Kingdom tomb, ‘He who liked to drink is in the land which has no water .... He has hastened to the land of eternity and darkness in which no light exists.’ And, from the Third Intermediate Period, ‘The end of life is sorrow.’ That is, popularly there may have been more a fear of death than optimistic anticipation of an afterlife.

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Egyptian Priests’ Preoccupations with Problems of Death and Rebirth walls of the kings’ tombs in the Valley of the Kings. As opposed to the Pyramid Texts, Coffin Texts and the Book of the Dead, these were more scientific and theological treatises (Hornung, 1990: 207), usually illustrated, which discussed the journey of the sun god (king) through the various gates and caves of the netherworld. Three such books were the Amduat (i.e., ‘that which is in the Netherworld’), the Book of Caverns, and the Book of Gates. The priests also developed similar texts called Books of the Heavens, which dealt not only with the charting of the heavens, but the deceased’s place within the heavens. During the New Kingdom, non-royal tombs also depicted a number of scenes connected with the burial of the deceased. Although not all were repeated in every tomb, one can find mummification, funeral processions and rites performed before the mummies, including the Opening-of-the-Mouth ceremony, frequently performed with the bull’s foreleg. Rituals and Concepts Rituals are rites or ceremonies performed by a community that encourage cohesion within that community. They are generally demonstrations or displays with repetition or exaggeration and are usually performed in a precise way, with their parts in a prescribed order. The reasons for these rituals are frequently unknown, at least in part, by the community as a whole or may be rationalized, but they possess an element of the sacred or mysterious. It is not clear whether rituals lead to the creation of myths, myths lead to the creation of rituals or that both occur.3 Apparently, there may be an at least partial biological origin for some rituals as lower animals may also perform them. Among lower animals, such rituals represent behavioral patterns that provide a means for communication. Thus, some human rituals may have evolutionary antecedents, or early man may have mimicked some rituals he observed among other animals. For example, in times of danger male Hamadryas baboons (which occurred commonly in ancient Egypt) frequently surround their troop, and face outward with erect penises in a protection ritual to signal that powerful and fertile males are in control (see Chapter 7). Babylonian phallic boundary stones, Greek herms and Roman phallic pictures in doorways seem to serve similar ritual purposes. We shall propose that such ideas and their probable sources were closely associated with early physiological theories elaborated – and then applied in medical practice – by the ancient Egyptians (see Chapters 5–7). Concepts, including ones upon which scientific theories may be based, are general understandings or ideas, especially those inferred from specific

3

For an excellent discussion of ritual and myth, see W. Burkert (1979).

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Chapter Two. Life and Death occurrences, such as, for example, observations from nature. The ancient Egyptians were keen observers of nature. Therefore, while scholars have had a tendency to view origins of rituals as obscure or unknowable, a look at the concepts of a culture can help to elucidate the origins of at least some of its rituals. We believe, for example, such to be the case for the ancient Egyptians’ important rebirth ritual of Opening-of-the-Mouth (see Chapter 5). Ka as a Concept Underlying Ritual4 Thus, as opposite sides of the same issue, Egyptian priests were interested in what made a person or other animal alive, and how that something might reanimate a dead person, in the first instance the pharaoh (Gordon, 1996: 31–35). Erman (1907: 86; 1937: 245–246) reasoned that they called that special activating force ka. At birth, a person received his ka through the will of Re. At death, it left him, but still might return to animate him. Toward that end, the tomb was provided with food so that the ka would have sustenance and remain. While Erman (1907) felt that the ka was always ‘a vague and undefined conception’ to the Egyptians, we believe those ideas originated from an observable phenomenon (see Chapter 5) and that, over time, these became more complex and subtle. In Kingship and the Gods: a Study of Ancient Near Eastern Religion as the Integration of Society and Nature, Frankfort (1948) addressed the meaning of the ka in detail, and we agree with his subtitle’s premise that the origin of concepts like ka might be deduced best through examination of the influences of nature upon religion and society (see the Epilogue). For, as suggested in Chapter 1 (Table 1.1), concepts we now consider totally distinct were highly integrated in minds like those of the Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egyptians. Thus, according to Frankfort (pp. 61–65), the ka was an impersonal ‘vital force’, which could differ in strength among individuals or in the same individual over time. Morenz (1973: 170, 183–185) called it ‘the hyper-physical vital force’, which he connected with creation and reanimation.5 Although the Egyptians described death as the ‘going to one’s ka’, Frankfort (1948: 63) believed that this statement should not be taken literally. That is, while vital force left the deceased at death, it must rejoin him in the ˇ afterlife. Moreover, unlike the ba, which Zabkar (1968: 162)6 described as ‘the personification of the vital forces’, the ka is seldom depicted and 4 The literature on the ka is too immense to be enumerated here. Besides those studies discussed in the text, two other important ones are Greven (1952), and Bongianni and Tosi (1997), the latter two who, in an appendix (pp. 125–167), give an overview of the ka, ba and akh. 5 Bonnet (1971:357–363) translated it similarly to Frankfort and Morenz as ‘Lebenskraft’, Kaplony in LÄ III, 275 as ‘Macht im Leben.’ 6 See also Zabkar ˇ in LÄ I, 589.

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Egyptian Priests’ Preoccupations with Problems of Death and Rebirth rarely personalized. It is an impersonal force. According to Frankfort, it may be identified with the Hebrew ruah or nephesh, the life-spirit, which returns to God after a person’s death. Frankfort, as Renouf (1880: 147–152) previously, identified ka too with the ‘genius’ of the Romans7 in that both concepts contained the idea of a transcendent power that exists in humankind. However, in the Egyptian mind, this power was not confined to persons, but is found elsewhere in nature. In the Memphite Theology, it is that part of creation with which Ptah animates the other gods and animals. Khnum, the ram-headed god of Elephantine, may also function in this way. We believe that it is in that context that the relationship of the ram (and the bull, as the double of Ptah) to virility and therefore to creation should be considered.8 According to Posener (1962: 142), the ka is similar in concept to beliefs held by some contemporary African peoples, mentioning muntu of some Bantu and menehe of the Ule. Meyerwitz (1951) and Mercer (1952: 20) noted similar parallels in form and idea to the kra of the Akan of Ghana.9 Meyerwitz indicated that the kra is an impersonal vital force, which may vary in strength over time, a reservoir of sustenance to human beings but which needs to be fed, a guardian spirit, a twin or double, which is given to people by the god. For a king, the kra is transmitted to his successor during the latter’s enthronement (Meyerwitz, 1951: 25; 1960: 105–106).10 With regard to the ka of the Egyptian king, however, this issue becomes somewhat more complex. With the Egyptian penchant for concretizing abstractions, the king’s ka, which also was conceptualized as almost his double or twin, came to be, according to Blackman (1916), Frankfort (1948) and Roth (1992), associated with his placenta. In identifying ka with the theory that the placenta is a twin of the king,11 Blackman (1916: 241, note 3) also drew upon earlier studies of the Baganda of Uganda by Seligman and Murray (1911) and Roscoe (1911). While Frankfort (1948: 72 and note 55) espoused further this idea of placenta as stillborn twin by citing references to ancient and modern Egyptians, 7

Renouf (1879: 497) refers to Birch (1858) as the first to suggest that the ka might mean ‘genius’ in some circumstances. 8 See, for example, Morenz (1973: 170, 183–185). Mercer (1952: 18) stated that the root of ka expresses generative force. 9 These ideas are more fully explored in Meyerwitz (1960: 103–120). She compares ancient Egyptian kingship and modern Akan kingship in four areas. She believes that the two are connected in time by diffusion. While many of her Egyptian sources are now somewhat out-ofdate, and she relies too much on the idea that the Egyptian gods represent clans or dynasties, she has, nevertheless, assembled a large amount of evidence that shows strong parallels between the two cultures. Whether these parallels are culturally and historically linked or not (which seems unlikely), they are important from an ethnoarcheological point of view in determining potentially similar responses from similar environmental and cultural stimuli. 10 This is similar to the ancient Egyptian understanding (Frankfort, 1948: 133, 135 and Bell (1985). 11 For background, see Blackman (1916a).

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Chapter Two. Life and Death he believed that those ideas of personified power of the king’s ka never entirely superseded the ka’s original conception as vital force (Frankfort, 1948: 69–70, 73). He stated that the notion of the ka as twin appeared only in the birth scenes for Hatshepsut and Amenhotep III and that elsewhere the ka occurs in its more usual usages. Schweitzer (1956: 15) argued that the presence of the ka in ritual scenes on earth negated this identification of the ka with placenta (which is not alive after birth). Roth (1992: 78, 126 n. 64), however, continued that identification, modifying the idea so that the ka is regarded as ‘any thing or being or conception that supports and sustains a person’s life.’12 In Pyramid Texts 149c–d, among others, a close reading begins with ka as a double of the king, but ends with it as his vital power. These texts personify the king’s ka to a certain extent, but then seem to draw back: ‘Your limbs are the twin children [literally the son and daughter] of Atum, Oh imperishable one [i.e., the king as the circumpolar star]. You shall not perish and your ka shall not perish; for you are the ka.’ Initially, the king and his ka appear to be separate, this difference being reinforced by the presence of the twin children of Atum in the previous line. But the identity of the king with his ka in the following line implies an immanence of one with the other. That is, it is the life force or animating principle which is immanent in the king from birth, and which the king as king gives to his subjects and nature. This idea may become clearer in Pyramid Texts 136–137 and 582 in which Re and Horus are respectively identified as the ka of the king. According to Frankfort (1948: 77–78), the ka is the god of the king, and the relationship between the king, gods and people are defined in terms of the ka. Thus, the king receives his vital or animating force from the gods and acts as their mediator in distributing it to his people.13 To Frankfort, the existence of this animating principle indicated that the ancient Egyptians understood the interactive participation of people in nature, a subject we shall briefly consider further in our Epilogue. Bell (1985) discussed these regal relationships in more detail. The king becomes fused with this universal vital energy to such a degree that the line between him and it becomes blurred (p. 278). According to Bell (pp. 280, 289), the king is the living royal ka, and his legitimacy is determined by its presence. This vital or generative energy renews or revitalizes the king Roth’s suggestion that the common phrase n k A n may mean ‘for the sustenance of’ (p. 127, n. 69) is intriguing. 13 While Frankfort understands this to be so throughout that chapter, he does an apparent turnaround on the last page (p. 78). He seems to diminish the importance of the ka as ‘vital force’ and the king’s position in its distribution. In the last paragraph of the chapter, he states that these interpretations, which he has spent 18 pages elucidating, ‘all but obliterate the specifically Egyptian features of the concept.’ In that chapter, it seems to us that he has shown conclusively that the opposite is so. The ka is a complex concept, but it seems to flow from the idea of ‘vital force’, and this idea is the root from which the ka-concept emerges, as Frankfort himself acknowledges (p. 73). 12

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Egyptian Priests’ Preoccupations with Problems of Death and Rebirth (pp. 276, 283). Perhaps the king is ‘twin born’ in the sense that he is human, but through the infusion of the ka energy, he is also eternal. After death, his is the link between the gods and the next king in transferring this energy, which will bestow legitimacy on him. With regard to other individuals, the ka energy is also passed on from generation to generation (O’Brien, 1996: 127), but the totality of ka energy included all the members of a lineage, living and dead. The ka energy is, therefore, universal. However, while everyone may possess this vital energy, the king as intermediary between the gods and the people must possess it at a higher level to preserve the natural order or maat, a subject we return to in passing in the Epilogue. If ka is understood as the animating force in nature, then we would argue that the expression ‘to go to one’s ka’ more naturally means ‘to be reborn’ rather than ‘to die.’ At death the Egyptians believed that the animating force left the body. The ka was at rest until the burial rituals were completed (Frankfort, 1948: 63). Then the deceased might rejoin his ka and live again. In Chapter 5, we shall explore some of the biological observations that Egyptian priests must have made during bull sacrifices and dissections that caused them to derive these ideas about ka as animating force and attempt to employ them in ‘healing’ in its ultimate sense of revivification, then otherwise. Thus, not only from this single important example of a derived concept about differences between life and death, but from other evidence of diverse nature, we can see that ancient Egyptian priests were preoccupied with several aspects of that overall question, but particularly with sources of the magic or essence of life, and with how this might be conveyed to the king, either living or deceased. The other major thing for us to note from the biomedical standpoint near the onset of our effort is that many of the Egyptians’ numerous statements concerning extension of life and revivification referred also in various ways to bulls, animals the pharaohs especially admired and emulated for their strength, bravery and virility (see Chapter 3). Probably, for those and other reasons, the bull was from the beginning, and remained for thousands of years, the Egyptians’ sacrificial animal par excellence (remaining so even during the extended period when the influence of priests of Amen, originally a ram-like god, was paramount). Here, we simply note these frequent bovine associations with revivification concerns to briefly introduce the pervasive importance among early Old World civilizations generally of ascription of certain human attributes, and especially particular powers, to other species of animals, both wild and domestic. That is, beyond the forms of utility that some animal species acquired before or after domestication, preliterate peoples in antiquity apparently perceived an additional closeness or interrelatedness to particular species of animals (Schwabe, 1994). Seemingly, they admired and/or feared certain characteristics which some animal species possessed in common with them21

Chapter Two. Life and Death selves, but in greater and more impressive measure. These special qualities included physical and behavioral ones, such as size, bravery, speed, grace, cunning, strength and libido. Additionally, some animal species became important by association with paramount aspects of the unknown, especially the source of life.14 Conversely, other animal species were especially associated with life’s opposite, namely death. Some of those associations inspired a necessity to placate that animal or inspired awe. Though common to the distant past of many presentday peoples, these are phenomena virtually unknown to us today except through survival in myths and fables (or, with respect to cattle, in modern expressions of Hinduism, and among present-day preliterate Nilotic cattle culture peoples, for which see Chapter 3). One consequence of such species associations within certain cultures was creation of stories or fables to illustrate those special attributes, many of which provided warnings or taught moral lessons, as for example, in Aesop’s fables (Forbes Irving, 1992: 94, note 121). In some stories animals also assumed certain other human qualities or human roles, or human figures metamorphosed into animal form. Human-animal chimeras, like centaurs or animal-headed or horned human bodies, were also a sometime consequence. Among different peoples such perceived closenesses of human and other species led to varied forms of prominence for some within evolving cosmologies, which ranged from simple awe to actual worship. In noting, as have we, the ancients’ apparent inability – evident still in surviving ‘integrated’ societies such as pastoral ones on the Upper Nile (Table 1.1) – to differentiate clearly among metaphor, symbol and identification, Forbes Irving (1992: 39, 41, 47–50) examined especially the roles of the Greek cow-goddess Hera and Io, a priestess of Hera, who also metamorphosed into a cow in various stories and art works (pp. 211–216). Fusions of such subtly different comparative qualities in ancient minds generally discouraged beginning evolution of the approach to unknowns – the explicit rules for evidence – we now regard as science (see Chapter 4). Interestingly, however, Forbes Irving points out with respect to these particular bovine examples of ancient closenesses between man and other species, that those – as with other beliefs about Dionysus as bull – either involved Egypt in the story, or were ascribed Egyptian origins by earliest Greek writers. 14

Individuals from the ‘western tradition’ will be most familiar with such an early perspective vis-à-vis animals not only in what is revealed in surviving portions of Greek mythology, and references by ancient authors to other myths since lost, but also in fables collected by the Greek Aesop, who lived from about 620 to 560 BCE and the Roman Aelian, of late 2nd and early 3rd C. CE (see also Lawson, 1964). Bodenheimer (1960) is a useful zoological source about animals and man in the ancient Near East generally, and Paton (1925) gives some Egyptian textual sources. Recent important sources are Houlihan and Goodman (1986) and Houlihan (1996).

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Animal Associations with Life Here we will simply sketch enough of this distinctive and less familiar facet of man-animal species relations in antiquity to introduce through more detailed discussions in the following chapters their probable significance to origins of Egyptian biomedical theories and, in the process, beginning emergence in Egypt of rudiments of medical science from pure magic. We will be concerned especially with some consequences of prominent bovine, as well as herpetine, associations with life and death, respectively. For, despite the wealth of evidence that such relationships were especially conspicuous in antiquity, there has been a tendency among many modern scholars of particular ancient civilizations (who are themselves products of today’s highly differentiated values and mindsets; Table 1.1) to treat lightly or overlook their universality and some of their possible consequences. Not only do we believe those scholarly tendencies underestimate the importance of the fusion in ancient minds of such notions as metaphor, symbol, simile, analog and identity-same, but a similar fusion of such activities/institutions as religion, animal husbandry and healing, ones now regarded in the modern West as totally distinct (Table 1.1). At this point we would also state Forbes Irving’s conclusion (1992: 196) about the man-animal metamorphosis facet of myth that ‘there are broad themes or at least a general framework within which metamorphosis tends to be set. Transformation implies the crossing of a boundary, generally a boundary between what are seen … as rigid or significant categories. Prominent among such categories are the house and the wild, the world of the living and the world of the dead, gods and men, and men and women. The hero [of the myth] begins in one of these worlds and through his or her transformation ends to some extent in the other.’ Elsewhere (Schwabe and Gordon, 1988; Gordon and Schwabe, 1995) we examined such boundarycrossing, as well as boundary-setting, considerations in ancient Egypt with respect to practical and cultic uses of the was-scepter to indicate dominion (especially in exercises of fertility and power). We return to biomedical origins and implications of such concepts in Chapter 7 in consideration of the Egyptians’ theory about the male’s role in reproduction and just touch upon them more generally in the Epilogue. However, before moving on to these biomedical beliefs and associated practices, let us briefly introduce some of the widespread animal associations in antiquity with ‘life’, then ‘death.’

Animal Associations with Life First, let us consider the cow in these regards. Possible religious significance of bovine (aurochs and bison) prominence among paintings in the Paleolithic Franco-Cantabrian caves has been reviewed by Walsh (1989: 46–54) in 23

Chapter Two. Life and Death connection with emergence in the Mediterranean region generally of cowmother cults. In the best known of these caves 137 aurochs are depicted, 20 in Lascaux alone, and some are interestingly juxtaposed with human female figures or the sexual parts thereof. Walsh (p. 132) discussed similar bovine associations in the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, including at Tell Mureybet on the Middle Euphrates in Syria, where they include a very early ritual arrangement also of an aurochs skull and scapulae. In such Natufian rites, several scholars see first manifestations also of a general Near Eastern bull cult. By Neolithic times surely, an intensive mother goddess/bull cult was evident at Çatal Hüyük on the Konya plain near the Taurus Mountains of Anatolia (Mellaart, 1967). While in one scene there a wild bull hunt is depicted (see Chapter 3), there is no evidence at these or earlier sites of exploitations of cattle for their milk or draft power (Walsh, 1989: 179), such important consequences of their domestication. In Sumer, however, domestic cattle remains are present at the earliest level in the Al Ubaid period (c. 5500 BCE) sites at Eridu, while first manifestations of settled farming there were 500 years later (evidence cited by Walsh, 1989: 205). As to the principal deities of the Sumerian pantheon, one was the cow goddess Ninhursag, about whom it first becomes possible to read of a cult “with little variation of doctrine or rite in all the cities of Sumer” (Walsh, pp. 206–207). Ninhursag was recognized as the ‘source of all reproductive power, the “Goddess of Childbirth,” the “Midwife of the Land,” the midwife of heaven and earth …, “Mother/Mistress of Wild Animals” …, as well as the mother of herd animals....’ She had a divine son/husband and kings claimed to be her children, ‘fed with the holy milk of Ninhursag’ (see Chapter 3). Moreover, her greater antiquity than such texts is attested by her being called also mother of the gods, associated with the birth of mankind and with divine births in Dilmun, the Sumerian paradise, now widely believed to have been Bahrain. Ninhursag, plus her many lesser cow-goddess cognates or manifestations,15 including the important Inanna (summarized by Walsh, 1989: 211– 216), were assimilated in the 3rd millennium BCE by their Semitic counterpart Ishtar. Worship of Ishtar, who wore a horned crown, extended thence to Anatolia among the Hurrians, Hittites and Phrygians (p. 221). Among the Greeks, the earliest suspected domestic cattle remains are from Argissa-Magula in Thessaly and Nea Nikomedeia in Macedonia, both dated c. 6000 BCE (Brewer et al., 1994: 79). As mentioned, Hera and Zeus’ lover Io both had strong cow associations (Cook, 1914, passim; Forbes 15

A late childbirth manifestation, Nintur, was associated especially with an enigmatic symbol which Frankfort (1944) and others believed represented the bicornuate uterus of the cow, an organ that was the origin also for the Egyptian hieroglyph for uterus, whether animal or human (see Chapter 1).

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Animal Associations with Life Irving, 1992, 211–216) and other Indo-European holy cow associations in India, surviving in popular manifestations of Hinduism, are too numerous and generally known to attempt to survey here (Schwabe, 1978a; Simoons, 1979). We shall return, regarding this sense of life and procreation/creation associations of cows and cow goddesses in antiquity, to the Egyptian Hathor in the following chapter. Here, however, a few words about some of these ancient cow-motherfertility-birth goddesses’ male counterparts or consorts, also in connection with life. We note, first, that most special male animal associations with ‘life’ meld ideas about reproduction, ‘fertility’ and especially libido, that is, about procreation (as well as growth and abundance in a biological sense), with ideas about power, especially in more general creative, weather and cosmic senses (see our Epilogue). The ram and bull were particularly connected in ancient minds with some or all of these ideas, which, to the ancients, appeared closely related (see especially Conrad, 1957, passim, and Rice, 1998, passim). As but one instance of this linking of fertility with power, Onians (1951: 236 ff.) discussed Greek and other sources for beliefs in an association of the horns of bulls and other animals with ‘divine potency’16 – ‘a permanent concentration, an outcrop, of the life-substance in the head [continuation of “spinal marrow,” about which see our Chapter 6] … the procreative element … [which explains] why the name [in Greek] for horn and brain should be akin.’ Onians also associated these beliefs with the display in temples by Greeks (and others) of heads of sacrificial bulls (and, of course, sculpted copies, bucrania). We return to those relations of power to sex in a biomedical sense in Chapter 7 especially, but have reviewed some of them more generally for Egypt elsewhere (Gordon and Schwabe, 1995). Significant examples of bulls in fertility-power contexts from Mesopotamia included designation of the supreme Sumerian god of Uruk, Anu, as ‘Bull of Heaven’, the ‘almighty Wild Bull’, husband of the cow goddess Ninhursag. He personified the sky and could send the celestial bull to earth. Enlil, the god of air (and water)17 also was described as ‘overpowering ox … at thy word which created the world, O lord of lands … O Enlil, Father of Sumer … overpowering ox’ (Farnell, 1911: 56; see also Pritchard, 1969: 576) whose semen, the rain, filled the Tigris and thus brought fertility to the land (Kramer, 1963: 179). Similarly, the later Akkadian moon god Shin was portrayed with bull’s horns (the crescent moon) and called ‘Young

16 Darwin, too, in the Descent of Man (part II, chapter 17: 772 ff.) noted that ‘horns appear in all cases to have been primarily developed as sexual weapons.’ 17 The word for ‘water’ in Sumerian also meant ‘semen’ (as it sometimes did also in Egypt; see Chapter 7).

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Chapter Two. Life and Death bullock of Enlil.’ The Babylonian Marduk was ‘Young Bull of the Sun’, etc. Appropriately, the great Ishtar Gates of Babylon featured the powerful aurochs and so on. Likewise, in Canaan-Phoenicia, the chief god El was called Bull and portrayed with horns; his son Baal as well. The bull’s strength of Baal is referred to, for example, in I Kings 18, and the importance of cattle to his worship is variously attested in the Bible (Bodenheimer, 1960) and elsewhere (von Lengerken and von Lengerken, 1955; Conrad, 1957). Divine descendants in his line like Aleyin and Anat were also sometimes called bull and cow and so portrayed, others as men standing upon the backs of bulls (see Chapter 6). In Marcus Terrentius Varro’s work on Roman agriculture, including animal husbandry, which dates from the 1st century BCE (Hooper and Ash, 1935: 315–317; 367), we read such statements as ‘the ancient Greeks, according to Timaeus, called bulls itali, and the name Italy was bestowed because of the number and beauty of its cattle’, ‘When the city was founded the position of the walls and gates was marked out by a bull’, ‘If the flock had not been held in high honor among the ancients, the astronomers, in laying out the heavens, would not have called by their name the signs of the zodiac …, the names of the Ram and the Bull, placing them ahead of Apollo and Hercules.’ Bull qualities also were ascribed in lesser degrees to Zeus’ counterpart in Rome (Jovis Pater), and we note that some of the Roman associations cited by Varro were still with territoriality and boundaries, possible origins of which we consider in Chapter 7. This Indo-European bull-like father-god also existed in India as Dyaus Pitar. From the Rig Veda we learn how he, the ‘bull with the thousand horns’ bred Prithivi, the earth-cow to produce the other gods and all animals. Similarly, when cosmic force was released at creation, it was in the form of cows as rain clouds from which the sun also rose. Thus, the cow and its father/husband the bull were the sources of all. In Indo-European Persia also, in the Zend Avesta one reads: ‘Hail bounteous Bull! Hail to thee, beneficent Bull … to the body of the Bull, to the Soul of the Bull; to thy soul, to thee O benificent Bull.’ This primeval bull’s soul went to the sky where it sat as Goshurun (protector of animals) in the sphere of the sun, while his semen went to the moon: ‘To the moon that keeps in it the seed of the Bull, to the only created Bull, to the Bull of many species’, This latter referred to the belief that this primeval bull’s semen gave rise to all 272 kinds of animals. Goshurun’s female counterpart was Drvaspa: ‘To the body of the Cow, to the soul of the Cow, to the powerful Drvaspa, made by Mazda and holy.’ Lord of pastures was another bull-god Mithra, who casts his ‘health-bringing eye’ upon the ‘abode of cattle, the dwelling of cattle.’ But this importance of cattle even more generally in the ancient Persian civilization is summed up best in another passage from the Zend Avesta: ‘In the ox is our strength, in the ox 26

Animal Associations with Death is our need, in the ox is our speech, in the ox is our victory, in the ox is our food, in the ox is our clothing, in the ox is our tillage, that makes food grow for us.’ Among the Egyptians, too, there were counterparts more or less to some of these gods and goddesses associated with ‘life’, especially with fertility. While the earliest clear evidence of domestic cattle in Egypt is from Merimde and the Fayum, both dated to 4800 BCE, recent reevaluations may suggest an earlier domestication from the indigenous wild aurochs (Bos primigenius) rather than introductions from the Near East (Brewer et al., 1994: 79 and see Chapter 3). In Chapter 3, we will also consider, in particular, certain living bull (and ram) gods that fulfilled such fertility roles, but here we will but mention in passing the Egyptians’ paramount cow-mother goddess Hathor. As ‘Lady of Life’, she was responsible for giving life to all creatures (LÄ II, 1025 and notes 23–24). She also had responsibility for birth (LÄ II, 1030 and note 77) and could revivify the dead (LÄ II, 1028). Like life itself, Hathor was identified integrally with maat, the natural order (Lexikon II, 1028–1029). Central to this natural order was the cycle of life and death.

Animal Associations with Death In the Egyptian revivification literature, species associations with snakes were almost as numerous and profound as the bovine ones. And, as with cattle, such were shared more or less among more than one ancient civilization. Since cobras, asps and other Old World snakes could kill with their venom, the origin of their association with death is obvious. Moreover, other very large non-venomous snakes in Africa are constrictors, able to crush human victims then swallow them. We pursue some of the biomedical implications of those special species relationships in Chapter 6. Also, though it seems odd to us now, dog and snake associations in antiquity were quite similar in that both seem originally to have been with death (e.g., Forbes Irving, 1992: 207–210 for the Greeks), and then both sometimes have evolved in parallel ways, with important biomedical implications. The snake killed (and sometimes ate) people and packs of wild (and semi-domesticated) canids could not only kill them and eat their flesh and organs, but even single canids often scavenged the dead and scattered their bones (see Schwabe, 1984c: Fig. 20.2 for a modern photograph from India). That the Egyptians especially feared such dismemberment after death is evident in texts we shall turn to in Chapter 6. Both dogs and pigs were reviled among more than one people in antiquity for such reasons, but here we note only some biblical parallels among the ancient Israelites: ‘Him that dieth of Jeroboam in the city shall the dogs eat’ (1 Kings, 14, 11), ‘The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel’ 27

Chapter Two. Life and Death (1 Kings, 21, 23), ‘Deliver … my darling from the power of the dog’ and ‘You have brought me into the dust of death, for dogs have compassed me’ (Psalm 22). In discussing crucifixion as a common means for execution in Jesus’ time, Crossans (1995: 127) pointed out that ‘what we often forget about crucifixion is the carrion crow and scavenger dog who respectively croak above and prowl below the dead or dying body. […] No wonder’, he continued, ‘we have found only one body from all those thousands crucified around Jerusalem in that single century.’ Still surviving in the wild in Africa is the hunting dog Lycaon pictus, an especially vicious animal, which, despite its small size, can kill large ungulate prey by hunting in highly cooperating packs. In some societies in antiquity such associations of death with snakes and dogs especially evolved in interesting and remarkably similar ways, which suggest a great deal about ancient mentality about sames and opposites (see Chapter 4). For example, in Mesopotamia we note popular practices based on beliefs that dogs not only are causes of death and dismemberment but also are death’s harbingers. There, as well as in the Greek world, such associations, originally with dying and dismemberment, then also the foretelling of death, seemed to have evolved further into beliefs that both species possessed power to ward off death, prevent death – thence cure. That was apparent in Mesopotamia in portrayals of both snakes and dogs with the healing goddess Gula (Schwabe, 1978: Fig. 1.15b), one late epithet of the Sumerian cow goddess of life Ninhursag (Walsh, 1989: 289). Like dogs, snakes were also kept as co-therapists in Greek healing temples18 and the caduceus symbol of healing might very well have had closely related origins. Among ancient peoples, the Zoroastrian Persians seem to have evolved the most positive ideas overall from such commonly observed facts about the canine species and death so that, at some point, a deceased person among them needed to be eaten by a dog for its soul to enjoy afterlife. Later that practice seems to have evolved so that the deceased’s body need only be rent by a dog. Today, among India’s Zoroastrian Parsees, it is sufficient for the body to by gazed upon by a dog after death and then put out in a special burial tower for carrion-feeding birds to eat. As a consequence of such beliefs and practices, among ancient Persians dogs received unusual respect, protection and care, both as individuals and as a species. Interestingly, too, from the standpoint of early evolution of such species associations, are related beliefs and practices among cattle culture Dinka Nilotes of the southern Sudan. There, snakes (both poisonous and constrictors) enjoy special fear-driven respect and solicitude. They are regarded as 18

Compare also, in the New Testament, a dog licking Lazarus’ wounds. And examples of much of this same type of lore survive today, for example, folk beliefs that a dog licking its, or our, wounds is a helpful thing.

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Animal Associations with Death jok, a local spirit or god to be placated. To kill one accidentally causes social turmoil and, instead, snakes are allowed to enter huts unmolested. In fact, milk and butter are put out to attract and placate them, a sort of ‘you will not hurt me because I do not hurt you.’ It is not surprising, therefore, that snakes are mentioned almost as frequently as cattle in the Egyptian funerary literature and that many incantations address them, or that pharaoh wore the uraeus or cobra head upon his own brow – because, for one thing, to be able to cause or prevent death was to possess tremendous power. Such associations also evolved in more than one contemporary Nilotic society as essential preparation for the afterlife. Thus, among the Turkana and Nandi, the dead (or dying) are deliberately put out for canids (or hyenas) to eat. The beliefs of these peoples are that the ‘soul’ of the deceased must pass through such an animal to achieve afterlife (Schwabe, 1978: 58–59). Exceptions are sometimes made for chiefs and other important elders whose bodies are buried deeply or beneath stone cairns precisely to prevent their being consumed (i.e., they have an alternative route for afterlife). Not surprisingly, despite the fact that dogs are commonly regarded in the West today as man’s best and most loyal friends, his closest companions, and have care, love and treasure lavished upon them.19 many of our expressed sentiments about dogs still reflect considerable distaste. Examples in English include such derogatory epithets as ‘you dog’, ‘you dirty dog’, ‘you cur’, ‘you mutt’, ‘you bitch’ and ‘you son of a bitch.’ We also still refer disparagingly to a ‘dog’s life’ or say about something horrible that ‘that shouldn’t happen to a dog’, although nothing could be farther from present fact in many Western countries. Not closely enough related to this book’s principal focus upon derivation of Egyptian biomedical theories per se, are similarly evolved associations of the Egyptians’ canine god Anubis in terms initially of fears of dismemberment, hence his subsequent funerary and other roles and that the late Greek god Hermanubis, an amalgam of the Egyptian Anubis and the Greek Hermes, carried the snake-entwined staff (see Chapter 7). We shall also only comment here in passing on the much less emphasized but partially similar roles of cats, especially the lion, in Egyptian beliefs. The lion goddess Sekhmet was not only thought to cause plagues among people and animals but could also prevent them. Therefore, her priests were among the most important of Egyptian healers (see Chapter 8). Another related feline association is that of the snake-killing protectress of the Houses of Life, Mafdet (see Chapters 7 and 8 and Gordon and Schwabe, 1995: 187). Nor will we discuss the scorpion (or the bee), other animals present in Egyptian imagery and capable too of causing painful injuries, even death.

19

In one instance, one being canonized in the Roman Catholic Church (Schmitt, 1979).

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Chapter Two. Life and Death Conclusions Egyptian texts and rituals, chiefly and originally for the pharaoh, emphasized prolongation of life and revivification after death. One vital concept concerned the nature and roles of ka, the animating force. Bovine animals were especially associated with ka and related concepts; in fact ka was also the name for ‘bull’, an equation surely not meaningless to the Egyptians. Snakes were similarly associated with some of their opposites (see Chapter 6). In examining these animal relationships, we need surmount any temptation to view them too hastily or superficially – especially to make contemporary interpretations of them – as has been the wont of some scholars. That is particularly important in considering some of the power/dominance/sex motifs interwoven with many of these animal associations. We should permit the relevant texts to speak for themselves both specifically and in a general context of their times. Another point which emerges from consideration of life and death issues as the Egyptians viewed them, is that they were inextricably parts of an overall natural order, maat, in which biological, social and celestial concepts were inherently and multiply fused. Therefore, to the ancient Egyptians – as to preSocratic Greeks – we observe no ‘one and only one’ correct explanation for any observed phenomenon or event20 (see Chapter 4). Because of this fusion of realms that appear totally distinct to us today, they frequently advanced multiple explanations, which to them complemented and reinforced rather than contradicted one another. All were reflections of the maat or natural order. Such gave rise, for example, to beliefs we shall endeavor to relate and explain in a biomedical context in Chapter 6 – notions that revivification following death could occur through the deceased’s passage through the spine of a bull21 or passage through the spine of a snake or a journey in a celestial bark.

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This ‘multiplicity of approaches’ and ‘multiplicity of answers’, though considered mutually exclusive according to current rules of logic, are not necessarily illogical if considered in relation to their original contexts (Frankfort, 1948: vii-viii, Chapter 3, nn. 19, 21; Chapter 5, n. 15; Frankfort, 1961: 4, 18–22, 91–92, 121–122). 21 This explains, for example, Te Velde’s (1967: 97) conclusion that ‘it appears from a Pyramid Text that this idea of Seth as bull carrying Osiris is ancient.’ For, as we have pointed out (Schwabe et al., 1982: 450–452, figs. 2, 3), these ideas and portrayals represent the revivifying passage of the deceased through the bull’s spine (i.e., repeating the passage of semen; note, as in some tombs the deceased also is shown sitting with his knees drawn up upon the back of a bull; see Fig. 6.5b). As further evidence of the analogy between this spinal ‘journey’ and that in the heavenly bark, consider that the bark bearing Osiris bore a bull’s head (Te Velde, 1967: 98), while others also bore bull’s or snake’s heads. As Frankfort (1948, chapter 3, note 21) put it: ‘Throughout this book will be found evidence that the Egyptian attempted to express religious insights by formulating side by side, separate avenues of approach which we would call mutually exclusive but which he did not intend to be combined in a more comprehensive way.’ We would agree with the first part of Frankfort’s statement, but believe we will marshal evidence here to suggest that the latter part of his statement does not do the Egyptians justice.

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CHAPTER THREE. PREDYNASTIC EGYPT AS ‘CATTLE CULTURE’ The only labour in which [present day Nilotic Nuer pastoralists] delight is the care of cattle …, cattle and their kin-owners are symbiotic …, [they] tend to define all social processes and relationships in terms of cattle. Their social idiom is a bovine idiom …, cherchez la vache is the best advice that can be given to those whose duty is to understand [their] behaviour. – E.E. Evans-Pritchard (1937: 209–214; 1940: 16–19)

First, let us consider the term ‘cattle culture.’ Although a pervasive importance of cattle in present day sub-Saharan Africa was the feature which most struck many of the first European observers, it remained for American anthropologist Melville Herskovits (1926) to describe the generality of a life-central, all-embracing relationship between people and cattle within what he designated the ‘East African Cattle Area’, which extended from the Nile valley and horn of Africa south. Here was manifested what he called the ‘East African Cattle Complex’ – and what subsequent authors have often called the ‘cattle culture’ – representing a broad covenant and pattern of emulation between the human and bovine species. That relationship is distinguished by an overriding economic regard for cattle as wealth and by important socioreligious beliefs evident in rituals concerning birth, marriage, death and inheritance, as well as in numerous practices and taboos involving cattle, milk, cattle blood, cattle dung, cattle urine, grass, cattle care and the like. With respect to possibilities for sustainable development among these migratory peoples today, one of us has described aspects of their ‘integrated’ or ‘fused’ societies (Table 1.1) in some detail, especially among the southern Sudan’s more than two million Nilotic Dinka (Majok and Schwabe, 1996). In Chapter 1, we indicated that we share with several students of ancient Egypt (Seligman, 1932; Frankfort, 1948; Aldred, 1965; Child, 1969), beliefs that interesting leads, especially a better grasp of the Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egyptians’ mindset, might be forthcoming from attention to the beliefs, practices and way of life among these cattle culture peoples still inhabiting the Nile basin. 31

Chapter Three. Predynastic Egypt as ‘Cattle Culture’ That is, in common with those scholars and some earlier Egyptologists such as Brugsch, Otto, Budge and Petrie, we believe that Predynastic Egypt was very much a pastoralist cattle culture and Dynastic Egypt represented successive stages in transition between that and a largely settled, mixed plant-animal agrarian economy with several eventually dominating urban religio-economic centers. In fact, a case can be made generally that yoking domesticated cattle to the digging stick – which provided Homo sapiens the first source of power for agriculture greater than their own muscles – precipitated a significant agrarian revolution. That innovation was one crucial prerequisite to the degree of specialization of labor – providing relative leisure for a more intellectually endowed or physically powerful few – to underwrite, in critical part, the emergence of the first riverine civilizations (Schwabe, 1978a). We would direct attention in those connections to speculation by Lobban (1989) that initial ‘capital accumulation’ necessary for emergence of the full Egyptian civilization resulted from early large-scale cattle raids upon neighboring pastoralists (which were followed by much greater needs for cattle fodder).1 Of interest with regard to such hypotheses, Grivetti (1980) reported that, among current hunter-gatherer and pastoral Tlokwa of the Kalahari desert of southern Africa, cultivation of garden plots began when seeds of plants eaten by their browsing goats, then passed in these goats’ feces within thorn bush kraals to which animals were confined at night, germinated and grew (becoming highly concentrated) there, especially within abandoned kraals. Thus, these particular wandering herders found that widely scattered specimens of favored plants they sought in nature could be easily available much nearer their home camps, and, as a result, they began to transplant them from these kraals, tend, then harvest them. Grivetti speculated that that could have been how plant domestication in some areas began in ancient times or was intensified within riverine plains.2 Thus, cattle herds introduced to the Nile’s banks periodically by migratory pastoral tribes could have deposited, then trampled into the fertile alluvial soil (i.e., ‘planted’) seeds of wild plants that cattle – and people themselves – ate. It is known, of course, that some plant seeds must pass through an animal’s digestive tract before they will germinate. From such beginnings, digging stick agriculture may have eventually commenced among riverine hunter-fisher-gatherers. A common characteristic of several emergent Old World civilizations was the prominence cattle assumed, not only within their economies, but in

1 He thus elaborated upon a parallel to Friedrich Engels’ (1942) suggestion that ‘the cultivation of grain originated from the need for cattle fodder and only later became important as a human food supply.’ 2 See as a possibly related phenomenon, interesting but unexplained cattle manure concentrations from Neolithic India (Allchin, 1963).

32

Chapter Three. Predynastic Egypt as ‘Cattle Culture’

Fig. 3.1 – Bulls’ skulls with clay ‘flesh’ (or clay skulls) with actual horn cores on terrace of First Dynasty mastaba S 3504 at Saqqara (Emery, 1954, Pl. 6).

their conceptualizations of the cosmos. Oddly, however, von Lengerken and von Lengerken (1955) and Conrad (1957) have been among relatively few scholars who have not particularized such facts, but viewed and compared them across diverse ancient cultures. Besides the cited works of Frankfort, Wainwright (1923) provides one of the few Egyptological attempts to approach such ancient questions more comparatively. It was within that context, too, that we first speculated (Schwabe, 1978) upon the emergence in ancient Egypt of a comparative or analogical approach to biomedical information acquisition, one that has featured prominently since in the overall history of biomedical sciences (see Chapters 4 and 9). As to cattle-culture Egypt specifically, we sketch here as background to our main interests some of the types of evidence available. Bull and bull’s head amulets and figurines of various materials survive from the Neolithic Badarian period onward (Randall-MacIver and Mace, 1902; Petrie, 1917) and, in some Badarian burial sites, actual bull remains were wrapped in matting or linen (Brunton and Caton-Thompson, 1928). Traceable to both the Badarian and Naqada periods were also burials of bulls with horns protruding above ground (Otto, 1938: 1–60) and, according to Herodotus, that practice still persisted in his day. Figurines of domesticated cattle also are found from the Amratian period. Bull skulls (bucrania) are shown above doorways as early as Hierakonopolis and clay bulls’ heads molded about actual bull skulls or their boney horn cores surmounted some First Dynasty mastabas (Fig. 3.1).3 Modern Egyptians may still put bucrania above doorways to 3 Very early in antiquity similar uses of bull’s skulls are recorded elsewhere, for example at Çatal Hüyük near Anatolia’s Taurus Mountains (Mellaart, 1967). Bucrania featured prominently

33

Chapter Three. Predynastic Egypt as ‘Cattle Culture’

Fig. 3.2 – Dinka burial mound for an important elder in the shape of his favorite bull, with the actual bull’s horns (redrawn after Titherington, 1927).

ward off the evil eye (Blackman, 1968: 224, 314). PT 1266 may possibly refer to two bucrania on top of the leaves of a door (Faulkner, 1969: 201–202 & n. 5). The bucrania surmounting First Dynasty mastabas are reminiscent of findings also at upper Nile valley sites, as examples in Nubian C-group graves where ‘cattle skulls are usually found in clusters of six or more, in association with the largest and richest graves’ (Adams, 1977: 157). According to Adams (p. 197), ‘in many cases a row of ox skulls was ranged around the southern edge of the tumulus’, and (p. 694) such ‘skulls are [also] found … frequently … with “pan graves” [in lower Nubia] … during the Second Intermediate Period.’ Similar burial practices are still followed upon death of important men among some southern Sudanese Nilotes (Fig. 3.2; see Schwabe, 1978: Fig. 1.13). Wainwright (1933), in enlarging upon Newberry’s (1914) identification of bull standards for four Delta nomes (6th Xois, 10th Athribis, 11th Leontopolis and 12th Sebennytus), attempted to explain the fact that ‘the cult of the bull was … widely spread in the Delta’ by relating these standards to portrayals and Pyramid Texts references to a Bull of the Sky, who, he felt, was a weather-

also in many subsequent monumental structures and temples over longer periods, as far south, for example, as in a South Arabian necropolis (Cleveland, 1965).

34

Bos primigenius and Wild Bull Hunts

Fig. 3.3 – Portion of a palette portraying the first pharaoh Narmer as a bull goring his enemies (redrawn after Asselberghs, 1961: Pl. 93, fig. 167).

storm god like Seth, plus beliefs from other ancient civilizations about bulls in relation to sky, storms, lightning, thunder and the double axe (see Chapter 2). The pharaoh’s title ‘Mighty Bull’, which persisted for millennia, his other epithets like ‘Victorious Bull’, attachment of a bull’s tail to the rear of his kilt, bull’s legs on royal chairs/couches found in some early tombs and the whole range of other striking bovine visual and literary imagery, exemplified very early and beautifully in pharaoh as a wild goring bull in the palette of Narmer (Fig. 3.3), attest specifically to the Egyptian king’s envy and emulation of this most powerful, brave and libidinous beast. Bos primigenius and Wild Bull Hunts The geographical range in antiquity of Bos primigenius, the wild aurochs ancestor of most domestic cattle (Fig. 3.4) shows that this magnificent species extended all across northern Africa including Lower Egypt. Of many aurochs skeletons preserved in Europe and elsewhere, one skull has boney horn cores (not the much larger keratinized horns themselves) 43.8 cm. in circumference, 91 cm. in length and 98 cm. between tips! Those mighty males, standing two meters at the shoulder, were surely some of the largest, strongest, bravest and, with their large harems, most virile and otherwise 35

Chapter Three. Predynastic Egypt as ‘Cattle Culture’

Fig. 3.4 – Geographical range (broken line) of the wild aurochs ancestor (Bos primigenius) of Africa’s domesticated cattle. Areas (in solid black) where indigenous human populations do not drink the milk of cows or other non-human animals (Majok and Schwabe, 1996, after Simoons, 1979, and Clutton-Brock, 1981).

enviable animals early inhabitants of the lower Nile valley encountered. It is little wonder Egyptian chieftains choose to match their own prowess and skills against such an exceptional animal. Although aurochs have long been extinct in Africa, the animal most feared today by peoples of the sub-Sahara remains its wild bovine relative, the African buffalo. That the aurochs bull was held in awe and emulated in the Nile valley from much earlier times than the Badarian period is suggested in at least one late Paleolithic Qadan culture site on the Nile’s east bank north of Wadi Halfa, believed to date from 12,000 to 10,000 BCE, in which some shallow human graves covered by stone slabs may have been marked by the horns of these giant cattle (Hoffman, 1979: 91). The wild bull hunt among later Egyptians is first documented in First Dynasty tomb artifacts, Petrie (1901: 21 & Pl. X:2) mentioning an ebony tablet with the name of Aha showing a carrion-eating stork standing on a ‘shrine’ next to a wild bull running into a net. He noted its similarity to another scene on the mace head of Narmer from Hierakonopolis (Quibell, 1900: Pl. XXVIB) where a bird on a shrine is above an enclosure for wild cattle. PT 286 refers to an early ceremony of lassoing of the bull, which reads ‘I have attached my head to my neck, and my neck to my trunk in this my name of Attacher-of-heads, by means 36

Bos primigenius and Wild Bull Hunts of which I attached the head of Apis on that day when the bull was lassoed’, an enigmatic text which is pertinent to Egyptian revivification concerns for reassembling the body of a deceased (see Chapter 6). Subsequent wild bull hunts by pharaohs are well documented, and it is probable that such brave matching of the leader against this impressive adversary – continuing demonstration and proof of his leadership qualifications to rule over men – were antecedents of related rituals or spectacles such as very dangerous bull-leaping. Interestingly, such heroic acts were portrayed not only in Egypt (Schwabe, 1978: Fig. 1.6), but also, of course, in Crete and as far afield as the Indus Valley (von Lengerken and von Lengerken, 1955). Pharaoh’s hunting of the wild aurochs bull was recorded, in fact, up until the reign of Amenhotep III, when the aurochs finally became extinct in Egypt.4 Vestiges of such rites or entertainments survive in the Mediterranean bullfight (Conrad, 1957). We believe that the most primitive origins of the physiological theories we explore in Chapters 5 through 7 were in magic associated with this hunting of the wild bull, with matching of pharaoh’s prowess against that of this powerful and virile beast. Lincoln (1981) has posited that, in large natural grasslands within the range of wild aurochs cattle (Fig. 3.4), powerful ecological determinants, more or less independent of time and place, (1) led to a similar form of social organization in which (2) a body of priests became ascendant among groups of warrior-herders, (3) that these two groups (plus sex and age) defined the only original divisions of labor and (4) intimate people-cattle relationships predominated in virtually every aspect of life. His research focus was upon the early Indo-Europeans,5 to whom he compared present day Nilotic pastoralist societies. Among some pastoral peoples a predominant priest-king arose, as among present-day Nilotes like the Shilluk, where broader and broader power influences were cemented by the king marrying multiple wives from different kinship groups, marriages involving major exchanges of cattle wealth. Even among much larger and less politically cohesive Nilotic pastoral tribes today, like the southern Sudan’s Dinka, the occasions for exchange of the largest numbers of cattle (drawn from the entire warrior-herder kinship group) are, in fact, marriages (often to promote security) and settlements (in lieu of capital retribution or continuing vendettas or war) for individual and large-scale homicide. Both of these social interactions and cattle exchanges, which result in pacts or covenants between families, also require cementing

4 The two New Kingdom instances are believed to be of hunting events in Asia (Epstein, 1971, I: 235). 5 Lincoln sees this as the origin of the early Indo-European caste system, to which, in its Hindu survival, settled agriculturalist, merchant, slave and other caste divisions were eventually added.

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Chapter Three. Predynastic Egypt as ‘Cattle Culture’ bull sacrifices. They both also illustrate concretely, as pointed out by Lienhardt (1961: 25–26), the considerable equivalence among Nilotes of people and cattle. Thus, ‘cattle handed over in place of the dead man or in place of the girl [in marriage], will multiply for the lineage of people who have lost a member, the continuity of generation in cattle thus being balanced against the continuity of human generation, which has been broken by the loss of a member to the lineage.’ More frequent exchanges and sacrifices of lesser numbers of cattle accompany more routine supplications and the like to manifestations of ‘Spiritual Force’, often in the forms of local spirits or jok, as part of the overarching three-way covenant of it with people and cattle. In instances of grave threats to the entire community – lack of rain, epidemic cattle diseases, external wars – the number and quality of cattle given as sacrifices to the paramount manifestation of ‘Spiritual Force’, namely Nhialic (literally the sky), may be commensurately high.

Cattle Domestication and Milk Drinking While we believe that evidence for Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt as a cattle culture is convincing, recent findings by Wendorf and Schild extend this evidence much further back in time and suggest its possible origins. Their work at Nabta Playa in the Libyan or Western Desert of Egypt (Wendorf and Schild, 1998) reveals a complex Neolithic cattle culture that existed from approximately 9000 BCE to 4000 BCE. They present evidence for introduction of domestic cattle as early as 9000 BCE and, from approximately 5500 BCE, what is apparently a regional ritual center with astronomical stone circles and cattle burials, suggesting that by then a hierarchical social system may have existed with an elite in control (ibid.: 97–98). Even during the Early Neolithic (8800–6900 BCE), there is evidence in El Adam-type settlements (8800–7800 BCE) that pastoralists moved their herds – possibly from the Nile between the First and Second Cataracts during the dry seasons (ibid.: 101) – to seasonally graze the desert following summer rains. They suggest that during these migrations cattle provided these pastoralists a mobile source of food in the forms of milk and blood. Evidence for that is suggested by the comparative lack of cattle bones at those sites, indicating perhaps that cattle were slaughtered, if at all, only on important occasions. (We see an additional possibility that, as is the case for some Ethiopian and other African pastoralists even into modern times [Junker, 1938; Simoons, 1960], that particular muscle tissues may also have been cut from living cattle on the hoof, as an additional source of human food, especially under emergency situations.) 38

Cattle Domestication and Milk Drinking While the possibility of an independent African center for domestication of cattle was considered controversial, more recent studies of African, Eurasian and Indian cattle mitochondrial DNA (ibid.: 101) indicate that Africa was one of three independent centers for cattle domestication. In any event, the presence of domestic cattle at Nabta Playa, rather than wild cattle, was explained by Wendorf and Schild (ibid.: 102) by the fact that, with the notable exception of this domesticated species, the fauna found at these sites consists only of desert-adapted wild animals, necessitated by an absence of permanent water. From El Nabta-type settlements human activity became more intense and developed during the period of 7100–6900 BCE (ibid.: 102–105). For that period these excavators have found large oval as well as other smaller oval huts, plus not only deep wells but shallow basins (possibly for watering cattle). Apparently, by then there were larger groups occupying these sites for longer periods, but still seasonally. Large numbers of additional storage pits suggest a beginning reliance on plants also as human food, but we regard it as at least equally likely that most of these stored vegetation for cattle. By the Middle Neolithic (6300–5600 BCE), sheep and goats had also been introduced into these sites from southwest Asia and these then replaced gazelles as the predominant animal food source (ibid.: 105–106). One site, E-75–8, may have served as a ceremonial center where cattle might have been sacrificed, as suggested by the large number of cattle bones found there and by analogy with practices among modern African pastoralists on the Upper Nile. For the Late Neolithic (5500–4200 BCE), however, a major ceremonial center emerged with a number of stone tumuli with complete or partial cattle burials (ibid.: 107–111). These burials suggest the possibility by then of a cattle cult. Some thirty megalithic structures have also been found at this center, one of which has a stone possibly carved in the shape of a cow. Similarities in pottery also found then at Nabta Playa and contemporary or slightly later Nile sites imply a connection between the two. According to Wendorf and Schild (ibid.: 112–119), such regional ceremonial centers and other finds from Nabta Playa suggest the possibility of regional political structures. When Nabta Playa was finally abandoned, probably because of worsening climatic conditions after 4200 BCE, these religiously and politically organized cattle culture pastoralists may have permanently invaded the fertile Nile valley and subjugated local fisher-cultivators, resulting in emergence of an increasingly complex society from which the Upper Egyptian state then arose. Wendorf and Schild see the A-Group settlement of Qustul, with its significant cattle burial sites, as possibly one early result. Thus, Nabta Playa, a major Neolithic Saharan site, may have been important not only to the origin of the African cattle culture, but also of the Egyptian state. 39

Chapter Three. Predynastic Egypt as ‘Cattle Culture’

Fig. 3.5 – Locations of early ‘cattle culture’ sites in Upper Egypt and the Western Desert as far as the Diyala (after Van Lepp, 1990, with additions by Wendorf and Schild, 1998.)

Additional evidence of such early African cattle rearing, including rock paintings, has been found not only in such sites in the western desert of Egypt, but as far into the present Sahara as the Diyala region of Libya (Fig. 3.5). Paintings at Tassili in the Diyala and elsewhere have been variously dated from around 5600 BCE to the end of the 3rd millennium BCE. This Saharan belt eastward to the Nile has had two geologically recorded periods of desiccation separated by a period of ample rainfall in which wild game and cattle pastoralism were both prevalent. The present desiccating trend may have commenced in the Tassili area as early as 4100 BCE (geologic data cited by Van Lepp, 1990), while, according to Clutton-Brock (1989: 205), climate changes generally in the Sahara were apparent by 2500 BCE and, by 1300 BCE, there was no further evidence of even seasonal cattle grazing there. Earliest archeological evidence of cattle-keeping further south in East Africa than the Sudan is from about 2000 BCE around Lake Turkana (Robertshaw, 1989: 207). A recent paper by Gifford-Gonzalez (2000) suggests why animal healing might have been considered important to accumulation of large herds of domestic cattle in such areas of sub-Saharan Africa (ibid.: 95). She postulates that an approximately thousand-year delay from the appearance of ceramics there until the development of efficient and wideranging pastoral economies was due to new animal diseases encountered by those trying to aggregate large herds of domestic cattle within territories new to this ungulate species. That is, pastoralists entering new territories where 40

Cattle Domestication and Milk Drinking wild bovids and other wild ungulates already existed might have exposed their domestic cattle to a number of infections maintained, sometimes inapparently, in these wild animal populations. There is good modern evidence in support of Gifford-Gonzalez’s conjectures. To this day, the enormous tsetse fly belt, mostly of central and western areas of sub-Saharan Africa, bars development of cattle industries because of the trypanosomiases they transmit. These types of situations and their causes have been extensively studied (and discussed by us in Schwabe et al., 1977: 46–53 and Schwabe, 1984: 334–392). Not only is malignant catarrh, an important viral disease of domestic cattle maintained in such areas in a wildebeest reservoir, but bluetongue of sheep was first observed when domesticated sheep were introduced into sub-Saharan Africa in recent times. African swine fever was first seen when domestic swine were also introduced during the colonial period into African areas where some of their wild porcine relatives were well established (Schwabe, 1984: 27, 351). Whether Nabta Playa and other Saharan sites influenced ancient Egypt in such ways or not, domesticated cattle remains, carbon dated to 4440– 4150 BCE, have been identified from Neolithic encampments near the Fayum and in Badarian sites near Assiut (Epstein, 1971, I: 213), and clay models of cattle are also found from Predynastic Egypt. With the presence of domestic cattle in Egypt, primitive bull hunt magic and more elaborate rituals derived from it could be transferred in part to bulls raised expressly for sacrifice. And, following extinction of their wild forbears, such sacrifices substituted entirely for hunting magic and the beliefs and practices it generated. Surely the most important early economic consequence of cattle domestication was draft power, especially for agriculture. Three surgical procedures – castration, dehorning or detipping horns and nose-ringing – intended to control the dangerous bull, were among man’s first surgical operations of record (Schwabe, 1984a). With the yoking of cows and castrated bulls (oxen), primitive digging sticks quickly evolved into plows that have changed little over the millennia. In Egypt, such plow oxen were used frequently in teams (Boessneck, 1953: 12). As we have pointed out elsewhere (Schwabe, 1984), the drinking of cow’s milk by people, including by adults, has been taken for granted for so long in diverse Indo-European, Middle Eastern, African and some other cultures that its origins and the profundity it originally signified readily escape notice or inquiry today. However, that really strange, and biologically unique, phenomenon of one species of mammal suckling another provides an excellent example of the dangers of retaining contemporary mindsets when it comes to exploring beliefs and practices of ancient peoples.6 For, surely, 6 Drinking animal milk has always been foreign, indeed repugnant even disgusting, to other large populations, including the Chinese and others of southeastern Asia (Simoons, 1970),

41

Chapter Three. Predynastic Egypt as ‘Cattle Culture’

Fig. 3.6 – Young pharaoh Amenhotep II sucking milk from the teat of the Cow Goddess Hathor (Egyptian Museum, Cairo).

nothing short of carriage to term within one’s mother’s uterus so identifies and establishes the maternal-child bond of dependence and protection basic to existence and continuity of lines than nursing from one’s mother’s teats. How utterly unnatural, therefore, for our species Homo sapiens to have sought the aid of another species to wet-nurse its young, to enter into this most intimate of relationships with another species, for the cow, in effect, to become foster biological mother to man. Yet such evidence as still survives prominently, especially in Hindu practices, in scriptures of some Mediterranean and Middle Eastern religions past or present (Walsh, 1989), as well as in all-embracing covenants between man and cattle still paramount today on the upper Nile, suggest that the drinking of the milk of the cow by man had just such fundamental religiocultural origins and was meant literally to signify a special relationship between man and his mother the cow, as illustrated beautifully in the Cairo Museum statue of the young pharaoh Amenhotep II kneeling beside and sucking directly from the teat of the cow goddess Hathor (Fig. 3.6).

partially for what it quite obviously represents psychologically. Radbill (1976) has compiled interesting information on roles of animals in infant feeding through history.

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Pharaoh as Bull, People as Cattle How contrasting is that behavior with the purely biological process among all mammals wherein milk secretion and milk drinking is confined to the immediate postpartum period of greatest infant dependence. Some cultures make much of a boy’s severing this and lesser dependent bonds to his natural mother. Only the profoundest cultural needs, therefore, would cause adult men in ancient times, and especially their selfabsorbed and powerful leaders, to put themselves (through long-sustained rituals) in this psychologically dependent posture normally reserved to infants. Unsurprisingly, cow’s milk remains a medium for libations in several far-separated cultures, and parallels to the probable Egyptian experience within other ancient civilizations and their prehistoric antecedents have been pointed out by several already-cited authors. As one example, several scholars have called attention to seemingly close parallels between Hathor and the paramount Mesopotamian cow goddess Ninhursag (see Chapter 2). The famous frieze from Ninhursag’s temple at Al Ubaid, now in the British Museum, shows an early reed cattle house or temple, oft portrayed also on seals and otherwise (Frankfort, 1955; an example reproduced in Schwabe, 1978: Fig. 1.7). Near these reed houses are shown priests milking cows from the temple herds, the churning of butter and tending of calves. Funerary pots from the tomb of the second pharaoh Aha contained cheese (Zaky and Iskander, 1942: 295–313; Simoons, 1971: 434), earliest conclusive proof from Egypt itself that cows were also being milked. That was possibly originally in Egypt too a religious act to commemorate and reinforce pharoah’s child-mother relationship to the cow (see Chapter 7). But long before cattle domestication, Egyptians probably already held female cattle in a special relationship, as in PT 271 (Piankoff) where we read ‘I have joined my mother, the Great Wild Cow.’

Pharaoh as Bull, People as Cattle Our belief is that cow milk drinking, clearly after cattle domestication, was one consequence of much earlier admiration, awe and emulation of wild bulls. In the process of cattle domestication, much more docile cows were surely the first of the species ‘tamed’. But, as documented for Sumeria by Heimpel (1986), even after goats were fully domesticated there, females still were staked out sometimes by shepherds for more vigorous wild males to breed. It is as a result of something like all of the above, we believe, that references to pharaoh (living and deceased) as bull arose. That these also gave rise early to similar characterizations of the sun as bull and gods as (or incarnated as or manifest in) bulls is attested by an abundance of citations in 43

Chapter Three. Predynastic Egypt as ‘Cattle Culture’ the Pyramid Texts, Book of the Dead and other early revivification literature, as well as in other Egyptian texts. Examples from the Pyramid Texts include ‘I have come to you, my father, I have come to you, O Great Wild Bull’ (PT 201); ‘O Geb, Bull of the sky’ (PT 316); ‘Hail to you Bull of Re who has four horns’ (PT 470). From such textual and archeological evidence, Petrie (1912: 22) concluded that ‘the bull was sacred in many places, and his worship underlay that of the human gods, who were said to be incarnated in him.’ That conclusion has often been challenged since, but we believe, on insufficiently informed grounds. One of relatively few more recent scholars to resurrect and reexamine that extensive record, has been Frankfort (1948: 162–163). He noted that ‘Egyptian texts of the most varied nature abound in metaphors, appraisals, and other expressions which relate to cattle. The king is “a strong bull”; a queen-mother is called “the cow that hath borne a bull”; the sun is “the bull of heaven”; the sky is a huge cow. A moralizing treatise states, most unexpectedly: “Well tended are men, the cattle of God.” It is curious’, he adds, ‘that scholars [now] view such images as purely poetical without connecting them at all with the cults of Hathor, Apis, Mnevis, etc. – to us equally strange.’ Nevertheless, Frankfort continues, ‘[such things] show that cattle played an altogether extraordinary role in the consciousness of the early Egyptians. This led, on the one hand, to religious veneration, and, on the other, to the spontaneous production of cattle images and cattle similes whenever some unusual observation required figurative speech for adequate expression.’ Later, Frankfort (1961: 8–9) opined that ‘we cannot evade the issue … [by saying that] the origin of cults is beyond our ken and that we shall never know how certain gods came to be associated with certain animals …; any treatment of the sacred animals which stresses their local or political significance at the expense of their religious importance flies in the face of the evidence.’ Here we should remind ourselves again (Table 1.1 and see Epilogue) that Predynastic (and Early Dynastic) Egypt were ‘integrated’ societies, with all the holistic thinking that connotes. These latter conclusions of Frankfort’s, an astute student of comparative ancient religions, are especially important, we feel, because other standard works on the Egyptian religion sometimes have omitted deliberately those very aspects we consider to relate most closely to rational beginnings for healing practice. Thus, in the preface to his Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, James Breasted (1912: ix–x) wrote: ‘I have not undertaken the problem of the origins in many directions, like that of sacred animals so prominent in Egypt’ and ‘another subject passed by is the concept of sacrifice, which I have not discussed at all.’ In our view, this tendency of some scholars to emphasize only the apparently ‘higher’ (i.e., JudeoChristian-Islamic-like) elements of the Egyptian religion, at the expense of 44

Sun and Gods as Bulls the obviously prominent but less familiar to us ‘nature’7 elements, runs great risk of obscuring some of the Egyptians’ important early accomplishments. For one at all familiar with the cattle-centered lives of present-day inhabitants of the Nile Basin, this overwhelming cattle imagery and practice of ancient Egyptians cannot possibly be dismissed as inconsequential or trivialized piecemeal in modern-day western terms (as when Alan Gardiner, in one already-cited example, invariably referred to the temple officials sacrificing bulls as ‘butchers’, the flesh of their sacrifice as ‘meat’ or ‘joints’). We are reminded in that specific instance that, among modern Nilotes, cattle are killed and their flesh eaten only as a consequence of religious observances and equally deep cultural practices (Schwabe, 1987; Majok and Schwabe, 1996, Chapter 3). The worst sacrilege among these present-day cattle culture peoples in the greater Nile basin would be to kill cattle expressly for ‘meat’. During the late 19th century’s devastating pandemic of rinderpest in Africa, and in subsequently severe droughts, Maasai, for example, have died in considerable numbers rather than slaughter their cattle in order to feed themselves (Majok and Schwabe, 1996, Chapter 4).

Sun and Gods as Bulls Much of this man-bull comparison and what it represented in terms of power and fertility relationships especially, were also projected throughout society – helping define its subsequent organization politically (Frankfort, 1948; Lincoln, 1981; Gordon and Schwabe, 1995 and see our Epilogue) – and into the heavens as well.8 Egyptian associations of the sun with this powerful, virile bull, and also his cow consort, were apparently very early. Winkler (937) ascribed to prehistoric times a rock drawing in Upper Egypt east of the Nile of a bovine animal with a solar symbol. In fact, in PT Utterance 319 the king becomes this ‘sun bull’, while the bull in PT Utterance 251 is identified as Re (Piankoff, 1968: 19 note & 29 note). PT Utterance 304 also refers to this ‘Bull of Re’ and PT utterance 254 to the king as ‘Bull of Heaven’ taking the place of Re (ibid.: 30 note). Again, in PT Utterance 222, Re is equated with this ‘Great Wild Bull.’ This equating of sun and sun god with bulls persisted for millennia, as in numerous Middle and New Kingdom references also to the sun god Atum as bull.9 Hathor, too, 7 We are reminded here of Crossan’s (1995: 104) belief that ‘the only objective distinction between magic and religion is that we have religion while they have magic.’ 8 Some examples of how present-day Nilotes relate other things to, or classify things by, manbull relationships as for instance cattle coat patterns, are given in Majok and Schwabe (1996, Chapter 7, note 16). 9 As for example in the Building Inscription originally from the Temple of Heliopolis dated to the reign of Sesostris I (Blackman, 1938, I: 50, II: 5), and BD Spell 142s var. 4.

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Chapter Three. Predynastic Egypt as ‘Cattle Culture’ the paramount cow-goddess whose cult goes back to Predynastic times (Van Lepp, 1990), is frequently portrayed with a sun-disk between her horns. She is the sky and is also associated in other ways with Re (see Chapter 7). During late times she may be a celestial goddess who carries and then rejuvenates her son, the solar-disk.10 Alternatively, she may be the child of Re and called ‘Eye of Re.’11

Bovine Gods of Fertility and Power: Living Bull Gods The Egyptian priest Manetho’s 4th century BCE history of Egypt states that in the reign of the Second Dynasty pharaoh Kaiechos, the living bulls, Apis at Memphis and Mnevis at Heliopolis, as well as the living Mendesian ram, were worshipped as gods. The Palermo Stone attests an earlier date for Apis. That bull of special coat markings and other unique characteristics was a fertility god maintained by priests of the Sanctuary of Ptah at Memphis and mentioned repeatedly in the Pyramid Texts. He was called ‘renewed life of Ptah’ and regarded as that god’s ‘double’ (Otto, 1938), interestingly ‘double’ also being one conception of an individual’s ka, an Egyptian word which connoted not only his ‘animating force’, but also, of course, ‘bull’ (see Chapters 2 and 5). According to the Palermo Stone, the second pharaoh Aha organized a religious rite called ‘Running of Apis’, about which little is known (Kaplony, 1975: 94–96), but it is possibly related to the wild bull hunt mentioned above (PT 286) and to physiological consequences of exhaustion in cattle (see Chapter 5). The exact recording on funerary stelae of each Apis incarnation’s life span to the day up to 26 years of age suggested that this god, when sufficiently long lived, may have been ritually killed, at least during certain periods. Mnevis also was worshipped from Predynastic times as a living fertility god at Heliopolis where he was tended by priests. Called ‘Bull of Heliopolis’ in the Pyramid Texts (LÄ IV: 165 and note 11), he is considered ‘sun bull’ and is called the ‘Herald of Re’ (LÄ IV: 165 and note 3). He also may be named ‘Living sun god’ (Otto, 1938) and is frequently depicted with the sun disk between his horns (Jéquier, 1946: 104). Probably, but not certainly, of later origin was a third living bull god, Buchis of Hermonthis, ‘bull of Mont’, associated with worship both of Montu and Osiris (LÄ IV: 202). From the Middle Kingdom onward, Montu is named bull12 and is associated with the sun. During later times he is connected with R#t-t Awy and Hr-p . A-r# as an equivalent of Re (LÄ IV: 202), and eventually as 10 11 12

LÄ II, 1025 and note 15 for the New Kingdom. LÄ II, 1026 and note 27. LÄ, IV, 201.

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Bovine Gods of Fertility and Power: Living Bull Gods a universal sun god. Buchis is called ‘Living soul of Re’ from Dynasty 30 (Mond and Myers,1934, III: 40, Pl. 37A, 1). The god Kamutef, literally ‘the bull of his mother’, was related to the ithyphallic fertility god Min. In the heavens he was believed to breed his cow-mother Hathor to be reborn daily as the sun-calf. We also note in passing that there were many other diverse associations of heavenly bodies, gods and bulls, for example, the fertility moon god Khonsu as bull (see also our Chapter 6), mentioned once in the Pyramid Texts (PT 402). In the Coffin Texts, he eats flesh and later cures illnesses, becoming an important god in the New Kingdom. There is also the interesting equation of the Ursa major constellation, which is among the ‘imperishable stars’, with a bull’s forelimb (about which, in terms of a theory of muscle physiology, see Chapter 5). Especially relevant to another biomedical theory explored in Chapter 7, Te Velde (1977: 54) noted also that ‘Seth is called bull, but in this comparison he is not the paragon of fertility, but of strength’, namely, of dominion, power over others. That is, bulls were regarded as epitomes of fertility and power in Egypt, as elsewhere, in antiquity (Otto, 1938). Some Comparisons Recalling such multiple associations of Seth with bulls and heavenly-weather phenomena like thunder and lightning (Gordon and Schwabe,1995), it is interesting that the Nilotic Dinkas’ god manifestation Macardit (literally great black bull), is also equated with black thunderheads. The thunder is said by some Dinka to be his ecstatic bellow, the lightning his ejaculate and the rain his semen fertilizing the earth.13 Similar ideas are recorded from antiquity. Thus, Dionysus, too, was associated with lightning (Dodds, 1960: xxxii, 151, notes on 594–595) and the origins of cattle rites related to his worship (see Chapter 5) were ascribed by ancient Greeks to Egypt. In other apparent bovine fertility parallels, CT Utterance 420 refers to the ‘Bull who copulates with fair ladies.’ This recalls that the Cretan Minotaur was believed to have been the issue of the Minoan queen Pasiphae and a bull, and that, in the original Athenian temple called the bukolion (cow shed), the queen archon was said to have been ritually mated to a bull representing Dionysus (Raglan, 1964: 93–94; Burkert, 1983: 233). We would but mention also, in connection with this unusual importance of cattle over wide areas (von Lengerken and von Lengerken, 1955; Conrad, 13

As an interesting example of pure coincidence, lightning dissociates nitrogen and oxygen molecules. These free atoms then form nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide. The latter reacts with rain water to form nitric acid and nitric oxide. The nitric acid dissolves and comes to earth in rain to become fixed in the soil as plant-fertilizing nitrogen.

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Chapter Three. Predynastic Egypt as ‘Cattle Culture’

Fig. 3.7 – Old Kingdom priest-healer, Wenennefer (left), who bore the titles swnw and Priest of Sekhmet, supervising dissection of a sacrificial bull (Ghalioungui, 1973: 64 fig. 1).

1957), the frequency of cattle associations in antiquity with geographical places or features, some Greek examples including the Taurus mountains, Taurian peninsula, Boetia, the island of Euboea, the Ionian Sea and the Bosphorus (i.e., ox ford). However, most directly relevant to our thesis concerning origins of Egyptian biomedical knowledge, was the prominence in ancient Egypt of the religious bull sacrifice.

Bovine Sacrifice In Chapter 1, we commented on the extent of bovine anatomical information among ancient Egyptians as compared to that for people. Here we consider the source of that information in bull sacrifices performed as the main focus or a key part of religious rituals. In Chapter 4, we will say something about the importance more generally of animal dissection (and vivisection) in providing initial scientific foundations for medicine, and also as one of the first thrusts toward developing methods associated with scientific inquiries more generally. We will discuss, beginning with Chapter 5, some of the things Egyptian priests learned from bovine sacrifices. Several authors starting with Montet (1910) have considered the especially numerous scenes of bull sacrifice reproduced on Egyptian temple and tomb walls, and on stelae, sarcophagi and false doors from earliest times to the Roman period,14 with their accompanying inscriptions. The most exhaustive account has been that of Eggebrecht (1973). The centrality of 14

A few models in three dimensions also exist from the Old Kingdom, but more commonly in the First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom (Eggebrecht, 1972: 21).

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Bovine Sacrifice these sacrifices to Egyptian religious observances has been noted by many, and few if any activities were so consistently portrayed in so much detail over such an extended period of time. For our purposes, greatest note is made of aspects prominently portrayed during the Old Kingdom or before (Fig. 3.7). While Gardiner had been especially prone to see these scenes largely in mundane terms of the butcher’s trade and provision of meat as food (see Chapters 1 and 8) and even Eggebrecht (1973: 5) speaks of ritual and profane cattle slaughter (i.e., providing food for the population), we see little evidence that cattle were killed and consumed in Egypt in other than, to some significant extent, a religious context. Moreover, cattle ‘meat’ was not simply one of several religious offerings of food. In fact, one easily misses cattle’s biomedical connections by assuming such to be so (Darby et al., 1977: 85–170). In explanation, cattle were a species unique generally in the centrality of their religiocultural roles and as models for human performance (as examples above and in Chapter 2 attest). Second, living cattle were economically of too great value not only for such religious purposes, but also as producers of draft and milk – and as wealth per se – to have provided ‘meat’ for the general population.15 Third, in most societies until fairly recently, cattle were owned in any numbers mostly by well-to-do individuals and slaughtered as food only at the ends of their long work or milk-producing lives16 (or sometimes also, mostly in cold climates, as surplus young dairy-breed males, that is, as veal). Moreover, mature cattle are large animals, the slaughter of one yielding such large quantities of edible tissues as to pose problems of storage as food for individual families, especially in warm climates such as Egypt’s. Lastly, among contemporary African Nilotic pastoralists, for whom cattle also are wealth and culturally central, although virtually all bovine animals are eventually eaten, it is almost always as part of some religious or other sociocultural observance requiring sacrifice. The biomedical relationships involving cattle we will explore here appear to have evolved in very Early Dynastic or Predynastic times. Therefore it is significant that in Egyptian cattle sacrifice rituals, certain prerequisite details, as in leading of animals for sacrifice and in casting and restraining them for slaughter, are much more frequently portrayed, and in greater detail, during the Old Kingdom than later (Eggebrecht, 1973: 5, 8–14). As examples, cattle 15

We would but note the statement even today in an official report of the World Health Organization (WHO, 1982) that ‘[In much of the developing world] the death or illness of even a single work animal may be a tragedy for a family … an epidemic … among such animals may be a national catastrophe.’ We are reminded in this last instance of the biblical cattle plague in Egypt. 16 As witnessed by almost all traditional European recipes for beef – ragout, saurbraten, goulash, stew for old tough meat – except among the British; Schwabe, 1979).

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Chapter Three. Predynastic Egypt as ‘Cattle Culture’

Fig. 3.8 – Egyptian herdsmen casting a bull for sacrifice by a technique still used by veterinarians (Egyptian Museum, Cairo; from Meydum, c. 2500 BCE).

are commonly shown then being led not only by ropes tied about their necks, but about their necks and ears, their horns or their lower jaws behind the teeth. Variations on methods of casting them to the ground were also commonly portrayed for that early period, the most frequent of them similar to methods still used by cowboys and veterinarians today. That is, the most effective procedure then (Eggebrecht, 1972: 9) and now involved not only one head rope, but also a second rope tied to the fetlock of one of the forelimbs, passed over the animal’s spine then backward between its hind legs. When these two ropes are pulled from front and rear, the one front limb is raised and the resulting imbalance and pressure on the spine cause the animal to fall to that side. The second rope, already tied to one front pastern is then quickly looped several times around the two hind pasterns of the recumbent animal, the totally restrained three-leg position portrayed in most actual sacrifice scenes (Fig. 3.8).17 Those prerequisites of ritual slaughter were only rarely portrayed by New Kingdom times (Eggebrecht, 1973: 15). In fact, for reasons we shall explain in Chapter 5, this secure three-leg restraint of cast bulls was the only procedure shown in Old 17

These are essentially the procedures followed by contemporary Dinka Nilotes to cast a bull for surgery such as castration or by American cowboys on the range or in rodeos.

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Bovine Sacrifice Kingdom scenes (Eggebrecht, 1973: 24), while, from the Middle Kingdom on four-leg restraint was also shown commonly in scenes of cattle to be killed. Of further interest at this introductory point is what we know about necropsy techniques for these sacrificial bulls. Eggebrecht (1973: 79 ff.), who paid special attention to this, concluded that the dissection order actually portrayed was more or less the following: one forelimb, the heart (though it is rarely cited on offering lists), the diaphragm, abdominal musculature, liver and spleen, the four stomachs, intestines, the second forelimb, the hind limbs, the ribcage and the spinal musculature. The last thing to note here is that Egyptian anatomical knowledge from cattle dissection was not gleaned solely from commonly sacrificed bulls (probably in the first instance the hunted wild bull), but apparently also to some extent from the usually protected cow. That early Egyptians were familiar with some main features of her distinctive internal anatomy is clear from the anatomically correct bicornuate uterus hieroglyph (Gardiner, 1957: F45), thereafter representing incorrectly the uterus both of animals and women.18 We suggest that, as among such Nilotic pastoralists as the Sudanese Dinka today, Predynastic Egyptians may have sacrificed some cows also for very important reasons, or possibly dissected and ate cows that died of other causes (see Eggebrecht, 1973: 58). One other religious point is pertinent to our intended demonstration of some of the biomedical consequences of these cattle dissections. In ascribing to the Egyptians beliefs about communion in connection with bovine sacrifice, Petrie (1951: 761) concluded that ‘from the very early stratum of the [Egyptian] religion comes the idea of feeding on the god’, which he supported partially by noting that mummies of Apis bull gods consist only of the mummified head and shoulders (amputated at the level of their thoracic vertebrae [Fig. 3.9]; about which see Chapter 6 and Schwabe, 1978: Fig. 2.5c). The rest of the apparent bull ‘mummy’ was, in fact, simply his other bones often wrapped together to appear like his recumbent intact body. But, beside this primary religious impetus for acquisition of biomedical information in Egypt, we believe the economic motivation also became substantial once they were domesticated.

18

In fact, the erroneous belief that the human uterus was bicornuate too was retained by Galen and subsequent healers for hundreds of years (i.e., until the first dissections of human female cadavers by Mondino de Luzzi in the 14th century CE and more detailed 16th century dissections by Vesalius and his followers corrected it and many other errors).

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Chapter Three. Predynastic Egypt as ‘Cattle Culture’

Fig. 3.9 – Mummified head and shoulders (amputated at the level of the first thoracic vertebrae) of a deceased Apis bull god (Agricultural Museum, Cairo).

Egyptian Temple Herds and Cattle Wealth The Egyptians’ first king, Narmer, in what was possibly his conquest of the northwestern Delta adjacent to Libya (Newberry, 1929: 52–53; Quibell, 1900: 8–9 & Pl. 26b), recorded the capture of 120,000 prisoners, 400,000 cattle and 1,422,000 sheep and goats. On the Palermo Stone is mention of the 4th Dynasty’s King Snefru commemorating his conquest of the ‘Nehesi’, with capture of 200,000 head of cattle (Waddell, 1971: xxiii). Most Egyptologists have thought such claims highly exaggerated. They possibly were, but it is probably also true that very large numbers of cattle were seized on such raids. Cattle were also a major form of wealth at the time other civilizations arose in ancient times and remained as very important wealth much longer (as they remain today among African pastoralists). We recall again Lobban’s (1989) suggestion that livestock were the principal wealth that financed the impressive monumental and other costly aspects of the early Egyptian civilization. Harris Papyrus I, compiled in the New Kingdom reign of Ramesses IV (1150 BCE), still listed an almost astronomical 421,362 large and small (i.e., sheep and goats) cattle in the Temple of Amen at Thebes, with 45,544 more for the Temple of Heliopolis, 10,047 in the Temple of Memphis and a total of 13,433 in several smaller temples. Given the exact numbers recorded, 52

Egyptian Temple Herds and Cattle Wealth the important livestock censusing oft referred to elsewhere, the considerable variation in livestock numbers listed temple to temple plus the absence of incentives here to overstate, as in conquests, we think those numbers, very large even by modern standards, are probably accurate indicators of the great cattle wealth possessed by individual Egyptian temples. And, in that papyrus, Ramesses III is said to have offered from his own royal herd to the Temple of Heliopolis alone, 966 bulls, 1,886 calves, 5,911 cows and thousands of other animals. Thus, there were considerable economic, as well as religious, influences that stimulated early Egyptian interest in the care, health and general well-being of cattle. An additional word is, therefore, needed about the generality of cattle as wealth from antiquity to the present since that is also a concept far removed from most present-day minds in the West. Not only does the modern word ‘capital’ itself (literally ‘head’) derive originally from ‘head of cattle’, but ‘chattel’ is even more directly related etymologically to cattle. In explaining the origins of such even-then ancient ideas about wealth to his own contemporaries, the 1st century BCE Roman chronicler Marcus Terrentius Varro (Hooper and Ash, 1935: 317–319) noted that ‘up to this day a fine is assessed after the ancient fashion in oxen and sheep; the oldest copper coins were marked with cattle, … the very word for money [pecus] is derived from them, for cattle are the basis for all wealth.’ And, even in modern European languages, both of those meanings of pecus survive. For example, in Spanish, peculio means ‘a stock of money’ and pecunia ‘hard cash’, while pecuaria still retains its original meaning ‘of or pertaining to cattle.’ The English words pecuniary and impecunious for ‘monetary’ and ‘poor’ respectively have the same cattle origin and similar associations also persist, of course, in such more recently derived financial terms as ‘stock market’, ‘bull market’ and ‘watered stock.’ It is significant too in that regard that the very first letter of the Greek and Latin alphabets represents a bovine head with curved horns lying on its side in Greek and upside down (A) in Latin, symbols both derived ultimately from a Sumerian ox head antecedent. That is, cattle were apparently the first thing ancient peoples felt a need to enumerate and record as wealth. But the importance of this wealth to Egypt can be gauged in other ways than the stated numbers of animals maintained. Important titles related to oversight of particular species in the royal exchequer or as property of particular temples. Moreover, important events were dated by reference to the counting of this wealth, as for example in ‘the year of the second census of cattle’ in such and such a king’s reign (see Wilkinson, 1999: 114.). The apparent censusing of people appeared less important to the Egyptian scribes. Finally, we want simply to mention here one other unusual Egyptian equation with bulls – that of baboons – one which also figures prominently in the funerary literature and to which we return in some detail in Chapter 7. 53

Chapter Three. Predynastic Egypt as ‘Cattle Culture’ Baboons as Bulls Suffice it to note initially in connection with these bovine associations of pharaohs, gods and sun, that the baboon god Babi, also associated with Seth, and some other baboons, were frequently called bull. Interesting, too, in a more general power sense, is that, while the Egyptian hieroglyphic determinative for ‘rage’ is an aggressive bull’s head (F2), that for ‘be furious’ is a baboon (E32). Illustrative of the baboon’s stated associations especially with magical powers in the Egyptian mind is the apparently enigmatic CT Utterance 573: ‘I have cut off the baboons (?) and their vertebrae, I eat of the Green One, I have gulped down the Red One.... I eat of their magic, I gulp down their powers.... Their powers are within me.... Their magic is in my belly …’, for which we will venture a biological explanation in Chapter 7.

Conclusions With a number of earlier students of Predynastic Egypt, we see it as closely resembling surviving cattle-centered pastoral societies on the Upper Nile and elsewhere within the greater Nile basin. The way of life within this area has been described by anthropologists as the East African Cattle Complex or cattle culture. Nabta Playa provides a possible origin for the ancient Egyptian cattle culture. Similar cattle-centered societies were apparently commonplace in antiquity at the dawn of not only the Egyptian but of several other Old World civilizations. Within each of them cattle-keeping was multiply and closely associated with the emergence of religion, as well as with plant agriculture beyond a bare subsistence level. We add a third close association with the evolution of rudimentary biomedical science. In Predynastic Egypt, the beginnings of this process can be glimpsed in connection with hunting magic rooted in their human chiefs’ admiration of and sense of competition with the powerful, brave, libidinous and otherwise majestic bull of domestic cattle’s wild aurochs ancestor, as well as his tribe’s need for milk and pieces of muscle cut from a living animal. Not only did they emulate this great herd dominator and defender but so closely identified themselves with it as to justify the pharaoh’s own special leader status by his claiming descent from a great cow goddess. She was assimilated at some early point into the firmament and a cosmology in which major celestial bodies were frequently described in a bovine idiom. Central to this emergent religion – and associated life science – was bull sacrifice and associated rituals. Finally, as Frankfort (1948: 162) so astutely noted ‘The[se] cattle cults of Egypt … differ from all other animal cults in that they can be approached in 54

Conclusions two ways, in addition to the usual approach through religious documents. One takes as its starting-point writings which are not primarily religious, or a least not primarily concerned with the worship of cattle. The other [see our Chapter 1] seeks a way to understanding by starting from modern observations of an attitude toward cattle [among present-day Nilotes] which resembles that of the ancients.’ To those we will add a third research approach, that of the experimental biologist.

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CHAPTER FOUR. THE APPROACH OF COMPARATIVE BIOMEDICINE Some writers identify the creative act in its entirety with the unearthing of hidden analogies. – Arthur Koestler, 1964: 200 Compare birth with death, compare death with life, compare … what is not possible [to know] with what is possible. – Chuang Tzu, 4th–3rd C BCE By far the most important technique of [Greek] research in natural science … was dissection [of animals], a method which can be traced back as far as Alcmaeon [6th century BCE], and which included not only dissection of dead animals, but also … vivisection. – G.E.R. Lloyd, 1966

Concerning the mental processes involved in speculations about natural phenomena in pre-Socratic Greece, Lloyd (1966: 7) noted that, during the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, some Greeks had begun to classify and explain things either by their being related to one of a pair of opposites or by their ‘being likened or assimilated to something else.’ The Greeks’ principal natural arena for such inquiries was bodily structure – i.e., comparative anatomy. If the bodies of people and particular animals resembled one another in 1 to n features, they probably also resembled each other in feature n+1. It was precisely through such reasoning that Lloyd sensed an implicit emergence then among the Greeks of certain ‘rules of evidence’, a process of observations and inferences, which Aristotle eventually made explicit as logic and, as applied to nature, of science.1 1 Such fundamental reasoning is still the basis, of course, for the dichotomous taxonomic keys of modern biological classification. Moreover, it is an equally simple matter to reason relations between some linear opposites (such as attraction and repulsion) and cycles or other patterns, as in Taoist yang and yin opposites in relation to the cyclical taos of the heavens, earth and self (as exemplified in the yang-yin symbol). In modern applications, we have the linear movements of a piston in relation to the rotary motion of a crankshaft or drivewheel, or of the rotary motion of a cam shaft to the linear movement of valves.

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Chapter Four. The Approach of Comparative Biomedicine If we were to relate these criteria of Lloyd’s (1966: 7) to Egypt, we would seek similar evidence for evolution of a rudimentary scientific process – especially through resort to dissection. Beyond such inquiries into the Egyptians’ bases for hypothesis generation concerning significant biomedical questions, we would note, with Steuer and Saunders (1959: 1) in their prior elucidation of an Egyptian theory of pathogenesis (see our Chapter 9), that ‘to entertain an hypothesis is to challenge the mind to experiment, thus putting thought into action’ – surely the most unique characteristic of science. That is, ‘how far do … [the Egyptians] appear to have recognized the desirability of checking and corroborating their accounts by empirical methods’? Besides resorting to dissection and analogical reasoning, did ancient Egyptians attempt to link these to experiment or to more explicitly argue or demonstrate uses for certain of them? Clearly ancient Egyptian priests engaged in considerable speculative thought about the biological phenomena of life and death (see Chapter 2). If – through observations that living bodies move, dead ones do not – some priests concluded that movement is a ‘property of life’, did they then theorize that living bodies must possess and require some ‘animating principle’? Evidence cited in Chapter 2 about what the Egyptians called ka suggest they may have. But, beyond such purely speculative reasoning, did they attempt to confirm the existence and mode of action of such a principle through further observations and experiments? Did they then attempt to apply such information, for example to revive a dead body with the animating principle living bodies possessed? Or did they attempt to use that ‘quickening’ principle to prevent living bodies from dying? We can conclude with Lloyd that, while recognizing the scientific value of same-opposite dichotomies, there is scant evidence that pre-Socratic Greeks distinguished among a spectrum of possible relationships between such classificatory extremes; there was apparently a virtual exclusion of intermediary categories. Is there any evidence, therefore, that illness was seen by the Egyptians as an intermediary stage between the opposites of life and death? In a related vein, did the Egyptians regard creation, procreation and recreation (revivification) as analogous processes and attempt to demonstrate that? If, by analogically linking not only such phenomena (but others in more disparate realms), did they not, perhaps, possess an ultimately more realistic or scientific mindset per se than one based, as in today’s West, largely upon hyperspecialization – the compartmentalization or fragmentation of knowledge and its pursuit (see Table 1.1 and Chapter 9 and Epilogue)?

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Analogy and Biomedical Progress Analogy and Biomedical Progress Before moving on to specifically Egyptian evidence for theory formulation, testing and/or use, we need to consider briefly the prominence throughout history of the analogical approach to acquiring biomedical knowledge. Lloyd (1979: 167) had already made the point for the Greeks that ‘the history of dissection is one in which an empirical technique was eventually applied with great success to a wide range of problems in anatomy and physiology.’ And, as the works of Aristotle testify, and Lloyd affirms, these dissections and other observations on animals provided – with others on apparent movements of heavenly bodies – the most accessible windows upon understanding nature more generally, the workings of our natural world. But, whatever conclusions pursuit of such questions in Egypt might yield, we are left with no evidence that the Egyptians (nor the pre-Socratic Greeks) recognized the ‘law of contradiction’, that is, if one explanation for a phenomenon were correct, others could not be. Rather, they persisted in the belief that the more explanations advanced for a phenomenon the stronger the case or result, that is, multiple explanations were considered complimentary, not mutually exclusive. Therefore, in following such leadings, we are not prepared to argue, as does Lloyd (1966) for pre-Socratic Greeks, that implicit rules of evidence and approaches to information acquisition on the part of ancient Egyptians fed directly into a process culminating in explicitly formulated ‘scientific method.’ Rather, we are content to argue that, in the area of biomedical unknowns, the Egyptian priesthood did take some consequential steps beyond random trial and error – or purely magical resort to analogy – to evolve rudiments of an orderly process of comparative biomedical inquiry, which has served well the interests of human health and wellbeing ever since. Moreover, no temporally comparable scientific progress as we shall suggest for Egypt is apparent to us from Greece. That is, the Greek record contains no comparably early linkages, or any clear evidence of an epistemological evolution, from their hunting or Dionysian and other bull sacrifice rituals in the first instance, to practice of temple healing to the approaches to biomedical knowledge acquisition of comparative anatomists like Alcmaeon, then Herophilus, Heraclides and a few others, mostly of the Empirical School, in Ptolemaic Alexandria. In fact, in his chapter on the earliest development of empirical science in Greece, Lloyd (1979: 146–169) noted that, in the absence of evidence obtained through dissections of animals, many Greek anatomical theories remained quite bizarre, citing as an example one expressed in the Hippocratic On Diseases (IV, ch. 39) that the heart, head, spleen and liver (sources of the postulated causal ‘humors’) all communicated directly with the stomach (see also Dodds, 1951). Other than in rare references to things like hydatid cysts in sheep and brain lesions in goats 59

Chapter Four. The Approach of Comparative Biomedicine and speculations from those about human afflictions as well, the Hippocratic Corpus itself is, in fact, surprisingly devoid of explicit linkages between anatomy – much less pathological anatomy – in animals per se and diseases in people (or in their animal counterparts). Lloyd (1990: 29–34) believed further that many of this Corpus’ claimed ‘proofs’ are not borne out internally or otherwise. In fact, it remained for Aristotle among the Greeks, who was not also a healer, to record in Historia Animalium, personal observations upon, plus other lore about, animal diseases and their treatments,2 as well as about animal anatomy and physiology. However, it was not until Heraclides of Tarentum (75 CE), one of the last important healers of the Empirical School in Ptolomaic Alexandria, that we have record of any Greek treatise per se on animal diseases and their treatments (Sarton, 1927, I: 203, 215), and there is no evidence that an analogical approach to pathology or pathogenesis was more widely pursued by Greeks then (see Chapter 8). Thus, there is an apparently long gap or discontinuity within Greek biomedical tradition between its legendary joint medical-veterinary beginnings by the centaur Cheiron and his proteges Melampus, Aristaios and Asklepios (Schwabe, 1978: 113–119), who allegedly treated people and animals, and some few quite late comparative anatomical investigators from Alcmaeon to those of Alexandria. However, we believe productive interactions among religious rituals, animal husbandry and healing – and something beyond a solely anatomical result from them – is apparent in very ancient Egypt, which we will attempt to illustrate in our next chapters. Although Lloyd stressed the great importance to evolution of science generally of such uses of animal dissection by Aristotle and the relatively small number of Greek healers before or after Alexandria’s founding, comparative anatomical inquiry itself was relatively short-lived among the Ptolemaic Greeks, and its influence upon biomedical progress soon waned with rise of several competing ‘schools’ of medical theory based more upon often fanciful speculation than continually acreting factual evidence. While those schools’s respective practitioners argued voluably among themselves, little interest persisted in knowledge acquisition through analogy, though no new research process was discovered to replace it. It was not until Galen in Pergamum in the 2nd century CE that the analogical approach saw a temporarily significant rebirth. He, with Rufus of Ephesus and Soranus, cited and elaborated upon the since largely lost works of earlier comparative anatomical investigators such as Herophilus,

2 His account of elephant diseases and their treatments, things he could never have observed himself, very closely parallel those recorded firsthand by Megathenes (Indika), Alexander’s ambassador to Chandragupta’s court in India and probably have that origin.

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Animal Dissections in Egypt Erasistratos and a few others. Moreover, Galen is credited then with having first gone substantially beyond his Alexandrian predecessors to launch comparative – that is, animal – physiology also as a fundamental investigative discipline and avenue for biomedical progress. That involved vivisections and experiments upon a fairly wide range of living animals, including primates. Thus, Aristotle (HA 494b21 ff.), Galen and these rare others in the Greek world all recognized that the only real possibility there to acquire factual knowledge about the human body’s interior and how it worked was a comparative or analogical one. ‘With Aristotle’, Lloyd argued (1979: 164) ‘dissection can be said to become, for the first time, an integral part of a general programme of research with well defined aims.’ Lloyd also noted (p. 163) Aristotle’s own belief that, while animals were inferior to the heavenly bodies in providing a rationale for scientific method generally, they had the decided advantage then that there were much better means to investigate them. Then, once again, except for its persistence and advancement to some extent in the Moslem and Jewish worlds (another subject slighted by many western historians of science), comparative biomedical research relapsed, not to be substantially revived until pig dissections began to provide a main basis for the spurt in renewed biomedical progress associated with the first medical curriculum for Christian Europe instituted at Salerno in the 12th century, as knowledge from the Arab-ruled East and Spain became accessible to the West through bicultural Norman Sicily. We view all such events and trends in a context, argued more generally elsewhere (Schwabe, 1978), that the record of biomedical progress throughout history has been a highly episodic one reflected most directly in the different degrees of closeness or distance through time between the human and veterinary branches of medical inquiry and practice. We note especially that, until this day, partly for compelling moral reasons, virtually all important new research findings in physiology remain ones made initially through experiments and observations on living animals. We see that particular stream of progress in biomedicine especially to have had its demonstrable origins not in Greece, but in ancient Egypt.

Animal Dissections in Egypt That is, in some rationally derived physiological theories – not only in their anatomical information – we believe that Egyptian healers from Old Kingdom times or before were considerably in the vanguard vis-à-vis their contemporaries anywhere. As Ghalioungui (1973: 47) and others had noted for Egypt ‘knowledge of animal anatomy must have long preceded that 61

Chapter Four. The Approach of Comparative Biomedicine of human anatomy.3 [In ancient Egypt] every physician was more or less a veterinary surgeon, and the w#bw Priests, the ‘pure priests,’ who were entrusted under the Ancient Empire with ritual inspection of the sacrificial beasts, must have possessed a fair knowledge of that art.’ In the surviving chronological list of pharaohs translated into Greek early in the Ptolemaic period by the Egyptian priest Manetho, we are reminded again that he recorded of the second pharaoh of the First Dynasty, Athothis (ca. 3100 BCE), that ‘his anatomical works are extant, for he was a physician [i.e., iatros]’ (Waddell, 1940: 29–33). These or similar works were said to have been (re?)discovered in the reign of a later pharaoh of the First Dynasty and later given to a Second Dynasty pharaoh Senedy (Breasted, 1930: 5). Also, in an inscription from the time of the Fifth Dynasty pharaoh Neferirkere about his mortally ill vizier, Weshptah, we read ‘his majesty had the royal children, companions, ritual priests, and chief physician come.... His majesty [had] brought for him a case of writings.... They said before his majesty that he [the vizier] was unconscious [and would die]’ (Breasted, 1930: 3; Breasted, 1906, I: 112). Given the sources of anatomical knowledge accessible to early Egyptians (see Chapter 1), we believe that Athothis’ alleged anatomical text and any other lost early works about the body’s structure must have been based upon animal dissections, most likely of the bull sacrificed for millennia by priest-healers in Egyptian rites and whose wild antecedents the pharaohs hunted (see Chapter 3). In passing, we noted in this regard (see Chapter 1) the animal origins of the internal and some external anatomical hieroglyphs, as well as the unique bovine anatomical list compiled by Amenope, a scribe of sacred books in a Per Ankh (AEO I: 35*–36*; AEO II: 237*–256*). In Chapter 3, we postulated that bull sacrifice and dissection were commonly performed in ancient Egypt from Predynastic times onward and were central to important religious rituals, especially those having to do with preservation of life, with resurrection and other funerary practices (Eggebrecht, 1973). The officiating priest at such sacrificial dissections was sometimes also designated a swnw (healer) and, in a number of instances, the text accompanying portrayal of this religio-veterinary ritual indicated he was certifying the purity of the sacrificial steer’s blood, that is, the animal’s state of health (Ghalioungui, 1973: Pl. 9). Beyond such, we mentioned the uniquely sacred characteristics and first person authorship of the very old comparative Kahun Veterinary Papyrus on animal diseases and their treatments (Grapow, 1935), a work far older than

3 Assuming, in lack of evidence, that comparable direct knowledge about the human body ever did actually exist there.

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Continuing Importance of Comparative Biomedicine Heraclides’ lost veterinary text from Ptolemaic Alexandria. We shall defer further discussions of Egyptian healers, the Per Ankh and that papyrus to Chapter 8.4

Continuing Importance of Comparative Biomedicine But, in considering here the probable beginnings of rational knowledge acquisition by analogy in biomedical sciences, it would be useful for readers who are not themselves medical researchers to more fully understand the unique contribution animal observations and studies make to human health. Particularly is that important because a growing number of well-intentioned but ill-informed individuals in today’s West have become zealous propagandists for totally false beliefs that animal research has contributed little if anything of value to human medicine, is in any event an invariably cruel and a totally unneccesary source of knowledge, and should, therefore, be legally banned.5 In fact, as already suggested, medical progress has been a highly episodic process and a case can be made (Schwabe, 1978) that the periods of rapid advances were periods in which human and veterinary medicine and their respective practitioners were closely associated. First, therefore, an explanatory vignette about one exceedingly important modern period in which animal observations and research completely revolutionized medicine, efforts through which human prospects for survival took their greatest historic leap forward.

4 With respect to other pastoralists in antiquity, Vendryes (1918: 265–285) concluded that shared anatomical-pathological vocabularies evident among the wide range of Indo-European languages today possibly reflect information gained by the very earliest Indo-European priests during their own sacrifice of religiously important animals. Moreover, the central religious, social and cultural act of today’s Nilotic Dinka is also the sacrifice of castrated bulls (Lienhardt, 1961; Schwabe, 1987). Dinka do not kill and eat cattle except as part of symbolic acts of sacrifice and communion. Intact bulls or cows are sacrificed only for very important community reasons or upon the death of an important man with grown sons. The animal sacrificed is then dissected with particular organs or parts going to specific individuals or groups. From these bovine rites Dinka atet (their traditional comparative healers) and other elders have had long opportunities to observe, and pass on orally, information about anatomy, physiology and pathology, and from such observations, they have made certain correct or incorrect anatomical and physiological inferences, for example about the origins of body fluids. Such healing atet also are able to recognize a number of bovine and human diseases by their signs and lesions (Schwabe and Kuojok, 1981). In fact, in a different context, one of us recommended (Schwabe and Kuojok, 1981; Majok and Schwabe, 1996) that, because these traditional practitioners of comparative medicine know enough and are widely enough respected, they be coopted today for certain difficult to carry out service interventions among these very difficult to reach migratory pastoralists. 5 See Schwabe (1984c: 252–283, 633, 641–643).

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Chapter Four. The Approach of Comparative Biomedicine The Microbiological Revolution Most of the Microbiological Revolution’s key breakthroughs originated within a ‘natural laboratory’ of spontaneously occurring animal diseases, sometimes involving in the first instance recognition of ‘experiments’ already carried out by Mother Nature herself (see Chapter 9). In other words, many fundamental biomedical discoveries affecting human health (particularly at the population level) have resulted as unanticipated fallouts from observations and experiments on what were originally purely veterinary problems. We shall examine our conclusions about Egyptian biomedicine within those contexts in Chapter 9, but here we consider briefly the historical role of analogy in this strikingly most important period of biomedical progress in all of history. Some of the more revolutionary openings then, like many other important events in science, have had their earlier precursor observations and surmises. For, with truth it has been stated that while ‘art is I, science is we.’ That is, already in 1st century CE Rome, some veterinarians had surmised that contagious agents of disease passed from sick to well animals during epidemic occurrences of some livestock illnesses and that the spread of these diseases could be halted by separating well from sick animals (i.e., quarantine6) and/or killing the sick minority to protect the well (Schwabe, 1984c: 452–454). Some believed certain of these contagions arose in particular environments, an idea which for diseases generally had its precursor in the Hippocratic Airs, Waters and Places. However, the Roman agricultural chronicler Marcus Terrentius Varro (Hooper and Ash, 1935: 209), who drew heavily upon Carthaginian (Phoenician) sources, linked these two ideas of contagion and environment and went so far as to state about livestock kept near swamps that ‘there are bred minute creatures which cannot be seen by the eyes, which float in the air and enter the body through the mouth and nose and cause serious diseases.’ By the 4th century CE, Apsyrtus, chief veterinarian (hippiatros) of Roman emperor Constantine the Great, could be considerably more specific. In first identifying glanders of military horses as a specific disease, he recognized that it passed from horse to horse and proposed quarantine for its prevention. However, it was not until nine hundred years later that the ecclesiastic Albertus Magnus, observing epidemic occurrences of other livestock plagues, acknowledged that such widespread illnesses in animals were not caused by divine will, as still generally believed, and conjectured that some contagious principle present in these sick animals’ ‘corrupt blood’ could be passed from one to others by bites and injuries, close contact and fomites, as well as be airborne (Bederke, 1962). More specifically again,

6

Forster and Heffner (1955, II: 145).

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Continuing Importance of Comparative Biomedicine in the first well-described epidemic of foot-and-mouth disease in Italy in 1546, Giralmo Frascastoro also concluded that it as well as human syphilis newly present epidemically throughout Europe were both being passed from one individual to another, the latter by sexual contact. With this latter, and the recognition that new plague occurrences in port cities coincided with arrival by ship of passengers with the disease, the possibilities of contagion were first considered and quarantines (of affected ships) first implemented in human medicine. About 80 years later Jacques de Solleysel (Froehner, 1968, vol. 3: 64; Smithcors, 1958: 216–217) clearly differentiated glanders from equine strangles, correctly identified farcy as a type of the former, stressed the highly contagious natures of both and strongly prescribed isolation/quarantine of affected horses. Also in the 17th century, with invention of the microscope by van Leeuwenhoek, microscopic life began to be observed in natural waters and rotting plant and animal materials, and was henceforth associated with putrefaction. However, the humoral theory of disease causality remained firmly ensconced in human medicine. In fact, it was not until after founding of the first college of veterinary medicine in France in 1762 that such epidemiological evidence in support of a contagious etiology for many diseases began to be bulwarked by experimental proofs. Transmission of equine strangles was demonstrated by Erik Viborg in 1802, and Eloi Barthelemy transmitted anthrax from sheep to sheep and established the infectiousness of gangrene. In other early instances, Anginiard experimentally transmitted equine infectious anemia, and Chauveau and Villemin proved the transmissibility of bovine tuberculosis so, by the mid-19th century, communicability of a number of animal diseases had been firmly established. During the next stage of this prerevolutionary foment, pioneering experimenters also observed microscopic organisms (i.e., bacteria) in body fluids and tissues of animals with these and other diseases. Some researchers believed those bodies were the contagious principle, but the bulk of physicians resisted that idea, some believing instead that, if these microscopic bodies had any medical significance, it was as products not causes of the associated diseases. These and other microorganisms more generally were still thought by most biologists to arise by spontaneous generation in putrefying materials. However, interactions between physicians and veterinarians became more and more intense as such early revelations cascaded and former barriers between the two branches of medicine quickly fell among most researchers. Thus Casimir Davaine, a physician, first described such bacilli in the blood of cattle with anthrax, while a veterinarian, Frederick Brauell, first observed them in human blood and then transmitted this infection from the infected person to well sheep, experimentally demonstrating both anthrax’s transmissibility and its ability to affect more than one mammalian species. 65

Chapter Four. The Approach of Comparative Biomedicine Then, in 1860 H.M.O. Delafond, director of France’s veterinary college at Alfort, made the observations on anthrax that probably best mark the true onset of the Microbiological Revolution. He observed that such rod-shaped bodies in blood and tissues of infected cattle multiplied as chains outside of the animal’s body in samples of their blood kept in the laboratory (precursor of the key microbiological technique of in vitro cultivation of bacterial pathogens). Next, Delafond suggested that spores also produced in some of these ‘cultures’ were probably etiologically significant. However, in face of anticipated ridicule from organized medicine’s conservative majority, he waffled in asserting unequivocally that these rods and spores were actually the sole causal agents of anthrax: ‘One thing is certain’, Delafond reported nonetheless, ‘inoculation of twenty drops of blood containing a small amount of these anthrax filaments into a healthy animal will transmit anthrax, and these filaments will then start to multiply at a fantastic rate in the blood of this new host as well as in the lymph and in the tissues and organs’ (Ramon, 1962). It was 18 years, however, before Delafond’s prescient microscopic and in vitro discoveries about the etiologic agent of anthrax and its behavior were generally accepted. That followed confirmation by Robert Koch, who had inoculated infectious anthrax material into mice, isolated the bacilli in vitro on his new solid media and demonstrated that these multiplying microorganisms would produce anthrax when injected into other healthy animals. In that period of intense scientific rivalry between France and Germany, the latter trumpeted Koch’s findings, while France promoted especially the similarly important, but even more broadly based microbiological work of the innovative chemist Louis Pasteur. Many others were also involved at the same time in a rapid succession of very important discoveries, although this officially promoted chauvinistic competition between Europe’s two continental powers encouraged among the public (and in the conclusions of most subsequent medical historians) what became essentially Pasteur and Koch cults, a partial distortion of the record through what R.K. Merton (1968, 1988) has since described as the ‘Matthew Effect’ in science.7 In Pasteur’s case, attention has only lately been redirected to other historically neglected but seminal contributors to this monumental work for which he is generally credited (Ramon, 1962; Schwabe, 1978: 169–170; 1984c: 187–188), particularly to veterinarians Henri Toussaint and Victor Galtier. These pioneering scientists have been boosted finally to their more rightful places, especially through Geison’s (1995) detailed and critical publication of Pasteur’s actual research notebooks. But, despite such fundamental etiological advances in this new science of bacteriology, a number of other economically disruptive epidemic livestock 7 Matthew 13:2 ‘For to him who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away.’ (See also Matthew 25:29).

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Continuing Importance of Comparative Biomedicine diseases, such as rinderpest, foot-and-mouth disease and contagious bovine pleuropneumonia, still eluded, well into the 1890s, the efforts of these earliest bacteriologists to demonstrate or isolate their causal agents. Finally, in response to a major threat from foot-and-mouth disease to Germany’s dairy industry and largely ox-powered plant agriculture, its government set up in 1897 a special high level commission headed by Frederich Loeffler and Paul Frosch (both of Koch’s Institute). These investigators demonstrated that body fluids from infected cattle when passed through porcelain filters that retained all bacteria would still transmit foot-and-mouth disease – hence the new term ‘filterable viruses’ for a completely new class of infectious agents. According to Wilkinson (1978), this major breakthrough on foot-and-mouth disease ‘set the scene for the animal experiments which for many years to come would remain the chief means of exploring the behaviour of filterable viruses, until the introduction of improved tissue culture techniques and of [chicken] egg culture methods during the 1930s and 1940s.’ That is, similar viral etiologies were soon demonstrated for rabbit myxomatosis, African horsesickness, fowl plague and a number of other animal infections. In fact, of the ten viruses that had been isolated through 1903, only that of rabies was one shared also by human beings, and it too could only be isolated and propagated in animals. For other human diseases presumably caused also by viruses, if no suitable animal host were discovered, nothing at all could be done. Two other unanticipated human health breakthroughs resulted from this very early discovery of the fowl plague virus in particular because it was eventually identified as the ‘type’ influenza virus. One breakthrough resulted from the finding that fowl plague (and other poultry viruses) could be propagated easily and cheaply in large quantities in different tissues and fluids of the embryonated chicken egg. The second was that, not only influenza viruses themselves, but some other mammalian and human viruses could also be isolated, propagated and studied in chick embryos.8 In a similar breakthrough, Edmond Nocard and Emile Roux of Pasteur’s Institute had demonstrated in 1898, in the instance of contagious bovine pleuropneumonia, a further completely different non-viral class of filterable agent, microorganisms barely visible on light microscopy, but which they succeeded in culturing in vitro. These first known intermediates between true bacteria and viruses, now called mycoplasmas, were identified subsequently as agents of other important diseases of mammalian livestock and poultry as well, but only comparatively recently have they been shown also to cause significant human diseases of previously unknown cause. 8 The related discovery that a number of still elusive encephalitis viruses of animals and people could be similarly isolated is newborn mouse brains permitted other major advances in both human and animal virology.

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Chapter Four. The Approach of Comparative Biomedicine Of equally profound importance was isolation in Denmark in 1908 of the first known cancer virus, cause of a form of fowl leukemia, followed by others causing additional cancers in poultry and mammals. Such findings moved much closer to human medicine in 1971 and 1972, when a University of California veterinary school team isolated the first two cancer viruses from non-human primates. According to Gaston Ramon (1962), one of the Pasteur Institute’s most renowned scientists, within a quite short period graduates of Europe’s newly created veterinary schools (Schwabe, 1978: 161–164; 1984c: 165) and others had convincingly demonstrated ‘the role played by infectious germs in virulent [livestock] diseases and, on the other hand, contribut[ed] to the discovery of means to prevent these infections.’ That is, in the equally important immunological facet of this Microbiological Revolution, such crossfertilizations between the human and veterinary fields were also seminal. As a very well-known precursor example, Edward Jenner, who also studied other animal diseases like equine stringhalt and canine distemper, had successfully immunized people against smallpox using infectious lymph from cattle with naturally occurring cowpox, hence the etymological origin from ‘cattle’ of the word ‘vaccinate’. The first artificially attenuated vaccine, that against fowl cholera, resulted from an accidental cause and an especially astute follow-through by Pasteur to this chance occurrence of ‘spoiled’ cultures of the responsible bacterium. That organism had been sent to Pasteur by Henri Toussaint who first isolated it in vitro following its microscopic demonstration by the Italian Eduardo Perroncito in tissues from infected chickens. Subsequent production of an attentuated anthrax vaccine by Pasteur, Chamberland and Roux employed the principle of deliberate heat attenuation used first by Toussaint in making a less successful anthrax vaccine. Pasteur’s improved chemically-attenuated vaccine again followed another lead by Toussaint. Equally seminal to Pasteur’s work on rabies vaccination were prior immunization studies on rabies by Victor Galtier, professor in the Lyon veterinary school (Schwabe, 1984: 188). However, Pasteur’s own explanations of how these first vaccines worked were incorrect ones; the contrary theory of J.B.A. Chauveau set the stage for subsequent detection and characterization of antibodies and their interactions with vaccines and other antigens. Considering that, until discovery of the antibacterial actions of sulfonamides, then antibiotics – many decades after these pioneering vaccination discoveries – nothing could be done directly to treat people or animals once they had acquired most infectious diseases, this preventive immunological work was of untold consequence to human health and life expectancy. It simply dwarfed everything accomplished before then in medical science. The easiest way to illustrate that in our context of animal studies is to indicate the veterinary associations of most of the vaccines which now comprise the 68

Continuing Importance of Comparative Biomedicine armamentarium for the World Health Organization’s most extensive program globally (with cooperation of UNICEF), namely the Expanded Program of Immunization (EPI), an ambitious attempt to protect all the world’s children from several major yet readily preventable causes of illness and death. Human tuberculosis vaccine, employing an attenuated bovine tuberculosis bacterium, was developed by a physician-veterinarian team in the Pasteur Institute. Diphtheria and tetanus immunization both employ another type of vaccine called a toxoid, the underlying principle for which, as well as those specific vaccines, were contributions of another Pasteur Institute veterinarian, Gaston Ramon. Against whooping cough, a still different type of vaccine called a killed bacterin is used. Its principle and prototype vaccine (against swine salmonellosis, caused by the first identified Salmonella bacterium) were discoveries of Daniel Salmon and Theobald Smith, another veterinarian-physician team from the U.S. federal veterinary service. Measles vaccine, another EPI weapon, does not have so direct a veterinary connection although measles virus, canine distemper virus and cattle rinderpest virus are ‘first cousins’.9 The latter two were isolated and effective vaccines developed decades before a measles vaccine became available. Finally, to indicate the depth of some of these key medical-veterinary interactions during and following the Microbiological Revolution, let us consider the history of a single major human disease – one of these EPI diseases – tuberculosis. At the turn of this century, it was the principal cause of death in the United States. We know now that most human pulmonary tuberculosis is caused by a mycobacterium transmitted directly from person to person. However, a closely related organism causes bovine tuberculosis, an infection also readily communicable to people, especially via infected cow’s milk. In people, bovine infection seldom involves the lungs, but has been responsible for virtually all other human tuberculosis. The first major contribution to understanding the nature of tuberculosis was recognition in 1790 by J.B. Huzard, one of France’s first veterinary graduates and leading proponent of rural health services for people as well as animals, that this common debilitating and generally fatal disease in people closely resembled clinically and pathologically the economically important disease of confined dairy cattle. Noting further that the cattle disease usually involved multiple animals in a herd, Huzard theorized that it was contagious and went on to suggest that the causes of the human and bovine diseases might well be the same and that it could possibly be transmissible between these two host species. 9 Immunological, epidemiological and demographic evidence suggests that rinderpest of cattle is the parent virus, that measles virus is derived from it and canine distemper virus from measles virus. For example, it is possible to immunize puppies against distemper with measles and rinderpest vaccines, as well as canine distemper vaccine.

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Chapter Four. The Approach of Comparative Biomedicine It was not until 68 years later, however, that another French veterinary professor, the renowned physiologist and microbiologist, J.B.A. Chauveau, demonstrated natural transmission of the bovine infection and induced it in cattle using infectious material from human patients, thus proving also its zoonotic nature. Later Germany’s Robert Koch isolated the responsible bacillus, and Theobald Smith, a physician with the U.S. federal veterinary service, differentiated bacteriologically between the bovine and human organisms. Edmond Nocard, another veterinarian from the Pasteur Institute, later identified a third pathogenic tuberculosis mycobacterium. The next major breakthrough occurred in 1891 when Bernard Bang, a Danish veterinary microbiologist, showed that metabolic products of the in vitro cultivation of tubercle bacilli, when injected subcutaneously into infected cattle, produced a local reaction diagnostic of tuberculosis. His tuberculin test was soon being applied to millions of cattle in Europe and North America and provided the scientific backbone for launching national campaigns against the bovine disease, an effort with major economic and human health repercussions. Eradication, or near eradication, of bovine tuberculosis from many areas once infected eliminated human nonpulmonary infection at the same time, an achievement chronicled by physician epidemiologist J.A. Myers (1940) in Man’s Greatest Victory Over Tuberculosis. In 1907 French physician Clement Pirquet introduced this tuberculin test to human medicine. Most human testing since has been with a purified antigen (PPD) developed in U.S. federal veterinary laboratories. Besides tuberculin testing, another cornerstone of the current WHOcoordinated campaign against human tuberculosis in the Third World has been the vaccine BCG (bacillus of L.C.A. Calmette and Alphonse Guérin, the Pasteur Institute team who developed it for use in cattle). Ironically, BCG proved of no value against cattle tuberculosis in the field, but, as indicated above, it has been widely used to immunize people. The most recent breakthrough in the fight against human pulmonary tuberculosis – rendering an at least temporary coup de grace to the disease in a number of countries – was the advent of therapeutic drugs to replace often unsuccessful sanitorium rest and/or radical lung surgery as treatments. Research leading to this treatment success (first with the newly discovered antibiotic streptomycin) was carried out in animals by William Feldman, professor of experimental pathology in the Mayo Clinic. That advance permitted tubercular patients to be treated henceforth at home on an outpatient basis.10 It was

10

How essential the existence of animal hosts for the tuberculosis mycobacterium and this close medical-veterinary cooperation were in this major medical success is illustrated superbly by the contrasting record of essentially no progress against human leprosy, caused by a closely related bacillus, Mycobacterium leprae, for which, until recently, there was no known animal host.

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Conclusions no accident, moreover, that such an experimental discovery by a veterinarian took place in that world-famed medical treatment center, which had led in establishing a research function among America’s non-academic hospitals. One of the Mayo Clinic’s three founding partners was veterinarian Christopher Graham, who established its pioneering hospital diagnostic laboratory. By 1897, he had written that, through these epochal discoveries in animals during the Microbiological Revolution, veterinary or comparative pathology had fully joined historically important comparative anatomy and comparative physiology as major research bulwarks for improved understanding of human afflictions. It was for reasons such as these that Luther Terry, a former Surgeon General of the United States Public Health Service, noted more than 30 years ago that ‘we in the public health profession … owe to veterinarians wholly or in generous measure, a number of basic ideas upon which our profession is built’ (Terry, 1963). We return to such scientific relationships between the two branches of medicine in Chapter 9, but now we are ready to see what they led to in ancient Egypt.

Conclusions Scientific logic, and its applications to examining and explaining the natural world, have their origins in recognition of ‘sames’ and ‘opposites’ and their implications. The principal arena in antiquity for their application to natural science was animal dissection. Thus evolved the analogical or comparative approach to identifying and elucidating biomedical phenomena with respect not only to its animal subjects, but also people. This method for evidence collection sometimes led to rational formulation of causal and other explanatory hypotheses and sometimes also to confirmatory experiments. What we explore in this book is the possibility that the Egyptians may have evolved the crucial beginnings for such an orderly biomedical process considerably in advance of its documented origins also within the Greekspeaking world. This would have originated in dissections and vivisections of bulls as key parts of religious rituals. These origins for biomedical research are supported by the continuing importance throughout the highly episodic history of medical progress of observations and experiments upon animals and their spontaneously occurring diseases, as exemplified critically in modern times by the life-extending discoveries of the Microbiological Revolution, discoveries which dwarfed all prior medical progress.

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CHAPTER FIVE. ‘LIVE FLESH’: RUDIMENTS OF MUSCLE PHYSIOLOGY ‘Spiritus’ … [in Latin originally] meant simply breath or wind, it was deliberately employed … to express ‘the principle of life within man or animal.’ – Owen Barfield, 1973: 80 After [the Nilotic Nuer] sacrifice to a spirit, you can see the flesh of the speared beast twitching as the spirit pulls at it. – Evans-Pritchard, 1956: 212

Given the preoccupation of the Egyptian priesthood with death and rebirth (see Chapter 2) and the persistent prominence of bovine imagery, and cattle more generally, from very early times – especially the bull sacrifice’s uniquely central role in religious rituals intended to prolong life or achieve revivification of the dead (see Chapter 3) – what can we now say about how priests and others learned from, and attempted to use that situation?

Motion and Irritability as Evidences of Life Movement certainly would have been among the first phenomena primitive peoples associated with life. Live bodies move; dead ones do not. More interesting, therefore, than dissections of obviously dead bull cadavers, from the standpoint of deriving theories about life’s force, would have been instances of ritual vivisection.1 This chapter concerns especially the initial stages of Egyptian bull sacrifice (Montet, 1910; Eggebrecht, 1973 passim), particularly amputation of one of the bull’s forelimbs. That surgical act was the main focus of their ritual slaughters (Junker, 1938: 229 ff.; Eggebrecht, 1973: 53). When viewed in light of associated beliefs and rituals, as illuminated by their simulations in the laboratory, plus some apparently 1 One form of vivisection which preceded at some point the usually portrayed act of cattle sacrifice was castration, in that the bovine subjects of sacrifice were almost always portrayed as castrated animals (Boessneck, 1975: 3). That operation will not be discussed by us, however, since there is no evidence (see Chapter 6) that the testes were considered by Egyptian priests to be the source of semen. Castration surgery was performed originally, like nose-ringing and horn operations, as a behavior modifier, to control the powerful and untrustworthy bull in domestication.

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Chapter Five. Rudiments of Muscle Physiology

Fig. 5.1 – Old Kingdom Egyptian bull sacrifice showing the first stage of vivisection, amputation of one forelimb from the tomb of Idut. Note the secure three-leg restraint of the bull (Macramallah, 1935: Pl. 15).

parallel beliefs and practices of present-day cattle culture Nilotes, it is easy to conclude that Egyptian priests not only observed and pondered the biological principle of irritability (i.e., response upon stimulus) of excised muscle tissues, but experimentally demonstrated contraction of whole muscles, that is, induced significant movement of this detached, jointed limb, through mechanical stimulation. Although muscles were probably not recognized as distinct organs by early cattle culture Egyptians, exposure of the sacrifice’s flesh would have revealed then, as in any freshly killed vertebrate now, spontaneous muscle bundle (fascicle) contractions, or fasciolations (tremors), i.e., their still ‘living’ state.2 That is, the animal itself was dead, but certain of its tissues remained alive. These movements only gradually subsided, and this could easily be interpreted as loss by muscle flesh of some innate property (‘magic’) of life. What evidence is there that early Egyptians not only observed such spontaneous muscle fasciolations and drew those inferences from them but attempted to apply them in revivification or other healing practice? During sacrifice, in which the bull’s forelimb was almost invariably the first part removed (Fig. 5.1 and Montet, 1910: 56; Eggebrecht: 25, 53 ff.), it is often shown being borne away even before any further incisions were made. Some scenes show numerous otherwise intact bulls each on its back with its one severed forelimb resting on its sternum. Haste was evidently 2 Veterinarians commonly euthanize one or more sick animals from an affected herd to perform diagnostic necropsy examinations (autopsies) under ideal circumstances. Moreover, a common veterinary public health function is supervision of livestock slaughter and meat handling and processing as part of food safety practice.

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Opening-of-the-Mouth Ritual

Fig. 5.2 – One of the detailed scenes from the Opening-of-the-Mouth ritual for the deceased in the Eighteenth Dynasty tomb of Rekhmire. Priest presenting one amputated forelimb of a sacrificed bull to the deceased; another forelimb is on the ground before the officiant (Davies, 1943: Pls. 105–106).

considered important and a number of scenes show someone running off with one severed forelimb. In the Sixth Dynasty mastaba of Ankhmahor at Saqqara, the workers are continually told to hurry up. ‘Put this foreleg on the offering table, and hurry.’ ‘Let me go with you. (There is) a hurry today’ (Badawy, 1978: 35–37, 53, Fig. 47). In another Sixth Dynasty tomb of Khentika similarly ‘Let the foreleg come away, hurry up!’ and ‘Finish with the haunch, my companion. Hurry up!’ (James, 1953: 54–56, Pl. XXII). In both tombs is also a frequent expression hn.k . m #nh, variously translated ˘ or ‘as you are fresh as ‘by thy life’ (Badawy, 1978: 35–36; James, 1953: 55) in life.’ Its juxtaposition to cattle slaughter could indicate that the Egyptians were merely punning, but perhaps they meant something more.3 From the Eighteenth Dynasty this expression may also be found with a hn . m #nh w As ˘ (WB III: 103 and, about and together, see Chapter 7).

Opening-of-the-Mouth Ritual One very important use for this freshly severed appendage was in the Opening-of-the-Mouth ceremony (see Chapter 2), a significant part of re3 As noted by Faulkner (1976: 171) and Meeks (1980: 248; 1981: 251), hn may also mean ‘to . go speedily’, which may add another layer to the pun in this case. That is, if the forelegs are brought speedily, they are fresh with life.

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Chapter Five. Rudiments of Muscle Physiology vivification ritual, originally for the dead pharaoh only, subsequently for others (Pyramid Text Utterances 20–22, 34, 38, 407, 602). Details of this ceremony were shown especially well in the 18th Dynasty tomb of Rekhmire (Fig. 5.2 and Davies, 1943: 74–77 and Pls. V.2, XCV–CX, CXII, 3, 4). In it the deceased’s mouth was touched or rubbed with the severed forelimb of the sacrifice.4 Egyptologists have not adequately explained this ritual use of the bull’s forelimb. We would note further that this ceremony was performed also at funerals of incarnations of the Apis bull god (Helck and Otto, 1975: 341; Spiegelberg, 1920). Kákosy (1970: 109–115) indicated evidence for death rituals for animals from Badarian times and, from texts and pictures accompanying mummies of sacred rams of Khnum from the cemetery at Elephantine, and previously published evidence with respect to sacred bulls (Apis and Buchis) and ibises, he concluded (p. 113) that ‘the Opening-of-the-Mouth ceremony was one of the most important elements in the burial of animals.’ Apis was closely associated with the early chthonic creator god Ptah, and it is interesting in this connection that in many depictions of the human ceremony, a representative of, or victim for, the deceased was clothed in the skin of a bull (Lefébure, 1904: 16–19). Weigall (1915) and Schaeffer (1918) directed attention to especially interesting New Kingdom funeral scenes from tombs and papyri in which all or part of the forelimb was being amputated from an obviously living calf shown standing and bellowing during the operation. Those scenes provided the first evidence that the forelimb intended for funeral rites might come from a still living animal.5 Junker (1938) concluded subsequently from his study of Fourth Dynasty tomb scenes at Giza, that, during the Old Kingdom as well, living steers, after being cast, then very thoroughly restrained by tying their two hind pasterns and one front pastern together (see Chapter 3), had their other free front limb amputated.6 He based that conclusion of sacrificial vivisection of these considerably older animals upon absence of 4 Because of the use of the bull’s forelimb in the representation of the revivification of the deceased, we also ought to take another look at expressions such as whm . #nh ‘repeating life’ ˘ and whm . msw ‘repeating of births’, since both are written with the bull’s forelimb hieroglyph, to see whether they might have more literal meanings than is usually supposed (Gordon and Schwabe, 1998: 468–469). 5 Eggebrecht (1973: 56) cites also Bonnet, Reallexikon, S. 489 and Budge, Book of the Dead, Facsimile of the Papyrus of Ani, pl. 6. 6 This elaborate type of full body restraint practiced by the Egyptians during bull sacrifice is totally unnecessary and needlessly time-consuming if the aim is simply to cut the animal’s throat or otherwise to quickly despatch it. As examples, the Nilotic Dinka cast and similarly restrain bulls (tying all four pasterns together) only when they intend to perform a castration or other vivisection (i.e., surgery; Ryle, 1982: Pl. on pp. 86–87). However, when sacrificing a bull (usually by spearing its heart) Dinka simply tie its neck halter to a tethering peg. Similarly, in kosher or Moslem slaughterhouses, simple manual head restraint only is all that is required before the steer’s throat is cut.

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Opening-of-the-Mouth Ritual any visible throat incisions and the graphic ‘thrashing about’ of the operated animal’s tail (Badawy, 1976: Fig. 30c; James, 1978: Pl. 22; Lepsius, 1849– 1858: 24, 35; 1913: xxxi). Also portrayed occasionally was defecation by the sacrificial bull during its leg amputation (Vandier V, 1, 1969: Fig. 76c). While some other scenes of bull sacrifice do show its neck vessels cut early in the process,7 and even the collection of spurting blood, this does not always clearly precede forelimb amputation. In any event these indications that a live animal and speed might be of essence are noteworthy. We ask at this point why the bull’s forelimb should have been the vehicle especially chosen for touching to the mouth of the deceased (pharaoh) or bull god? Here there is a simple anatomical explanation, namely that the forelimb is the only musculo-skeletal assemblage that can be removed from a mammal without fairly messy and laborious dissection, involving timeconsuming disarticulation of a joint or the cutting of bone. In fact, if the living steer is immobilized in dorsal recumbancy, as was the Egyptian practice, its free forelimb may be readily amputated intact by a skilled dissector with but a single stroke or two of a sharp knife passed from the axilla down between the limb’s scapula and the animal’s rib cage and thoracic spine. A bull being sacrificed in that position may already be shown in the late Gerzean Hierakonopolis paintings (Quibell and Green, 1902: Pl. LXXV). Lhote (1963: 20–21, Pl. 18) also portrayed a major rock drawing of cattle and herdsmen from a shelter at Jabbaren in the Tassili-n-Ajjer sandstone massif of the Diyala region of the Sahara in which two dissectors are shown with an adult ox which is on the ground and from which one front leg has been removed. This severed forelimb lies on the ground next to it.8 These scenes may date from 3500 BCE or earlier. 7 Eggebrecht (1973) concluded – because dissection of cattle in some sacrifice scenes is shown preceded by (or accompanied by) cutting of the animal’s throat, a practice which he equated with the Hebrew shehitah (German Schächten) in which the carotid arteries supplying the brain are quickly severed – that it must have been the sole method of Egyptian cattle sacrifice. He held that was so even when it was not shown in a particular scene (as in those cited from Giza). He advanced as reasons for believing such a killing practice was universal in Egypt (1) that Egyptians probably had observed that ‘meat’ kept longer when bled out and (2) that cattle vivisection was too barbaric a practice to have been practiced by ancient Egyptians (Eggebrecht, 1973: 55 ‘such a cruel custom’, 57 ‘barbarous act’, 64 ‘barbaric ritual’). We believe both of those explanations highly unlikely and consider, partly on grounds of the elaborate restraint employed for sacrifice, that vivisection of a fully conscious animal was usually practiced. Also that in an 11th Dynasty stele (Perrot and Chipiez, 1883, Fig. 86) where the throat is being cut first, the bull has been cast only and is not restrained by binding its legs which are all free. Moreover, Eggebrecht (1973: 38–41and 47) can describe only five examples of kosher-type slaughter from the Old Kingdom and none from the New Kingdom or later. In any event, our thesis is unaffected by such considerations since, as our own experimental sacrifices demonstrated, even when the carotid arteries are cut and the bull bled completely, gross contractions and fasciolations of its forelimb muscles can still be induced mechanically for at least two hours post-mortem. 8 In this same area are also portrayed bovine heads with the sun disk.

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Chapter Five. Rudiments of Muscle Physiology Interestingly, too, this removal of its forelimb exposes to the dissector’s view the bull’s thoracic spine. That anatomical relation could be perceived readily as forelimb (scapula) protects (hides) thoracic vertebrae, as suggested in CT Spell 759: ‘[the deceased knows] the secret path in which is the vertex of Re and these four knots [sic, i.e., vertebrae, see Chapter 6] which belong to the celestial kine [cattle] are hidden (?) because of them, I also know … what is loosed for it is the backbone, when Re speaks about it. See (?), you are lifted up alive’. As we shall suggest in Chapter 6, that fact that the bull’s forelimb and spine meet at the thoracic portion of the spine makes those particular vertebrae especially important sources of life’s ‘magic’ (Schwabe et al., 1982). Is there evidence that Egyptian priests may not only have observed and pondered, but also induced, muscle fasciolations or even more pronounced muscular contractions (i.e., work), in this freshly excised bovine forelimb? In the Opening-of-the-Mouth ritual there is an intriguing connection between the adze (mshtyw) and the bull’s foreleg (hpˇs), and the adze is frequently ˘ shown being ˘used as a substitute for, or in addition to, the bull’s forelimb for 9 touching to the deceased’s mouth. Both objects were considered ‘imperishable’ or ‘indestructible stars’, that is, the constellation we call the Big Dipper or Great Bear, Ursa Major (Lefébure, 1904: 19–25; Te Velde, 1967: 86; Gordon and Schwabe, 1998: 467), which Egyptians also regarded analogically as the stem and stern of the divine bark (i.e., ‘leg of Apis’).10 In Papyrus Jumilhac, Horus cut off the foreleg of Seth and threw it into the sky where it became the Great Bear (mshtyw). The bull’s leg also became one of Osiris’ sacred relics, as well ˘ as perhaps his murder weapon, since Schott (1957) and Te Velde stated that Seth in the form of a bull may have killed Osiris with his foreleg. That is, the bull’s forelimb and the adze were intimately related. It is clear that both could bring life as well as death to the recipient and, therefore, were very powerful objects. 9 According to Gardiner (AEO 1: 4*), the mshtyw was originally an adze because of its determinative in Pyramid Text 458. However, the ˘adze and the foreleg were associated no later than the early Middle Kingdom, and probably much earlier. Majno’s (1975: 86–88) alternative hypothesis that the bovine forelimb and adze may both have been used in the Opening-ofthe-Mouth ritual solely because they both resembled the Ursa Major constellation, heavenly bodies (meteorites) being the source of iron (from which the ‘symbolic’ adze blade was made) is clearly an anachronistic suggestion. Among other reasons, we know that many originally chthonic cattle culture beliefs were projected into the heavens, use of the adze hieroglyph as determinative of stp dates from the Old Kingdom (see above), and Majno himself concluded that iron-bladed cutting implements were probably not in use in Egypt until the New Kingdom (Wainwright, 1932: 3–15; Wainwright, 1936: 5–24; Wertime and Muhly, 1980: 465–466), although iron was worked sporadically as early as the Old Kingdom or even Predynastically (Wertime and Muhly, 1980: 339, 365). 10 Similarly, the celestial bark’s mooring rope was the tail of the ‘great wild bull’ (see in that connection PT Utterance 336), the bark itself being shown sometimes with a bull’s head.

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Opening-of-the-Mouth Ritual And, besides being the forelimb of a bull, hpˇs also came to mean ‘strong ˘ 190) with which the king arm’, ‘scimitar’ or ‘battle axe’ (Faulkner, 1976: went to war. This duality of good and evil (opposites) for the same anatomical part may also be seen in uses of was-scepters (see Chapter 7). Could use of the adze as a dissecting implement for bull sacrifice have suggested originally to the priests this additional ritual use in the Openingof-the-Mouth ceremony? Use of the adze for such purposes is apparent from the fact that the word stp, ‘to cut up (an ox)’ (Gardiner, 1957: 593) or ‘to cut off (limbs)’ (Faulkner, 1976: 254), was already being written with the adze as its determinative in Old Kingdom times (PT 653a.1286a). In an Old Kingdom scene from Meydum, only the hieroglyph for the adze appears above the sacrifice (Vandier V, 1, 1969: Fig. 72, 1). Thus, in addition to the often portrayed dissector’s knife, the adze was probably used especially to cut through the ligaments and cartilage of joints (and possibly to crack bones for their tasty, nutritious and magic-endowed marrow; about which see Chapter 6).11 Beyond such, we postulate that the adze’s association with, or even substitution for, the bull’s forelimb in different portrayals of the Opening-of-theMouth was mainly because, during this ceremony, the priest used this dissecting instrument to percussively stimulate muscle fasciolations, even major contractions of the amputated forelimb’s muscles, very dramatic demonstrations that the full measure of the sacrificial bull’s ‘magic’ of life was being transferred to the deceased. In this regard, the snake ‘implement’, also sometimes brought to the mouth of the deceased, may have represented, as we also shall consider in Chapter 6, a living spine in whose marrow both poison and semen (both transliterated as mtwt) were formed. As analogs/opposites, they also could either kill or revivify (Schwabe et al., 1982). To test the primary of these hypotheses, we carried out simulated Egyptian bull sacrifices. Laboratory Reenactment Using the abattoir and other facilities of the Muscle Physiology Laboratory of the University of California, Davis,12 the initial stages of bull sacrifice, as portrayed in numerous paintings and reliefs, were reenacted step by step with two exceptions: (1) instead of the bull being cast and immobilized by binding together its one front and two hind pasterns, large mature bulls were humanely stunned with a captive-bolt pistol shot to the head, suspended by

11

Eggebrecht (1973: 111 ff.) does not mention portrayals of the adze in bull slaughter scenes. Use of this laboratory and its facilities was made possible through the generous cooperation of Professor C. Robert Ashmore. The technical assistance of J. Sehnert is also gratefully acknowledged.

12

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Chapter Five. Rudiments of Muscle Physiology their Achilles tendons, and (2) both of their carotid arteries quickly severed,13 this latter a procedure occasionally done, but usually not, by the Egyptians. The temperature in the experimental abattoir was 22° C in each experiment. Timing of an experiment began with the death of the bull, that is, with the cutting of its carotid arteries, which instantly deprived its brain of blood. Immediately after, one front forelimb was amputated by passing a sharp knife through the axilla between its scapula and its rib cage and thoracic spine. Although there is no joint between the forelimb and the thoracic cage, a number of robust shoulder girdle muscles are cut. These include the trapezius, rhomboideus, latissimus dorsi, brachiocephalicus (two parts), superficial and deep pectoralis and serratus ventralis (two parts). Intermittent spontaneous fasciolations or tremors of individual motor units of these cut muscles were observed immediately, with some persisting 15 to 20 minutes. After muscle quiescence, these could be reinduced repeatedly by mechanical stimulation.14 Beyond those, contractions of whole muscles could be induced also through mechanical stimulation. This was successfully accomplished by four different means: (1) stabbing a limb muscle with a thin-bladed knife, (2) striking the muscle with a short garden hoe sharpened to simulate the Egyptian adze, (3) touching but not penetrating the surface of the muscle with the knife point and (4) prodding the muscle with a finger. The specific movement induced depended, of course, on the particular muscle stimulated. The most dramatic responses were (1) considerable flexions or extensions of the whole lower leg at the elbow joint through stimulus of the biceps brachii and brachialis muscles and the triceps brachialis muscle, respectively and (2) flexions of the shoulder joint and adductions of the limb by stimulating the subscapularis and teres major muscles. Greatest joint movement resulted from stabbing the muscle, followed by the effect of striking it with the duller ‘adze’, while the least contraction resulted from prodding the muscle with the finger. In all instances, gross muscle contractions were of the entire muscle stimulated and not merely of those particular muscle fibers actually touched by the stimulating instrument. Such stimulations also induced further series of local spontaneous fasciolations following the single larger whole muscle contraction. These secondary fasciolations often persisted for three to four minutes following each stimulus. In these experiments, the severed forelimb was rechallenged in these several ways, first every five minutes and, after one hour post-mortem, every 13

The aforementioned procedures are those followed in modern abattoirs. Interestingly, Eggebrecht (1973: 36, quoting Weichmann), though aware that spontaneous muscle fasciolations in the extremities and elsewhere occur in animals following slaughter, took no note of their possible significance.

14

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Opening-of-the-Mouth Ritual 15 minutes. While the magnitudes of these two responses gradually decreased with time, both types could still be elicited two hours post-mortem. Egyptian priests and other temple officials overseeing or carrying out these sacrifices could not have failed to observe spontaneous fasciolations of bull’s muscles, and it is almost inconceivable that in very early performances of these transfer-of-the-magic-of-life rituals, if not of bull dissections per se, they would not also have induced these and the much more pronounced leg contractions accidentally. In performances of these acts as part of the Opening-of-the Mouth ritual, the priests might logically have assumed, when these responses eventually ceased, that all of muscle tissue’s ‘magic of life’ had passed into the pharaoh’s mouth. It was very clear, too, from these reenactments that, if these officiants had been content simply to demonstrate spontaneous or induced fasciolations, they could have used any ‘piece’ of quickly excised muscle (as the Greek Praxagoras did much later, see below), but these impressively dramatic contractions of whole muscles (with the movements of joints) required mechanical stimulation of the muscles of an entire musculo-skeletal assemblage – namely the bull’s forelimb. Thus, in ‘experimentally’ inducing this remarkable form of ‘magic’, Egyptian priests would at the same time have learned significant biological facts. Of special importance to our interests in the foundations of a science of medicine, and beginnings of a rational basis for healing practices, would be any evidence that the Egyptians actually applied that empirically – and experimentally – derived information about muscle contractions in the bull to the practice of healing beyond such revivification efforts. This information Liselotte Buchheim (1960) provided by considering in some detail five instances of use of the interesting terms ‘live flesh’ or ‘flesh from a living bovine animal’ to describe prescription ingredients in the Ebers (Ebers, 1889; Ebbell, 1937; Wreszinski, 1913; Grapow, 1954–1958), Hearst (Reisner, 1905) and Berlin (Wreszinski, 1909) medical papyri. As she pointed out, those terms are specifically written with , as distinguished from simply ‘fresh’ or ‘raw’ flesh as an ingredient, which is written with w Ad. We, in agreeing with Buchheim, must reject, therefore, Eggebrecht’s ¯ (1973) opinion that this ‘living flesh’ or ‘flesh from a living bovine’ in these medical papyri meant simply fresh, raw ‘meat’ and that #nh and w Ad were used ˘ ¯ interchangeably and synonymously in references to prescription ingredients. Also, in contrast to the tendency by some Egyptologists to trivialize ancient Egyptian religious beliefs and practices regarding cattle by interpreting them in terms of current Western conceptions of cattle use and the meat trade, Buchheim cautioned that to understand the medical theories upon which Egyptian medical practices were predicated is first to attempt to understand ancient Egyptian ways of thinking. In her words (translated from the German) with respect to prescriptions of ‘live flesh’ in the papyri, ‘it is 81

Chapter Five. Rudiments of Muscle Physiology astounding that all investigators of the manuscripts read the words correctly and literally, but none of them dared to interpret them literally.’ Like Junker in the case of vivisection in portrayals of bovine sacrifice, she concluded that these strange practices must be interpreted literally in that they no doubt represented ancient magical remedies considered efficacious against what may originally have been refractory or life-threatening conditions. She thought it likely (p. 109), but did not explore, that the origins of these prescription ingredients were associated with some aspects of animal vivisection, as part of revivification magic. Majno (1975: 107), in accepting Buchheim’s interpretations of ‘live flesh’, also noted the tomb scene of leg amputation from a standing calf described by Weigall (1915), and remarked about the Opening-of-the-Mouth ceremony that it ‘was precisely a matter of infusing life into mummies or statues’, though he failed to explain how, or what that was. We would agree fully with Buchheim’s interpretation and believe we now have established specific linkages between this aspect of religious magic, rudimentary biomedical science and a rationally-derived form of human healing practice. As mentioned in Chapter 1, considerable help in visualizing the ‘fusion’ in Predynastic Egypt of such activities as religion, healing and animal husbandry, in contrast to how we today in the western world view their separatedness, was provided by Riggs (1973) (see Table 1.1 and the Epilogue). At this point we can usefully return to the meaning of ka in terms of this life-representing ‘magic’ of ‘live flesh.’ Ka as the Animating Principle In Chapter 2 we used past interpretations of ka to illustrate concepts held by ancient Egyptians about life and death. In our view, a meaning of ka as ‘life force’ or ‘animating force’ is as the Egyptians originally conceived it (Gordon, 1996). This chapter has suggested how they reached that conclusion by describing what they would have observed during bull sacrifice and dissection. Certain animals, such as the bull (interestingly, also called ka by the Egyptians), were high in this energy or life force. We suspect also that the symbolic eating of the bull sacrifice (see Chapter 8) was to transfer some of this energy to the living, as the presentation of whole or parts of animals to the deceased or his statue was to serve a similar function. Here we look further at those and other evolved ideas about ka and some closely related words to see what else these might suggest. With Egyptian priests’ preoccupations with making the dead live, they would have been interested in finding ways to transfer this life force (ka) from the living to the dead in order to reanimate them in the next world. They would 82

Ka as the Animating Principle

Fig. 5.3 – (a) Nilotic Nuer warrior-herdsman from the southern Sudan dancing with arms and hands above his head in imitation of the horns of a bull (Evans-Pritchard, 1951)

also have been concerned with increasing this vital energy in the living. As Erman (1907: 86) noted, the difference between life and death is this energy known as ka. Was ka, therefore, ‘a vague and undefined conception’ to the ancient Egyptians, as Erman also held (p. 86), and a ‘complex and scarcely definable concept’ to our generation, as Morenz (1973: 204) stated, or can ka be explained concretely through biological observations on bulls made by the ancient Egyptians? Here, we believe we have demonstrated the latter. Consequently, just as the two words ka and kau are similarly spelled, an evident relationship exists between the first as life force and the second as food or nourishment. Ka, life force, is written with the upraised arms, probably imitating the horns of a bull, and a vertical stroke (D28 & Z1), 83

Chapter Five. Rudiments of Muscle Physiology while kau is usually written with the upraised arms and stroke followed by a roll of bread and plural strokes (X4 & Z2). The Nuer and Dinka, as well as other Nilotic pastoralists, often dance with upraised arms in imitation of the horns of a bull (Fig. 5.3a and Schwabe, 1978: 56).15 In the Eighteenth Dynasty tomb of Huy, Viceroy of Kush, bulls being presented to him have imitation hands on the tips of their horns (Davies and Gardiner, 1926: Pls. 23 & 30; see also our Fig. 5.3b). In addition, it is not surprising that the words for bull with its vitality and virility (k A, WB V: 94–96; CDME: 283); vagina, the place from which new life emerges (k At, WB V: 93–94; CDME: 283); pregnant woman (bk At; WB I: 481; CDME: 85; Roth, 1992: 126, note 66); and ‘work’ or ‘construction’ resulting in creation of something new (k At, WB V: 98–101; CDME: 283) are all represented also with the upraised arms.16 This ka energy is present in both males and females.17 On a surface level, life is dependent upon food for survival. Therefore, since the Old Kingdom, food offerings were dedicated to the ka of the deceased, as represented in scenes on the tomb walls. Additionally, in the sacrifice of animals, during which the priests may have eaten some of the flesh,18 more must have been involved than a simple meal (see Chapter 8). That is, rather than ‘butchery’, with its resultant ‘meat and joints’,19 animal sacrifice was a ritual in which flesh – especially the bull’s foreleg, which contained a demonstrably high measure of this animating force – provided a ‘magic’ source of animating power, which the Egyptians quite rationally concluded, might be transferable to gods, living pharaoh, living priests or a deceased.

15

See also Schwabe (1984:148), which linked this behavior to the Egyptian ka. The ka sign in Egyptological literature is sometimes understood as arms extended outward in a protective gesture as in PT Utterance 600. For example, Hornung (1992: 175) states, ‘The word is written with the sign of two outstretched arms that appear to reach upward, but according to Egyptian convention they should be understood as extending horizontally and enfolding the human being in a protective embrace.’ However, the Egyptians were quite capable of drawing the ka-arms horizontally if they wished, such as in PT 229b. See Gardiner sign list D30. In fact, the ka could be portrayed vertically facing up or down as well as horizontally. According to Sourdive (1984: 432), when portrayed horizontally, especially from the New Kingdom on, it is closely associated with offerings of food necessary for the deceased. In that regard, the presentation of the thumb and pinkie to the deceased or his statue in offering rituals is perhaps related. 17 It is the interaction of the male and female energy which results in creation or rebirth. See Troy (1986: 3 and, more generally, pp 1–51). 18 For example, see Mond and Myers (1934: 5, & 4–9), with regard to the Apis bull. Note again that the head and shoulders of Apis were amputated at the level of its thoracic vertebrae (ankhs, our Chapter 6), and that part only mummified, then wrapped together with its other dissembled and cleaned bones. 19 As examples, Gardiner, AEO I, 16; most recently Ikram (1994: 28). The title of her published dissertation, Choice Cuts: Meat Production in Ancient Egypt (1995), also exemplifies this view. 16

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Ka as the Animating Principle

Fig. 5.3 – (b) Eighteenth Dynasty relief showing a bull with an operated left horn and a human head and shoulders between its horns (Temple of Luxor; after Seligman, 1932: Pl. 74).

Thus, three different types of ka transfer were apparently involved. In the first instance, the aim of the Opening-of-the-Mouth ceremony was to reanimate the mouth especially of the deceased, and the presentation of the fasciolating foreleg of the bull (ka, the epitome of vitality and virility) – in which major muscle contractions with joint movements were readily demonstrable – to the deceased’s mouth was the intended highlight of that ceremony. Once his mouth was reanimated, less dramatic but easier to provide food offerings (kau) might be sufficient to sustain it and him. Thus, in the second instance, transfer was a case of nourishing animating force in a deceased pharaoh (or of a living pharaoh to prolong his life and powers) through the use of food offerings, but especially cattle flesh. In the third, no doubt derivative, instance, we have a case of attempting to transfer this animating force to a probably critically ill individual through use of that ‘live’ (that is, fasciolating) flesh, a more conventionally medical application of physiological theory about the properties of muscle tissue. It was this ‘live flesh’ (‘flesh from a living bovine animal’) occurring in prescriptions in the Ebers, Hearst and Berlin Medical Papyri, that caused Buchheim (1960: 109) to ask: ‘What is closer to the primitive way of thinking than to refresh the patient by visible “medication” with another material 85

Chapter Five. Rudiments of Muscle Physiology which contains strong life power …?’ (translated from the original German). That was a rational idea. We would suggest, therefore, that this idea of ka, probably originally based upon biological observations by Predynastic and preliterate Egyptians, only later was abstracted and made more complex. Eventually, ka also came to be considered the impersonal vital energy that makes the world live and function, that is, was extrapolated to the wider natural world (i.e., more or less as Plato was to describe the same extrapolations much later). One source, kau, was the food which all living things eat, and which also is offered to the gods in sacrifices. Grapow and Westendorf (1970: 107), noting the probable relation of ka and ‘magic’, pointed out that some of the chief possessors of magic were not only the cow goddess Hathor but uraei (i.e., cobras).20 We will explore some of those cattle-snake relationships vis-à-vis life force in Chapters 6 and 7. Finally, since we had shown previously that present-day cattle culture Nilotes carry out a unique form of horn surgery on bulls, which was also portrayed in ancient Egypt and Nubia (Schwabe, 1984a) and that implements closely resembling the ancient Egyptian was-scepter are still employed by Nilotic and other northeast African pastoralists for husbandry and ritual uses conceptually or practically similar to ones in ancient Egypt (Schwabe and Gordon, 1988; Gordon and Schwabe, 1995), we asked next whether other present-day Nilotic beliefs and practices might illumine further these apparent conclusions of Egyptian priests about the contractile nature of flesh – of tissue irritability – as a property of life? Comparisons of Ka to Nilotic Ring In one suggestive parallel from the greater Nile basin, Junker (1938) mentioned the experience of an acquaintance traveling in Ethiopia who attended a tribal wedding in which a piece of flesh was cut from the hindquarters of a live bovine animal, then shared among the guests. Simoons (1960) summarized several similar reports of cattle muscle vivisections in Africa, also in fairly recent times. Moreover, Nilotic Turkana reportedly harvest fat as needed from the tails of living fat-tailed sheep (Jones, 1984: 39). Especially interesting possibilities are suggested by current beliefs and sacrificial practices of the Sudan’s more than two million Nilotic Dinka

20 Indeed, as noted by Ritner (1993: 25) the Egyptian word for magic, hk A = heka may be . . derived from k A. In late times at Esna, the Egyptians consciously derived hk . A from h( . A.t)-k A(.t) ‘first work.’ Ritner, following Te Velde suggests that it derives from hw" . ı-k A, ‘he who consecrates the ka.’ As the word hw" . ı literally means ‘to strike’, a more literal translation would be ‘he who strikes the ka.’ As the bull’s leg may be struck to produce the ka energy at the mouth of the deceased, we have a literal demonstration of the relationship of the ka to magic (hk . A).

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Ka as the Animating Principle (Deng, 1972). That is, Flesh (Ring) is regarded by Dinka as, and of, ‘God’ (Spiritual Force) and is especially sacred to priests called bany bith or ran de Ring,21 literally ‘man of the flesh.’ Preceding and during sacrifices, the priest’s muscles tremble ecstatically and uncontrollably. This possession of the priest by Flesh (Ring) was explained to us by one Dinka elder as being like when men or cattle become so physically exhausted their muscles quiver uncontrollably, for example when running hard to escape cattle raiders. But another elder emphasized like and indicated that muscular quivering of ordinary people from exhaustion could be man-induced while Ring is Spiritual Force. Dinka regard similar quivering of the sacrificial bull’s own muscles also as evidence of life and the divine, that although the bull has been sacrificed, its divine Flesh is still alive. Different Dinka elders stated that these muscle fasciolations indicate to them that Spiritual Force is ‘tugging at’ or ‘eating’ the bull’s flesh, that It has ‘accepted the sacrifice’ or the ‘message to It has been answered’ (Schwabe, 1987). In fact, castrated bulls are sometimes sacrificed by the Dinka expressly for ritual communion with Flesh (= Dinka Ring) as a divine manifestation (Schwabe, 1987; Lienhardt, 1961: 23; Malou Ater, 1946: 35). After exposure of the sacrificial bull’s flesh in this special communion rite, the possessed bany bith priest will select one piece of quivering muscle and divide it further. He puts half aside for the divinity Flesh itself, then swallows the other half of this ‘live’ muscle, thus replenishing the animating force of Flesh within himself. Only then do other non-priest participants take their well-defined divisions of the sacrifice’s flesh, cooking it, however, before it is consumed, for ordinary Dinka do not eat raw flesh. A communion meal with these aspects of the divine clearly is part of the Dinka’s overall three-way covenant among man, bull and ‘God’ (see Chapter 3). In Chapter 8, we redirect attention in this connection to a rarely recorded Egyptian healing title from Sais, ‘great of flesh’ (wr-h#.w) (Ghalioungui, . 1983: 5–6) and consider such questions also in discussing functions of the Per Ankh. Buchheim (1960: 108), in commenting upon Hopfner’s (1913) statement about the bull sacrifice in Egyptian funerary rites (‘Finally certain pieces were given to the priests or other officials during the sacrificial ritual for the dead’), noted that ‘thus the Nomarch of Saiut (Siut) is supposed to have received a limb! from every sacrifice to the dead. If the priest obtained a small share from all the sacrificial offerings for his personal use, it is reasonable to believe that as priest-physician he used part of such a present 21

A Nilotic Maasai informant indicated that muscle twitching by cattle is a premonition of danger; a Nilotic Mandari (who also use the word Ring) said it is the shaking of a ‘witch doctor’ to remove a jok (evil spirit). See the second opening chapter quotation of this chapter on Nuer beliefs.

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Chapter Five. Rudiments of Muscle Physiology for therapeutic purposes.’ We believe that he, like other priest-healers, must at least have been familiar with this way of obtaining ‘live’ flesh.’ It is impossible to hear the Dinka talk about Ring without being reminded of ancient Egyptian statements about ka. Moreover, this (Flesh = Ring) manifestation of the divine also bears close resemblances in Dinka tradition to a personified form of the divine named Garang who is regarded as ‘original father’.22 Interestingly, he and Deng (= rain, son of Garang and a fertility goddess Abuk, ‘original mother’23) are both described by some Dinka as great weather, fertility bulls in the sky. ‘Shining master’ is an epithet of Garang, who is said to come from the east,24 and also of Ring. These and other Dinka associations of Ring (and Garang) with shining, the sun, fire and the color red (including red steers25) remind us too of Morenz’s (1955: 238–243) associations of red with the Egyptians’ living bull gods Buchis and Mnevis (and what they represented; Chapters 3 and 7), as well, of course, as with Seth. Vos (1993: 146–147) also describes the red kfa cloth, one of two which covered the Apis bull in burial, and connects it with Seth. As the color of Seth, red could symbolize mischief, but it could also symbolize life, have protective powers and denote joy and victory The red cloth, supplied by the Per Ankh, the House of Life (see Chapter 8), was occasionally associated with the sun god Re and the Opening-of-the-Mouth ceremony. For the Greeks and Romans as well, red could symbolize death and the underworld on the one hand, but also life on the other. It is of further interest with respect to these particular Dinka beliefs and practices that, in the Book of What is in the Netherworld (Piankoff, 1954: 262 ff.), the deceased pharaoh enters the ‘Land of Sokaris, the Flesh, the body in its first manifestation’, is drawn into the mysterious Cavern of Sokaris ‘to make the mysterious arrangements in the land which carries this divine flesh.’ Later (p. 267) it is stated ‘his flesh shines’26 and refers to Sokaris ‘guarding 22

Nuer also recognize both Ring and Garang. A father-in-law of the Nilotic Shilluk’s reth or king told the second author that Ring is known to the Shilluk as well and is associated by them also with Garang. 23 Although to some Dinka, this father-son relationship of Garang to Deng is reversed. 24 In quoting the following Dinka hymn, Francis Mading Deng (1972: 135) wrote: ‘the uncle who discussed it with us said it is as important as the Chief’s sacred spears. Being a secret hymn I translate it with hesitation: There is an embracing light; There is the sun, There is the moon, There is the rock, There is Deng [a personification of the divine, also rain], Garang, original father bring peace....’ 25 In describing funeral rites of the Old Kingdom, Wilson (1944) noted that, continuing at least into the Eighteenth Dynasty, red oxen were used to pull the sledge with the statue of the deceased. In PT 1550 we read also ‘I have eaten, I have eaten the red ox of the traversing of the lake, which (traversing) Horus made for his father Osiris, this Pepi.’ 26 Intriguing from those standpoints and Egyptian associations of ‘back’ and ‘spine’ with

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Ka as the Animating Principle the mysterious Flesh.’ There are other possibly related Old Kingdom texts, such as cited by Wilson (1944) in the tomb of Debehni, ‘The Lament: “His flesh is complete!”’27 In Chapter 6, we will refer in expanded context to CT Spell 532 about another hidden power a deceased may receive from Ptah-Sokar, an apparent amalgam of those two gods. Also apropos to these ka theses are some other stories and sayings of the Dinka. For example, Lienhardt (1961: 174) recounted this myth about the Dinka’s reputed first priest Ayuel Longar: ‘With the spears, Aiwel [Ayuel Longar] gave to these men the power to invoke effectively with them (lam), and the power of his spittle to bless [see our Chapter 7] and of his tongue to curse, and the divinity Flesh [Ring], which was his originally. He also gave them [or some of them] other clan-divinities, and he took a bull of the colour of the sky and removed from it the thigh [sic]28-bone while it still lived and gave it to Agothyathik [originally an adversary of Aiwel, who, to save his people from Aiwel’s fishing-spear, took the sacrum of a bull (cf. our Chapter 6), and fastened it to a long pole so that it would “move the reeds”], telling him that this would be the clan-divinity of Agothyathik and of his children, and that they must never damage or break a thigh [sic] bone.’ As noted in Chapter 6, possible origins for the djed include the sacrum or backbone of a bull as well as an object of reeds (for the latter see Gauthier, 1935: 81–96). Again, it is virtually impossible not to think about the importance of some of these same objects and substances to the ancient Egyptians (for which see also Chapters 6 and 7). Also, Dinka will sometimes run a steer extensively before it is sacrificed, but it was impossible to obtain a clear answer as to whether that is done to cause heightened spontaneous muscular trembling, a sequela of exhaustion. But, regardless, it is of interest to recall the very ancient Egyptian rite called ‘Running of Apis’ about which little has been described. To summarize our main point here, it is clear that at least some present-day Nilotic pastoralists regard spontaneous muscle fasciolations in the sacrificed bull – and in their priests – as magic manifestations of life and the divine.

magical powers concerned with life (see Chapter 6) – as well as Nilotic Nuer’s association of their word jok for ‘spirit’ also with ‘back’ and neck vertebrae (see Chapter 6)–are some contexts in which the Egyptian word psd for ‘spine’ (see Chapter 6) with a different determinative also ¯ ‘to shine.’ This is especially in connection with the heavenly means ‘to give light’, ‘to gleam’, bodies, epithets of the sun god, the cow goddess Hathor and the pharaoh. Examples include BD 148, S1: ‘Hail to thee (god) who shines in the disk, living one who has ascended from the horizon, I know thee, I know your name, I know the name of the seven cows and their bull … may you give him magic power.’ 27 With reference to the Dionysian mysteries, including eating of the bull’s ‘live flesh’, Burkert (1985: 294) states vis-à-vis elements of the deceased’s passage through the underworld, these ‘have striking parallels in the Egyptian Book of the Dead.’ 28 Since it is impossible to sever the thigh from a living bull, this must be an error of translation for the forelimb (as also in mention of ‘thigh bone’ in some Egyptian text translations).

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Chapter Five. Rudiments of Muscle Physiology Other Comparisons In the writings of the Greek Hippocratic collection from the 5th-4th centuries BCE, there is little mention of muscles (Littré, 1839–1861; Jones and Withington, 1923–1931) and the concept of muscle as organ does not emerge (Bastholm, 1950). Rather, muscles were considered, together with all other soft tissues, as ‘flesh’ in which cords (nerves, tendons, ligaments) were embedded. The role of ‘flesh’ was thought to be one of passive support and ‘packing’ between the skin and bones. The embedded cords were thought to provide power to bend and stretch. Involuntary muscular twitching (as in shivering, fright) was thought by Hippocratic era Greeks to be caused by obstructions in blood vessels, such as thickening of the blood (see Chapter 9), or by the arterial pulse. Lloyd (1966) has some interesting observations from earlier Greek sources. Quoting the Milesian near-contemporary of Thales, Anaxagoras, ‘in everything there is a portion of everything’ and especially ‘How could … flesh [come to be] from not-flesh?’ Lloyd (1966: 244) suggested that this implied that ‘Flesh in our body grows by the addition of the “seeds” of flesh which we cannot see, but whose presence we infer, in our food.’ From such notions Plato later (Lloyd, p. 254) ‘develops the theory of soul as the origin of all movement’ and (Lloyd’s note 2) ‘soul is not there opposed to the body …, but it is clearly the life-force, rather than what survives after death, that Anaximenes [another Milesian] had in mind.’ But here we should also mention especially Greek rites associated with worship of their god Dionysus, especially in light of 1) common belief then that this god was foreign, including allegations he was originally from Egypt (e.g. Herodotus 2.42 2, 49.2, see Dodds, 1960: 124–126, notes on 406–408) and 2) that Dionysus was originally a bull (Dodds, 1960, passim, especially p. 194, notes on 920–922): ‘a bull thou seem’st that leadeth on before; and horns upon thine head have sprouted forth. How, wast thou brute? – bull art thou verily now!’ and, on Dionysus as ‘the bull who leads the herd;’ see also Plutarch’s hymn (Q. Gr. 36, 299) to Dionysus by the women of Elis: ‘Come hither, Dionysus, to thy holy temple by the sea; come with the Graces to thy temple, rushing with bull’s foot, O goodly bull, O goodly bull’ and designation of his priests as ‘cattleherds.’ Dionysus was worshipped in theophagic communion rites by ‘ecstatic and frenzied worshippers … tearing at the raw flesh of a bull that was thought to be the actual embodiment of the god. By eating this flesh, the worshipper believed he received a little of the god’s power and character’ (Young, 1979: 14). That rite, described in Euripides’ Bacchae (Way, 1912: 734 ff.) and referred to in the regulations of the Dionysiac Cult at Miletus in 276 BCE (Dodds, 1960, xvi), represented ‘an attempt on the part of human beings to achieve communion with this potency’ (Dodds, 1960: xx). 90

Ka as the Animating Principle Frenzied dancing (bacchanal) in connection with these Dionysiac rites has been associated by scholars with evidence of the divine manifested through muscle tissues (e.g. Dodds, 1960: xiv),29 probably involuntary trembling induced by exhaustion. With more specific respect to empirical Greek observations of properties of muscle, Praxagoras of Cos, an early 3rd century BCE contemporary of Diocles of Carystus, believed he had proved the Pneumatic (humoral) theory that a force (pneuma) contained in arteries is responsible for movement (‘having observed that a piece of flesh cut from a live animal pulsated when thrown to the ground’, [Galen V, 561, cited in Bastholm, 1950: 55]). But clearly such Greeks were already so far removed in personal experience from observations readily available to even ancient priests (from frequent sacrificial vivisections or Dionysian rites) that they regarded such commonplace observations (possible by anyone slaughtering animals) as biomedically noteworthy at that time (see Chapters 4 and 8). That is, the Egyptians, among whom intelligent priests – some at least of whom were also healing practitioners (see Chapter 8) – apparently personally and directly transferred such observations into biomedical theory and thence healing practice. However, in Greece, that chronological linkage apparently did not exist – there was a vital personal knowledge-in-experience gap – and even a much less profound contribution to muscle physiology than that much more ancient Egyptians made had to await Praxagoras. Moreover, it was apparently not until a bit later in the Greek world – in Ptolemaic Egypt in fact – that Greeks began to suspect somehow that muscular activity was a property of muscles themselves. Herophilus of Chalcedon, a pupil of Praxagoras, seems to have been the first among the Greeks to hold that muscular convulsions, tremors and palpitations were not manifestations of arterial pulse, but arose in the muscles themselves, a theory much later proven by Galen. Thus Galen (129–201 CE) has generally been considered to have first conceptualized and proven that contraction is a property of muscles and that the force of contraction is transmitted to the bones via the tendons (see C.G. Kuhn, as cited in Bastholm, 1950). Bastholm (p. 60) thus credits Herophilus, the 3rd century BCE Alexandrian Greek healer and comparative anatomist with the first theory of muscle physiology (‘it is just in this thought [see above] that we discover the very first hint of theories on muscle physiology’). We believe, however, evidence presented here indicates that indigenous Egyptian priest-healers had reached conclusions at least as interesting as Herophilus’ much earlier, confirmed and extended them by experiment, and even attempted then to apply this new knowledge to medical practice. As to the context in which Praxagoras 29

Compare also with exhaustion-induced muscular tremors of Islamic Sufi ‘whirling dervishes.’

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Chapter Five. Rudiments of Muscle Physiology and much earlier Egyptians, conceived such notions of rudimentary muscle physiology, there are close parallels, namely observations on animals.30 Beyond such, Aristotle (Historia Animalium, 588b 4 ff.; Lloyd, 1966: 258) – apropos to Frankfort’s (1961) conclusions about broad interpenetrations of bovine and celestial imagery in ancient Egypt – noted that ‘nature proceeds little by little from inanimate things to living creatures in such a way that we are unable … to determine the boundary line.’ Referring to Plato, Lloyd (p. 257) stated also that in his observing that ‘the soul of the sun moves its visible body … just as our souls move our bodies’, he drew an ‘analogy between the two types of motion … [which then became] an important and striking feature of Aristotle’s theory.’ Clearly the Egyptians had drawn similar analogies between the bull’s body and the celestial bark, between cow and sky (with the sun, its bull calf reborn each day), etc., long before, thus deriving, as later did the Greeks also, a cosmology based on chthonic observations, some, like these, veterinary anatomo-physiological ones.

Conclusions We believe that, taken together, this body of Egyptological, ethnoarcheological and biomedical evidence elucidates Egyptians priests’ derivation of a physiological principle about the innate irritability (contractility upon stimulation) of ‘flesh’ and its role somehow in bodily movement as rational inferences from observations based upon religiously important cattle vivisections, demonstrated (tested) experimentally by percussive stimulation, then applied both in religious and other healing practice. As to what this ‘magic of life’, this ka or animating property of muscles actually represented, findings of the last 45 or so years (Needham, 1971; Bendall, 1960) have shown that the loss of contractility, and ultimately the loss of extensibility, of excised muscle results from the disappearance of its adenosine triphosphate (ATP).31 After excision, muscle enzymes may continue to produce ATP as long as there is glycogen in the muscle. When the glycogen stores are depleted, and ATP to support muscle contraction cannot be produced, the contractile proteins in the muscle fibers become 30

After that, major breakthroughs in muscle physiology had to wait until centuries later when Peter Abildgaard, 18th century founder of the Danish Royal Veterinary College, first demonstrated induction of (cardiac) muscle fibrillation by electrical stimulus. That marked the beginnings of electrophysiology and the modern era of muscle science (Driscol et al., 1975: 878–882). 31 We are greatly indebted to Professor Ashmore also for supplying much of this review of the present state of knowledge about the physiological mechanisms with which we are concerned in this chapter.

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Conclusions bonded to each other. This rigid state is known as rigor mortis (Erdö, 1945); the body becoming literally ‘a stiff ’. Therefore, after excision muscle bundles may fasciolate (contract) spontaneously until this rigor sets in. Beyond that, electrical stimulation of the muscle, or direct mechanical stimulation, such as striking the muscle, will also elicit major muscle contractions. Furthermore, motor axons may continue to be depolarized for a considerable period after death thereby inducing contractions of muscles to which they are attached (Gilliat and Hjorth, 1972; Eccles, 1944). Making contact with a motor nerve trunk with a blunt instrument, or knife, therefore could induce muscles to contract, which are some distance from the point of contact. Such contractions would also depend upon an adequate supply of ATP in the muscles. The rate at which ATP is produced from muscle glycogen stores after death is partially dependent upon pH and temperature. As the pH becomes lower (a natural occurrence after death because lactic acid is formed as a byproduct of ATP formation), the enzymes that convert glycogen to ATP become inactivated bringing a halt to the process. Conversion of glycogen to ATP will proceed more rapidly at higher temperatures, thus rigor will occur sooner. This would explain the element of haste shown in some Egyptian sacrifice scenes since the ambient temperature in Egypt is often high. Thus, in modern terms, the religious ceremony of the Opening-of-theMouth was an oft-repeated physiological experiment with therapeutic objectives.

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CHAPTER SIX. PHYSIOLOGY OF THE SPINE When I started to cut up oxen, what I saw was just a complete ox.... Now … I see the natural lines and my knife … follows the great cavities.... Thus, I miss the great sinews and even more so, the great bones. – Chuang Tzu, 4th–3rd BCE [From bones arise] marrow (majja) and from the marrow semen (sukra). – Garbha Upanishad

Having offered a physiological explanation for the Egyptian Opening-ofthe-Mouth revivification ritual and presented evidence that a body’s ka was its animating force, most dramatically apparent in the amputated forelimb of a bull, we turn now to other manifestations and anatophysiological sources of life’s magic, especially its procreative, re-creative and creative powers.

Spine and Life As early as 1864, Brugsch pointed out that ancient Egyptians endowed the spine with life-giving properties. Texts from the Old Kingdom on mention the back (spine) or the bones which comprise it (i.e. the neck, trunk and tail vertebrae) in contexts that suggest they all were believed to fulfill magical or physiological functions in reproduction and revivification of the dead. Thus, in PT Utterance 336, the king says to the sun god ‘Hail to you, Bull of bulls, when you rise. I grasp you by your tail, I grip you by the root of your tail (?) … As for my corpse it is rejuvenated.’ And, similarly, in PT Utterance 539: ‘I will ascend and rise up to the sky. My spine is the Wild Bull; … [my vertebrae (?)] are the two Enneads; I will ascend and rise up to the sky.’ As in these examples, many such texts also refer to bulls. In addition to these particular parts of the skeleton (the most durable part of the body), Sauneron (1960) and Yoyotte (1962) showed that, in late texts, semen was said to come from the interior of bones generally. Here we will attempt to bring such data together, to consider them in terms of other suggestive texts, hieroglyphs involved and likely origins of these in terms of the anatomy of the bull. 95

Chapter Six. Physiology of the Spine These Egyptian beliefs about the spine and its role in reproduction are apparently central to a great deal of religious thought, especially in a funerary context. Relevant texts are mostly concerned with extending or renewing the life of the deceased, in the first instance the pharaoh, acts which, in a ‘fused’/ ‘integrated’ society such as ancient Egypt’s (see Table 1.1), may also be considered the ultimate acts of preventive and curative medicine respectively. Not only do some of these otherwise obscure passages from the funerary literature become more understandable when examined in light of the Egyptians’ already apparent knowledge of the bull’s anatomy and physiology, but in terms of further relationships that could not have escaped priests’ notice during frequently portrayed dissections of sacrificial bulls (see Chapters 3 to 5). Let us examine first some passages about keeping intact or putting back together a dismembered body. Keeping the Body Intact What we know of evolved roles of the canine god Anubis (and similar dogman-death-life relationships in other civilizations in antiquity, see Chapter 2), makes it likely that further revivification procedures required or benefited from a physically intact corpse resembling as closely as possible the previously living individual. That was probably one original reason not only for mummification (including tightly wrapping the body in strips of linen), but then for placing it in a solid wooden case (so, for one thing, it could be stood up naturally on its feet), and, finally, protecting it further from canine, porcine and avian1 scavengers within strong mastabas, including in some instances pyramids. Thus Te Velde (1977: 92) noted, in discussing Osiris’ dismemberment, that ‘this idea that the Egyptians feared dismemberment and expected it after death is important.’ Texts on reassembling the dismembered body are probably, therefore, very old in origin. To illustrate, in PT 828 we read: ‘She [Nut] will protect (hnm) you, she will prevent you from lacking [= having any missing parts],¯ she will give you your head, she will reassemble your bones (k. s.w) for you, she will join together your members for you, she will bring your heart into your body for you’, similar ideas appearing also in PT 572c, at Dendera (Chassinat, 1966–1968: II, 365) and elsewhere. BD Spell 136B and others of these texts referred especially to the spine or its bones (Schwabe et al., 1982). Examples include CT Spell 584, one of several that mention the backbone of Osiris; CT Spell 532, which refers also 1

One of the earliest portrayals of an ankh is on the ivory cylinder in the Ashmolean Museum of the first pharaoh Narmer commemorating his victory over the Libyans, where it is held by a bird (see also WB I: 193). Many birds are carrion feeders.

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Spine and Life to the spinal cord (or, as the Egyptians understood it, see below, the ‘marrow’ of the spinal bones) and BD Spell 155, which mentions not only backbone and vertebrae, but also djed. The latter is interesting, particularly since in late times Egyptians not only sometimes used the djed hieroglyph (R11) to write psd, ‘back’, but a tradition, reinforced by numerous portrayals (Figs. 6.6–6.9, ¯ although rejected by many present-day Egyptologists), also connected this djed object with backbone, especially of Osiris (WB V: 626–645; Schaefer, 1932: 424, note 1). Another text at Dendera (Chassinat, 1966–1968: II, 365) includes neck, spinal column and penis (for implications of these latter two joined, see also Chapter 7). Interestingly, too, the hieroglyph for ts (S24) is used in these and ¯ together (knitting, knotting) of other texts in connection with the joining bones (PT 572c, CT Spell 532, CT Spell 584), as well as being the word for ‘vertebra’ itself (BD spell 155). We shall return to this synonymy of ‘knot’ and ‘vertebra’, unexplained heretofore by Egyptologists, but would only direct attention at this point to mention, too, of cattle and boat in CT Spell 407 (variant), which has been translated as ‘O you who knot (ts) your rope … O ferryman … O you seven knots (ts.w) of the celestial¯ kine, I ¯ me hale … may you make know you and I know your names, may you make my bones and my members hale’, for which we will offer a comprehensible interpretation. Clearly some such reassembling-of-the-body texts – like semen from bones texts – are intended to convey to the deceased the power of gods or bulls. As examples (Schwabe et al., 1982), we see in PT 2128b ‘Your spine (bk. s.w) is the door bolt of the god’ and in BD Spell 42 S1 ‘You have come to it, [“marrow” of the eldest]. I am Re, abiding of favor; I am the God’s vertebra (ts.t) within the tamarisk.... My back (psd) is (that of) Seth; my phallus (hnn) . ¯ is¯ (that of) Osiris.... My belly and my backbone (i At) are (those of) Sekhmet.’2 Interesting in the context of bull anatomy specifically are PT 1308c, 1313c translated ‘My spine (ts) is [that of] the Wild Bull.... My phallus (hnn) is . ¯ [that of] Apis.’ Bone Marrow and Life As indicated, some of these and other texts suggest the marrow of bones,3 especially that of the spine, as the source of life. Thus also in PT 116a, ‘Hail to you, Incense! Hail to you, Brother of the God! Hail to you, Marrow (?)

2

See Chapter 8 about disease and healing relationships of the lion goddess Sekhmet. Archeological evidence exists that early man especially sought the marrow of bones because his diet was low in fat, for which he therefore had a craving (Sadek-Kooros, 1975: 139–150); Binford, 1981; O’Connell et al., 1988; Jones and Metcalf, 1988). See below and also four articles in the 1988 volume of the Journal of Archeological Research. 3

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Chapter Six. Physiology of the Spine which is in the limbs of Horus.’ and CT Spell 530 ‘You are made strong by means of incense.... The incense comes … the ear of corn comes; there comes the spinal cord which issued from the backbone of Osiris, there comes the marrow.’ Here and elsewhere are indications that ‘incense’ and spinal ‘marrow’ (the spinal cord4) might be synonymous. In CT Spell 532 we read: ‘I have received my spinal cord through Ptah-Sokar, my mother has given me her hidden power.’ Of related passages, CT Spell 989 is of special importance: ‘Semen shall be destroyed for you … The god shall ejaculate semen.... Who will break the god’s egg? I will cause […] his bones shall be molded for him […] he will break the egg.’ That enigmatic text is especially interesting since some 17 later texts, all but one from Upper Egypt, are much more explicit about bones, semen and procreation (Sauneron, 1960; Yoyotte, 1962). As examples, ‘[Khnum, the ram fertility god at Elephantine] who creates the egg, who makes the chick grow, and who creates sperm in the bones and (?) in the belly’ (Philae); ‘[the king is] the charitable god, the heir of Khnum; it is he who effects the fixing of his semen in the bones and (?) in the belly’ (Edfu 3.114.7); ‘You fertilize women by means of the semen (coming) from the bones’ (Edfu 4.298.3–4). From the gate of Euergetes (Urk. VII, no. 122) at Karnak, we read, concerning also the bull god Khonsu, mighty bull of the new moon (his horns) and castrated bull of the full moon (Brugsch, 1891): ‘He who creates seed in the bones, inside the egg.’ It was Khonsu who killed and dissected the ‘gods’ for the pharaoh Unas to eat in PT 402, the so-called ‘Cannibal Hymn’ (Piankoff, 1968, and see our Chapter 8). Several of these texts also show that early Egyptians equated development of chicks within bird’s eggs to development of the mammalian fetus, an example of comparative (analogical) anatomy (embryology). Other associations of spinal bones especially with life appear less directly throughout the entire literature. Thus, in the dramatic triumph of Horus at Edfu (Blackman and Fairman, 1943), we read repeatedly, ‘I smash his vertebrae’, ‘the sixth harpoon … hath sundered the vertebrae of the back(s) of thy foes’, ‘thy horn playing havoc with his bones’. Evidence exists also that the Egyptians believed that not only were spinal bones especially rich sources of semen (because of their more abundant ‘marrow’?), but that particular sections of the spine were especially endowed with life’s magic or served other physiologic functions.

4 Through at least Galen in the 2nd century AD, Greeks also regarded the spinal cord as the ‘marrow’ of the vertebral column (see Lloyd, 1973: 147).

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Particular Importance of Thoracic Vertebrae

Fig. 6.1 – Skeleton of a bull, with position of its penis also shown. (1) Four ankh vertebrae hidden by the scapula (2) of the bull’s forelimb; (3) The penis is connected to the bull’s first coccygeal vertebrae by its white retractor penis muscles.

Particular Importance of Thoracic Vertebrae Since bones, their marrow, and especially those of the spine, were sources of ‘life’s magic’ as semen, of special relevance to elucidation of, and explanations for the origins of, Egyptian theories about reproduction, are origins (F41) and (R11) to of the other hieroglyphs more commonly used than write words such as psd ‘back’, especially (F38) and (F39), as well ¯ as s A for ‘back’ (medically for non-humans) (V16) and i At for ‘spine’ (F37). Similarly interesting, we believe, are Awt for ‘gifts’ (F40) and three other hieroglyphs (Schwabe et al., 1982). Clearly F38 (Lefebvre, 1955; Sethe, 1905–1909: 614.7), F39 (Möller, 1927: I #172; Sethe, 1960: PT 517) and F40 (Möller, 1927: II #172; Griffith, 1898: #61) all represent (usually four) thoracic vertebrae of an ungulate mammal (see Fig. 6.1) in lateral perspective with the bodies of the vertebrae indicated and the long spinous processes projecting dorso-caudally. Animal origin for these is apparent since human thoracic vertebrae lack this process. Candidate animals indigenous to ancient Egypt include the wild bull (aurochs), domestic bull (cow), sheep, goat, ass, ibex and hartebeest. Two other ideograms, F37 (Newberry, 1893: I, 25.34) and Chaine (1938: F37; see Möller, 1927: I #174) are simplified or more hastily drawn versions of these same structures. 99

Chapter Six. Physiology of the Spine Both F37 and F39 have something protruding from the caudal end of this section of spine, while in F40 it protrudes from both ends. This could not be other than the spinal ‘marrow’ (cord). Its enlargement at the end as a blob in some portrayals could also suggest a viscous liquid. Egyptian recognition of a liquid (cerebrospinal fluid) in the vertebral canal is attested in the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus (Ghalioungui, 1973: 40). Interestingly, too, both ı" m Ah ˘ (spinal cord) and ı" m Ahw (one who has been made a living spirit) are written ˘ with F39. Therefore, of unusual interest in those connections is the ideogram for psd (back) in PT 1547c (Sethe, 1960): ‘its back belongs to Neith and ¯ Since that uncommon sign is followed by the stroke (Z1), Sethe Selket.’ (1935–1939, 1962: V, 499) concluded it is the direct representation of what is written. Walker (1964), a veterinarian and medical historian with knowledge of hieroglyphs, noting that hieroglyph’s presence also in the c. 1800 BCE Kahun Veterinary Papyrus (Griffith, 1897: Pl. 7, column 26), identified it as a single thoracic vertebra of an ungulate animal viewed in cephalic or caudal perspective and used in the Kahun Veterinary Papyrus in a context specifically of the bovine spine (see Chapter 8). It shows in greater anatomical detail not only the thoracic vertebra’s long spinous process, but also the two lateral processes and vertebral canal, which contains the spinal cord (‘marrow’) and cerebrospinal fluid. From such orthographic evidence we concluded (Schwabe et al., 1982: 455) that the thoracic portion of the spine (originally or most specifically the bull’s spine) was especially associated with its magical (life-giving physiological) properties. As to why that might be so, we return to the anatomical observation in Chapter 5 that the scapula of the forelimb of the bull – itself a powerful source of life’s animating magic – covers the first several thoracic vertebrae and that the latter are exposed when the dissector removes the forelimb. This anatomical proximity of limb and these vertebrae is, we believe, why the thoracic spine was considered so especially endowed with life’s force. Here two powerful but completely different anatomical sources of different elements of life’s magic join. In that connection, we can reexamine and better understand Spell 759 from the Coffin Texts indicating the deceased knows ‘the secret path in which is the vertex of Re and these four knots [sic, for which vertebrae is clearly the better translation] which belong to the celestial kine [i.e., cattle] are hidden (?) because of them, I also know … what is loosed for it is the backbone, when Re speaks about it. See (?), you are lifted up alive.’ , are found in We note also that F40 ( Awt), as well as S24 (ts) ¯ powers in PT 399cd), connection with the king’s absorbing the god’s creative the so-called ‘Cannibal Hymn’: ‘The King is a possessor of offerings who knots (ts) the cord and who himself prepares his meal ( Awt, the bull’s thoracic ¯ 100

Particular Importance of Thoracic Vertebrae vertebrae)’, that is, a decoction of the sacrificial bull’s bones. Sacred bulls were conjectured to have been eaten in early rituals (Mond and Myers, 1934: I, 7), for which also see Chapter 8 with reference to Per Ankh. In PT 399, Sethe (1935–1939, 1962: 1:201) believed ‘to knot the cord’ had ritual significance. The use of knot amulets to effect cures is well known to this day in the Middle East (Sigerist, 1967: 282–283) and was practiced by the ancient Egyptians (Ghalioungui, 1973: 18; Schwabe et al., 1982: 456–457). We note also that, in many funerary texts referring to spine, ts, in addition to ‘to knot’ is also used in expressing ‘to bind’ or ‘rejoin’ the ¯bones and other parts of the deceased. It also has been translated in some texts as ‘fix’, as in fixing the semen in the bones.5 Thus S24, , is used both as ‘knot’ and as a vertebra. In the list of bovine anatomical parts in the Ramesseum Onomasticon, Gardiner (1947: II, 241*) showed that tst is used specifically to identify the neck (cervical; ts ¯ n nhbt) and thoracic (¯ts n psd) vertebrae. For example, vertebra is probably ˘ ¯ ¯ intended in PT Utterance 229: ‘This here is the fingernail of Atum which is (pressed) on the spine [ts bk. sw] of Nhbw-k Aw.’ Unexplained by Egyptologists . ¯ , meant both vertebra and knot (including to tie, has been why ts, ¯ While the ideograph resembles a flexible bow knot that fasten on, knit). could be made from cloth, leather, reed or fiber, it also closely resembles an ungulate’s thoracic vertebra viewed in dorsal perspective (Schwabe et al., 1982). We believe the latter to have been its original anatomical origin and that the former evolved later as secondary cultic or other objects were made that represented the vertebra. ‘Vertebra’ and ‘knot’ are, in fact, related conceptually in the sense that vertebrae represent a series of bony ligatures, links or connected segments comprising the spine, that is, they are the series of ‘knots’ that tie the whole skeleton together. In cases of the lumbar vertebrae with their strong transverse processes and especially the fused vertebrae that comprise the sacrum (see below), they also give stability (support) to the body’s soft organs, especially in a bipedal animal like man. For these powers, vertebral bones might well be imitated by amuletic knots in ritual acts. Returning therefore to CT Spell 407 variant: ‘O you who knot (ts) your ¯ rope … O ferryman … O you seven knots (ts.w) of the celestial kine …’ ¯ (plus a number of other texts with words translated ‘knots’, especially ‘seven knots’), we suggest that ts has been many times mistranslated enigmatically as ¯ makes perfect sense, especially in stated reference ‘knot’ whereas ‘vertebra’ to ‘kine’ (cattle) in that they, like other mammals, including man, possess seven cervical vertebrae. It is interesting, therefore, that also in CT Spell 407 the celestial bark’s mooring rope was the ‘tail of the great wild bull’ (see Chapter 5 and below) and that, to this day, cattle are commonly restrained 5 S24 is also used medically as ‘to coagulate’ the blood and ‘to solidify’ cartilaginous tissues (Steuer and Saunders, 1959: 47).

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Chapter Six. Physiology of the Spine (or guided) by sharply flexing the tail upward at its base or by twisting it (‘knotting the cord’?). We recall here too from Chapter 3 that veterinarians still employ today exactly the same method of casting cattle (i.e., putting them off their feet onto the ground) with a rope attached to one front fetlock then over the spine as being used in several portrayals from ancient Egypt. Lastly in this regard, we return to one other hieroglyph (V16) for s A (sa) or ‘back’ of non-human animals in a medical context. In Chapter 5 we considered stp in the Old Kingdom as ‘cut off limbs’ or ‘cut up an ox’ (Faulkner, 254; PT 653, 128b) in connection with its adze determinative and apparent conceptual equations of the adze and the bovine forelimb. Here we briefly note that stp s A meant ‘extend magical protection’ (Gardiner, 1957: 593) and, in the ceremony of sa ankh (Budge, 1934: 35), the god conveys this magic of life to the king by passing his hand down the king’s spine, as well as placing the king’s crown on his head (i.e. the vertex of his spine) (Fig. 6.3a). Meaning of Ankh We come now quite naturally to consideration of the actual symbol for ‘life’, ‘living’ and related concepts, #nh (ankh), (S34), and note that it is ˘ more or less the Kahun Veterinary Papyrus’s uncommon ideogram for psd ¯ ( ) written upside down. Fischer’s (1972) treatment of ankh showed that already in Early Dynastic times it could be represented as an object made of something flexible, such as cloth or reed. However, his own exposition centers around a beautiful stone dish, probably of First Dynasty, in the shape of an ankh. A liquid (Fischer thought water) was put into the loop of the ankh and then poured through the stem in a life-giving ritual. The ankh symbol, as he pointed out, is frequently associated with lustrations, but as we shall argue in Chapter 7, this liquid may as well originally have been semen (or its female analog milk). As to the object from which the sign was derived originally, we are looking for something that has a loop at one end, projections to either side, a straight shank from the loop, and which is associated with life-giving properties. An obvious candidate, based on the above, is a single thoracic vertebra of the bull. But before we present additional evidence in support of that belief, we need briefly consider first other origins that have been proposed for . Theories About Ankh’s Origin Hypotheses previously suggested include a sandal strap, a girdle knot, a mirror, a double axe, a penis sheath and sexual organs. Gardiner (1925: 19–25) was the principal champion of sandal strap. His argument rested 102

Particular Importance of Thoracic Vertebrae upon Gunn’s original but unpublished suggestion (Jéquier, 1914: 131) and portrayal on Middle Kingdom coffins of ankh-like drawings near the level of the feet of the mummy, among drawings of everyday objects required by the deceased in afterlife. Gardiner believed these ankhs to be a ‘spare pair of sandal-strings’ but noted that, while ‘it is difficult to make [these] … representations harmonize in detail … [with actual portrayals of sandal straps, there is the] possibility the sign depicts the straps not as actually worn but laid out in such a way as to exhibit them to best advantage.’ He noted further, however, that ‘there is no obvious connection between the idea of life and that of sandal-strings.’ Finally, he opined that ‘it would certainly be wrong to advance the hypothesis that the sandal strings were called ankh because they resembled the symbol for life, the origin of that symbol being regarded as undiscoverable.’ With that conclusion, we obviously disagree. Schaefer (1932) added that ‘the nature of itself is unclear. The suggestion made by B. Gunn that this is a sandal strap is one in which I have never believed.’ He thought more plausible ’s origin as a sash or girdle knot or ‘magic knot’ (as did Jéquier, 1914) and in an earlier paper (Schaefer, 1927) argued that the symbol (tyet -amulet, V 39) commonly designated ‘Blood of Isis’ and the ankh were simply two different versions of a sacred knot symbol. Petrie (1892) had suggested originally a belief that ankh was a fishermen’s girdle, but suggested no associations with ‘life’, and Griffith’s (1898a: 60) suggestion was that a girdle knot’s association with ‘life’ might be that it was attached to a victim or reprieved prisoner. The mirror hypothesis was advanced by Loret (1902) because of his disbelief in the girdle knot suggestion. He noted that on wooden coffins of the Middle Kingdom mirrors were often depicted, though in a variety of shapes. His argument rested on their occasional portrayals in the shape, his belief that the ankh originally represented an actual object, that ‘the first meaning of the root [for the word ankh] would be to be visible, to be apparent’ and that the Egyptians believed that ‘what they saw was what existed.’ The most clear objection to mirror, raised and not well rebutted by Loret himself, was that was generally shown carried not by its ‘handle’, but through what would have been its reflecting surface, were it the original object. The double axe was commonly associated with sky-weather-fertility gods, most of them with strong bull origins or associations, in the Fertile Crescent, Anatolia, Greece and eastern Mediterranean islands. Conrad (1957: 101) mentioned a copper coin of the bull-horned weather god Adad holding lightning bolts and corn with an rather than the usual double axe (Cook, 1914: 537) rising from his head and Petrie (1900) illustrated from First Dynasty tombs at Abydos the upraised arms of ka enclosing a double axe in place of the more usual ankh. Cook (p. 545) also indicated two sources from the Fifth Dynasty and one from the First Dynasty for the title of an Egyptian priest ‘of the double axe’ with the axe pictured in his title. 103

Chapter Six. Physiology of the Spine Ankh as male sexual organ, a suggestion in passing of various authors, has been argued no more closely than for a penis sheath by Baines (1975), who concluded, there being no obvious resemblance of the penis itself to ankh, some penis sheaths more or less shaped like an ankh ‘might be not so much the origin of the sign as a fairly common linking of the garment and the sign.’ He rightly pointed out that ‘the earliest form of the penis sheath does not immediately call to mind the ankh-sign’ and that the ‘evidence [he] examined is insufficient to prove any single origin for the sign.’ However, such an hypothesis more than any other would satisfy the connections of the original object with ‘life’ and, to that extent we believe Baines was right in believing that the ankh was originally an object associated with the male reproductive system. Our own conclusions have been that (1) the double axe superficially resembles and, since the two were frequently associated with bulls and weather/fertility in antiquity, they may sometimes have been exchanged in portrayals (or the double axe, a utilitarian object, possibly a poll axe, may have been substituted by people who never knew or had forgotten the source of the original ankh object, but knew it had some bull connection). (2) Mirror and penis sheath, like Fischer’s (1972) probably First Dynasty bowl in shape, and other objects sometimes made like ankhs at some point, were cult objects eventually substituting for or complementing the originally used vertebra. (3) The girdle and sandal knot associations could be similar in origin, but, more importantly perhaps, are ones that can be logically subsumed by ts under our hypothesis of as bull’s thoracic vertebra (Schwabe et al., ¯ 1982). as Thoracic Vertebra Considering further as a bull’s thoracic vertebra,6 it is not necessary to reject some hypothesized associations of ankh with other objects to accept its origin as the bull’s thoracic vertebra. Some of these associations are, in fact, strengthened, particularly those most favored by some prominent Egyptologists as ’s origin in the past, namely the sandal strap knot and the girdle knot. The ankh, like the vertebra, has a central canal, two lateral processes and an elongated spinous process (which even has a slightly flared distal end and a median line). The anatomically less exact features of the and the ankh are the same, namely Kahun Veterinary Papyrus’ psd sign ¯ their somewhat simplified lateral processes and a less obvious vertebral

6 The chance circumstances in Kenya’s Maasailand for derivation of this hypothesis in 1961 were outlined in Schwabe (1984b: 7–9); their first publication in passing was in Schwabe (1978: 54).

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Fig. 6.2 – One of the larger of the thoracic vertebrae of a bull shown in caudal perspective. Note its long spinous process with slightly flared end portion and median line, the two lateral processes and the vertebral canal through which passes the spinal cord.

body (as compared to an actual vertebra, Fig. 6.2). Such simplifications were commonplace among hieroglyphs. We suggest that in Predynastic times an ungulate’s thoracic vertebrae, partly because some of these were connected by ‘living flesh’ to (i.e., hidden by) the bull’s ka-bearing forelimb (see Fig. 6.1 and Chapter 5), were 105

Chapter Six. Physiology of the Spine recognized by Egyptian priests as the sacred (and secret?; see Chapter 9) symbol par excellence for the procreating/revivification properties (powers) of the spine, mysteries of life. As mentioned, Baines (1975) had previously reviewed portions of the evidence for the ankh symbol’s association with creative and sexual aspects of life. If the ankh were originally an ungulate’s thoracic vertebra, which ungulate? Bulls and rams were both prominent among Egyptian fertility gods (see Chapters 2 and 7). In the late semen-from-bone texts discussed by Sauneron (1960), the ram god Khnum is frequently the actor or, in one instance, the Ram of Mendes, another fertility god. However, in noting the several implied relationships of the spine and its bones to the process of revivification after death beginning in Old Kingdom texts, one cannot fail to be struck by the frequent association of both the back (and its bones) and the process with bulls. Thus, while thoracic vertebrae of both rams and bulls closely resemble the ankh symbol, the most substantial evidence, including that already presented, favors a particular connection of ’s origin with the bull. One line of biological inquiry, therefore, is the size of the carried by a god or the pharaoh in various portrayals, and how it is being held. The average height of inhabitants of Middle and Upper Egypt in Early Dynastic times was given by the physician-anthropologist Charles Seligman (1957: 88–95) as 168 cm. On that scale the was almost always 20 cm. or more in length. We obtained measurements of 26 mounted standing skeletons of mature present-day cattle (standing as high as 167.5 cm. at the shoulder) from veterinary colleges in the United States. The first and second thoracic vertebrae of these ranged from 20 to 36.9 cm. in length. Using a least squares regression equation (y=12.92 + 0.64x) derived from these measurements permits estimation of a length of 40.8 cm. for the thoracic vertebra of a bull standing as high as 182 cm, or approximately six feet, at the shoulder, as did aurochs (Bos primigenius), the wild ancestors of domestic cattle present in Egypt at least until the end of the Old Kingdom (Epstein, 1971, I: 227). Ulrik Mohl of the Universitetets Zoologiske Museum in Copenhagen informed us that the length of the highest thoracic vertebra of an old aurochs bull skeleton preserved there is, in fact, 44.5 cm. The thoracic vertebrae of the largest rams are considerably smaller than those of the smallest mature bull. Moreover, the opening or vertebral canal, in which the spinal cord lies, in even a small bovine vertebra is wide enough for a man to insert two fingers and carry as the ankh object was carried. That of the ram is not. The vertebral canal of the wild aurochs bull was, of course, considerably larger than that of domestic cattle (one consequence of animal domestication being smaller individuals than of their wild ancestors). To return to use of s A medically for the back of non-human animals (V16) (Deines and Westendorf, 1961–1962, sub voce), when written as or (V17), or together, as in PT 1470, it had the meaning ‘protection’ 106

Particular Importance of Thoracic Vertebrae

Fig. 6.3 – (a) Amen-Re passing his hands down the spine of the kneeling pharaoh while fastening his crown; (b) goddess suckling the pharaoh (Budge, 1934: 35).

(Gardiner, 1957: 523). As V17 it also referred to a phyle of priests (Gardiner, 1957: 247, n 2). In stp s A (stp, OK, ‘to cut up an ox’ or ‘cut off limbs’, s A, V16), it meant ‘extend magical protection’ (Gardiner, 1957: 593). As will be mentioned again in Chapter 8, s Aw was a ‘magician’ or ‘guardian’ (Ebers Papyrus 99, 2–3; Gardiner, 1957: 588), an ‘amulet man’ (Gardiner, 1917: 33). Gardiner (1957: 523) believed the actual V16 object to be a cord cattle hobble, that is a series of four knots.7 Given the Egyptian equation of vertebrae with knots, and of s A (sa) as ‘animal back’, we believe V16 was probably also early considered to represent, like the more common hieroglyphs for psd, ¯ a simplified drawing of four thoracic vertebrae of an ungulate animal but , in dorsal perspective. This conjecture is strengthened by seen, like ts, ¯ portrayals (e.g., Budge, 1934: 35) of the daily ritual performed accounts and by the pharaoh or a high priest in which the recipient received from the god the essence of life s A #nh (sa ankh) (or s A n #nh). This transfer is affected ˘ when the god makes magical passes (stp s A) of˘his hand down the spine of the recipient pharaoh (Fig. 6.3a) and places the crown on the king’s head.8 Thus, the recipient received divine powers. (See also WB I: 413–416.) 7 To resemble an all-four-feet hobble, it would have two, not four ‘knots’. AV16 as a hobble would require an 8-legged animal! 8 In the next part of the ritual (Budge, 1934: 35) the recipient sits on the knee of a goddess and suckles milk (an analog of semen, Chapter 7).

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Chapter Six. Physiology of the Spine Clinical Proof In the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, Case 31 (Breasted, 1930: 323–332) on luxations of the spinal column, we read in the instance of dislocation of ‘a vertebra of his neck … his phallus is erected on account of it, … a vertebra of his neck extending to his backbone [i.e., to the adjacent thoracic ankh section of the spine] which causes him to be unconscious of his two arms (and) his two legs. If, however, the middle vertebra of his neck is dislocated, it is an emissio seminis which befalls his phallus’.9 This section of the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus illustrates how correct clinical observations may sometimes – through rational inferences – appear to substantiate a nevertheless incorrect cause and effect theory. But we also see a rudimentary scientific process at work, and a situation again where Egyptian priest-healers probably ‘experimented’ (see Chapter 5). Egyptian scenes show large numbers of decapitated enemies; the head of an ox is a hieroglyph (F1), including in some offering formulae; the head of a bubalis (F5) and a ram (F7) are also hieroglyphs; as is a headless goat (F26). We would note also that goats were decapitated in connection with Opening-of-the-Mouth ritual and severed heads of bovids, usually calves, are sometimes seen on offering tables. Thus, opportunities for Egyptian priests to observe physiological consequences of damage to the cervical cord were probably numerous.

Spine and Death In Chapter 2 we sketched some of the associations of canids and snakes with death (and healing). Here we pursue this snake association with special reference to the spine and its production not only of mtwt, semen, fluid of life, but mtwt, poison, fluid of death. Thus, as we shall see, these dual meanings

9 Breasted (1930: 323) remarked that spontaneous ejaculation is a ‘phenomenon observed in modern times in the case of a criminal whose neck has been broken by hanging’ and quoted a Dr. Luckhardt to that effect: ‘Priapism is certainly a characteristic sign of cord involvement in the cervico-dorsal [i.e., neck and thoracic] region.’ In a recent review article, Hart and Leedy (1985) noted the following about genital effector mechanisms: ‘the somatic efferent nervous system and also the autonomic nervous system are involved in erection. (…) Ejaculation involves a series of neural reactions … observations on human patients revealing that erection could be evoked in paraplegic and quadriplegic individuals. (…) One conclusion from this more recent work on human patients, and from other studies on laboratory animals, is that erection is easily evoked in spinal individuals [individuals with severed cords], but ejaculation (or seminal expulsion) is uncommon, … seminal expulsion (usually spontaneous) has been observed in spinal male guinea pigs … and male cats … within a few hours after transections. Such seminal expulsion would seem to be due to stimulation of the distal stump of the cord.’

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Spine and Death of mtwt (Sethe, 1935–1939, 1962: 2, 222), rarely connected by Egyptologists (Te Velde 1967: 37, 45), represent production of analogous substances with opposite effects by analogous physiological mechanisms from bones of the spine, storage of each as ‘marrow’ (spinal cord) and conduction through the vertebral canal. Taken together, these represent the basis for a cycle of life and death and the reasoning process involved – resorting to inferences about ‘sames’ and ‘opposites’ – is precisely that identified by Lloyd (1966) as central to emergence in Pre-Socratic Greece of what he considered some implicit rules of evidence that undergird scientific inquiry versus alternative approaches (see Chapters 1 and 4). Mtwt and a Physiological Analogy between Opposite Functions of the Spines of Snakes and Bulls Therefore, an animal-vertebra association related to semen from bones of bulls, hence men, also involves the snake. We note, first, that, osteologically, a snake is mostly a living spinal column and clearly this resemblance could not have escaped the ancient Egyptians’ notice. A snake’s skeleton consists almost entirely of a series of compact vertebrae resembling the neck and tail vertebrae of bulls and other mammals.10 Snakes were associated in antiquity, as today, with death (see Chapter 2) and references to them in the Egyptian funerary literature are almost as frequent as those to cattle. Especially relevant texts include PT 511abc, ‘The King is a serpent (n#w), the Bull of the Ennead, who swallowed his seven uraei [cephalic ends of cobras] that they might become his seven neck vertebrae (nhbwt)’ and CT . Spell 374, ‘I am a n#w snake … who swallowed his seven uraei, and his seven neck vertebrae came into being.’ Ghalioungui (1973: 21) mentions the prayer ‘If the poison pass these seven knots which Horus has made in the body, I will not allow the sun to shine’, for which poison (mtwt) could alternatively be read semen and seven knots, the seven neck (throat) vertebrae of man, cattle and all other mammals. A particularly revealing text in terms of the snake’s anatomical role in connection with the religious-healing rituals of revivification, and the physiological processes represented, is found in the Twelfth Hour of the Book of That Which is in the Underworld (Hornung, 1963; portrayed in his Fig. 2). There (I: 197–200) we read ‘this god travels in this manner in this locality through the spinal cord ["ımAh] of this secret manifestation of ˘ him. He enters its tail and goes “The-gods-live”-snake, while his gods pull

10

As Aelian noted ‘the spine of a dead man, they say, transforms the putrefying marrow into a snake … it is from the spine of evildoers that such evil monsters are begotten even after life …’

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Fig. 6.4 – Hour Twelve of the Night in which the bark bearing the deceased is drawn by gods and goddesses through the spine of a snake from its tail to its mouth, Amduat (Piankoff and Rambova, 1954: Fig. 87).

out of its mouth [Fig. 6.4], being born in his form of Khepri.... This secret manifestation of “The-gods-live”-snake is at his place in the underworld. He goes to no other place at any time (day). This great snake speaks to him in his name of nı"w-serpent that he may make smooth (be smooth to) the birth of the god. He has a spinal cord ["ım Ah] 1300 sacred ells long, and he lives on the ˘ ones ["ım Ahw] who are in his spinal cord, murmuring voices of the honored ˘ going out of his mouth every day.’ In the portrayal we have the deceased, identified with the sun god, and his entire sun bark crew going through the spinal cord of the snake in order to be reborn on the coming day. Further comments on these snake texts and Underworld may be found in Schwabe et al. (1982). Elsewhere, the deceased is being pulled similarly through the spine of a bull (Fig. 6.5a from the Second Division of the Book of Gates). Thus, the uraeus (cobra head) on the brow of the pharaoh (at the top of his own spine) and the bull’s tail at the back of his kilt (base of his spine) make sense in that they reflect the analogous life and death powers of these two animals (see Chapter 2), power which he as king exercises over his people. The deceased may also ride on the back or spine of a bull (Fig. 6.5b) much like Osiris rode upon the back of Seth. As to these alternate, complementary or successive paths for revivification by retracing the course of semen (mtwt) through the bull’s spine and/or poison (mtwt) through the snake’s, we see both reflected in ‘May there be cleared for me the path (w At) of the n#w-snake, the Bull of Nut, Nehebkau’ (BD Spell 149 110

Spine and Death

Fig. 6.5 – (a) The deceased passing through the spine of a bull retracing the path of semen (Piankoff and Rambova, 1954: 153, Fig. 37).

Fig. 6.5 – (b) The deceased riding on the spine of a bull in the tomb of Sennedjem, Thebes (tomb opened by courtesy of Mr. Ibrahim Kamal, Inspector of Antiquities for Thebes, 1957).

K2 S1). This word w At is also frequently encountered in related contexts in the funerary literature, as when the jackal-god (scavenger) of the necropolis is Wp w Awt, ‘opener of the ways’.11

11

Here and in Chapter 2 we see reference to canids, death and rebirth, a line of inquiry we do not follow further. We would relate, however, the second author’s experience when climbing down into a plundered tomb in the Fayum necropolis (with human bones and mummy wrappings littering the ground) of being almost bowled over by a jackal making a hasty retreat between his legs from that tomb.

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Chapter Six. Physiology of the Spine In the Papyrus Jumilhac, which dates from the late Ptolemaic Period, and which contains myths and legends according to traditions preserved in the XVIII nome of Upper Egypt, is an especially interesting resort to sames and opposites (see Chapter 4) in further theorizing that, while the white semen from bones of the male contributes all of the fetus’ white parts, its red parts come from the female’s menstrual blood, thus completing the cycle of procreation and fetal development (Yoyotte, 1962). In Chapter 7, we consider milk as the female analog of the male’s semen, but we will not pursue further here the probably also interesting connection of the tie amulet, Isis and menstrual blood’s embryological functions.

Comparative Findings While, in Judaic tradition, Genesis 2: 21–23 has Eve created from a sela’, a rib or thoracic bone12 (‘This at last is bone of my bones’, RSV), there is a Talmudic account (Graves and Patai, 1964: 66) that says Eve was created from Adam’s tail, which ended in a sting. Of the coccygeal vertebrae remaining after the operation, the tip, called in Hebrew luz, ‘almond’, had remarkable qualities. Ginzberg (1947: BV, 81) added that ‘the assertion found in Tehillim [11, 102] that the soul is fastened to the spine is probably related to the old view, according to which a part of the spine [the “almond bone”] … is indestructable and will, in the time of resurrection, furnish the material out of which the human body will be quickened.’ Also in the Talmud we find the idea that the male furnishes the ‘white’ (semen) from which the bones, brain, sinews, nails and ocular sclerae (white parts) come and that the female furnishes the ‘red’ (menstrual blood) for the skin, flesh, hair and ocular corneas (the colored parts) (Zimmels, 1952: 62). In these Egyptian and Hebrew cases, we are dealing with related languages in the Afro-Asiatic phylum and an instance where there has been historical contact. On the other hand, Keswani (1963: 211, 218) noted similarly from the Sanskrit (an Indo-European language) treatise Aitareya Aranyaka that ‘the woman contributes the skin, blood and flesh, whereas the man contributes the fat, bone and marrow parts of the fetus’, and from the Garbha Upanishad, that from bones arise ‘marrow (majja), and from the marrow semen (sukra).’ This connection of marrow and semen also appeared to be reflected in another Indo-European (Zoroastrian) cosmological work Budahishn (Boyce, 1975): 12

In connection with rib and ankh both being bones of the thoracic cage, it is of interest that the ankh is commonly held by a deity to the nose of a living pharaoh or a deceased person, a point we return to in Chapter 7. Here we note simply that contexts for ankh such as ‘breath of life’, ‘to inhale through the nose’ and ‘life to the nose’ (WB I: 193–198) illuminate such texts as CT Spell408 where, with reference to the ‘knots’ (read ‘vertebrae’) of the celestial kine ‘O Strong Bull … give air.’

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Comparative Findings ‘It is said in the religion: When the sole-created ox passed away, there where it sent forth its marrow, the fifty-five species of grain grew up, and the twelve species of healing plants.... The semen of the ox was borne up to the moon station. There, they purified it, and he [Ohrmazd] created domestic animals of all species [from it]’ (Lincoln, 1981: 72 and see also our Chapter 3). While present-day Nilotic Dinka we queried believed all portions of the fetus originate equally from the sire and the dam, the origin of semen is believed by them to be the brain and spinal cord, from which it passes to and is stored in the testes (Schwabe and Kuojok, 1981: 235).13 However, according to Baumann and Westermann (1962: 142) other present-day African tribes (they include Venda, Congolese and Ashanti) hold that bones of the fetus are a contribution of the male and some associate this power originally with a sacred bull. Moreover, Dinka sometimes apply their word aciek (creator) to cattle (Deng, 1971: 243) and, to them, ‘the bull represents virility’ (Lienhardt, 1961: 17, 20). Traditional Dinka hymns associate bulls, sky and fertility, including rain (e.g. ‘[Rain] the great bull, the creator has fallen from above’ (Lienhhardt, 1961: 86–88). Among the closely related Nilotic Nuer, the word jok, usually translated ‘ghost’ or ‘spirit’, also refers to ‘back’ and bones of the cervical region, which are the neck vertebrae (Huffman, 1929: 21). Similar beliefs about semen, bones and the spine were current in the Greek world in the 4th century BCE (Rostand, 1936: 7–34) and before, being expressed by Alcmaeon, Hippo and Diocles, as well as by authors of the Hippocratic On Seed and Airs, Waters and Places (Von Staden, 1989: 288–296). In Timaeus (Lee, 1965: 120), for example, Plato characterized semen as ‘a soft flow from the spine’ and opined that the gods had made a connection from the spinal ‘marrow’ (spinal cord) to the urethra of the penis through which it could exit (Lee, 1965: 120; Cornford, 1937: 292 ff. and see our Chapter 7). In his examination of some of the above sources in comparison with the Egyptian texts he described, Yoyotte (1962: 142) concluded that the ‘question of paternity [for such ideas] should definitely be settled in favor of Egypt.’ Subsequently, these rationally derived, albeit incorrect physiological ideas about procreation – inextricably related to the analogous acts of creation and of rebirth (re-creation) after death – were disputed by Aristotle, but he too failed to identify the true source of semen (Balme, 1972: 24–32). He believed it was the product of surplus blood, as was mother’s milk (see Chapter 7). 13

Dinka differentiate anatomically, as did the Egyptians, different sections of the spine. That is, the atlas is called yiith thaar, the axis ngok, cervical vertebrae yeth yuom, thoracic vertebrae duolnhom, lumbar vertebrae reel and coccygeal vertebrae anguek nguek ke yol (Schwabe and Kuojok, 1981).

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Chapter Six. Physiology of the Spine Only with Galen in the 3rd century CE did the alternative belief that semen was formed only in the testes begin to prevail in the West (Rostand, 1936: 19, 38). It is amazing that this incorrect but rationally derived theory should have been so widely disseminated at such an early date in the ancient world. At the least, this testifies to the extremely early date for its first derivation, most convincingly from present evidence in Predynastic Egypt. Also requiring consideration with regard to the possible antiquity of some of these beliefs about bones and spine is evidence that very early man hunted and scavenged the carcasses of other predators’ kills especially to crack their bones for the marrow (including spinal cord), in the view of some scholars to satisfy a nutritional craving for fat in a fat-scarce Paleolithic diet (Binford, 1981). Of special interest is a study of Hazda hunters (O’Connell et al., 1988), which showed that, in both their hunting and scavenging, femurs, humeri and similar long bones were stripped of their meat and cracked for their marrow in the field, but more difficult bones to so process, like the thoracic and lumbar spine, were transported back to the base camp and that those types of bones especially accumulated, therefore, about Hazda home sites. We think that vertebrae might therefore have received similarly special attention by early man,14 including Predynastic Egyptians.

The Principal Supporting Vertebrae for the Body We have already mentioned in passing use of (djed) to write ‘back’ (psd) in late times. Both portrayals and textual evidence connect the djed object ¯or hieroglyph with backbone, especially of Osiris. In fact the Egyptian record links Osiris with djed in a number of contexts.15 To illustrate, Pyramid Text Utterance 410 (PT 719a–e), an address to the djed column states, ‘O Busirite [i.e., Osiris], O djed pillar which is in Grgw-b A.f, may the king be in your greatness (?), may the king continually be in your greatness (?), when the king finds you seated upon the watch-tower of Khaty, on which the gods

14

Jones and Metcalf (1988) calculated for different caribou bones the quantity of marrow obtainable, processing time for its extraction and calories yielded per hour’s work, that is, a hierarchy of bone utility. Lastly, we would note that knucklebones (carpal bones, Latin tali) of cattle especially, and probably derivative 6-sided cubes (dice) of bone, ivory or wood, were kept for good luck and games of chance in ancient times and have been found in burial sites in the Mediterranean areas, including Egypt, the Near East, India and the Far East (Anon., 1940, vol. 7: 329–330; Sigerist, 1967: 262). Cattle have six carpal bones on each forelimb, the most regularly 6-sided, like fashioned ancient and modern dice, being the radial and intermediate carpals. Also commonly used for fortune-telling in diverse cultures were the shoulder blades (scapulae) of large animals. These were put in the fire and the resulting patterns of fracture lines used to predict the future. 15 Although Griffiths (1980: 41, 112, 178) believed that djed was not originally or at least necessarily linked to Osiris until the New Kingdom, that may not be the case.

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The Principal Supporting Vertebrae for the Body dwell. The lords of the kas are bound for him, when … comes for him (?) …’ Perhaps the lords or possessors of ka energy are bound to the djed so that the king may have sustenance and replenish his vital force and power. On the first sheet of the Nineteenth Dynasty Papyrus of Hunefer (BM 9901; Budge, 1899, Pl. I) is a vignette, incorrectly known as Spell 16, in fact the vignette for Spell 15 (Faulkner, 1985: 6–7; Allen, 1974: 26). Its top half depicts the newly risen sun, Re-Horachty, worshipped by seven baboons of dawn (see Chapter 7). The bottom half depicts Isis and Nephthys on either side of a personified djed. The inscriptions, ‘I am your sister Isis …’ and ‘I am your sister Nephthys’ make it clear the djed represents Osiris. BD Spell 185A S 1 states in part, ‘Hail to you, Osiris … who is the spirit presiding over the two djed pillars …’ In the Ramesside mortuary chapels at Saqqara are found a number of square pillars called ‘Memphite Djed-pillars’ (Van Dijk, 1993: 151). Each has decorated in relief on at least one side a djed, which is often carried on the arms and or shoulders of the deceased. According to Van Dijk (pp. 164– 165) the deceased lifting the djed column represents Heh or Shu ‘lifting up heaven.’ He links Dd sˇ psy, ‘the August Djed’, a divine name of the djed ¯ Dynasty, with a special type of Ramesside djed with going back to the Fifth two ba birds, one representing Osiris and another representing Re.16 The Memphite djed pillar raises the resurrected sun god (Van Dijk, 169). Other associations of the djed with Osiris include Pyramid Text Utterance 532, in which PT 1255 a-b is found. It states ‘The djed pillar of the day-bark (i.e., of Re) is released for its (i.e., the day-bark’s) lord, the djed pillar of the day-bark is released for its protector’. Although the day-bark may be associated with Re, the remainder of the Utterance is clearly Osirian (Faulkner, 1985: 199). Indeed Osiris is mentioned five times in this Utterance. Mercer (1952a: 626) believed that the djed is to be equated with a bark’s mooring post, but because the djed may replace the snake in later mythological papyri, it seems likely that the djed is in the day-bark rather than in front of it. Coffin Text Spells 337 and 338, in which the djed is mentioned a total of three times, also are Osirian. In these two Spells, Osiris is vindicated against his foes and all three also mention the night of erecting the djed pillar. CT IV 332d, too, mentions the erecting of two djed pillars. We say more below about these and other references to erecting the djed column. Djed and Backbone In Coffin Text Spell 73, which is an abbreviated version of Pyramid Text Utterance 532, also Osirian, this djed of the day-bark is mentioned once in 16

Van Dijk believes that both ba birds represent Re, but Hornung (1990: 121 and unnumbered Fig.) shows that from Ani’s 19th Dynasty Book of the Dead that one of the bas is Osiris.

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Fig. 6.6 – (a) Personified djed holding the flail and scepter of Osiris; (b) personified djed (bull’s sacrum plus three lumbar vertebrae) in correct anatomical sequence with more cephalic ankh (bull’s thoracic vertebra) then ka (imitation of the bull’s horns) enclosing the sun (called bull) (Book of the Dead of Ani, after Budge 1911, I: 51).

each of two parallel clauses. According to Hornung (1990: 74, 88, 118), because of the nightly union of Re and Osiris in New Kingdom religious texts, the sun’s nightly form is a djed pillar representing Osiris. Thus, the union of the sun god with Osiris every night led to numerous representations of the djed in depictions of the sun’s voyage. Hornung, though seeing the djed as Osiris, thought the personified djed was a logical consequence of the idea that the djed was Osiris’s backbone. Djed was, in fact, frequently personified, sometimes as composites (Fig. 6.6a–b) of a personified djed with an ankh, sun disk, etc. 116

The Principal Supporting Vertebrae for the Body

Fig. 6.7 – Djed immediately behind (bracing, giving added stability to?) the spine of the creator god Ptah. The god in Predynastic form grasps in front of him another djed from which emerges (in correct anatomical relation) the was staff (bull’s penis; see Chapter 7) (Budge, 1934: 13).

Other texts suggest that the djed is something that lasts forever. With reference to the body of a deceased person or animal, Egyptian priests certainly recognized that the only enduring parts – that is, those that could resist the pathogenic-putrefactive whdw principle evident also in feces and pus (Steuer and Saunders, 1959: 3˘ff.; and see our Chapter 9) – were the bones of its skeleton. As we have already demonstrated, the spine’s bones especially had magical semen-producing properties associated with life. Thus, in Pyramid Text Utterance 537, in which PT 1301c is found, is a revivification text, which states in part, ‘May you live (i.e., as long) as the living scarab beetle, may you endure as the djed pillar for ever and ever.’ This is also clearly Osirian as it starts with, ‘O king, arise and sit upon the throne of Osiris.’ Pyramid Text Utterance 690, in which 2107c is found, is similar. Referred to often as a pillar or column, as is the spine still today, the djed was frequently portrayed immediately behind the back of a god. In texts also, this position at the back of the deceased is sometimes mentioned. 117

Chapter Six. Physiology of the Spine For instance, in the Book of the Dead, Chapter 151, the vignette depicts the mummy chamber. The djed is placed in a niche in the western wall where it may face east, perhaps to greet the rising sun or to symbolically have the sun appear from the top of the djed. Here, the spell declares, ‘O you who come seeking, reverse your steps. O you whose face is hidden, I have illumined your hiding place. I am he who stands behind the djed pillar on the day when I should stand behind the djed pillar. I drive off the slayers, because I am the magical protection (s A) of the deceased....’ Book of the Dead Ptolemaic Spell Pleyte 171, ‘A Spell for striking fire’, also states in part, ‘Kindle the flame in secret so that the darkness may depart from before you, while the hand that it hides erects the djed pillar behind you.’ In such funerary texts, reference is often to the sun (deceased) rising again in the east from its passage through the Netherworld, while some texts, as well as portrayals, suggest that an ‘extra’ djed may be bracing, giving added stability to, the spinal column of the deceased (or god) itself. In addition to its special associations with Osiris, another god immediately behind whom the djed column was also portrayed was Ptah (Fig. 6.7), whose ‘double’ was the Apis bull. One conception of ka was also as a deceased pharaoh’s double (see Chapters 2 and 5), and ka was, of course, also the word for bull itself. In BD Spell 142S variation 4, Ptah is in fact called ‘the August Djed in the House of Re.’ But perhaps the most illuminating examples of djed as part of the spine specifically is in BD Chapter 155. It is called, ‘Spell for the djed of gold placed at the [throat of the blessed One].’ In one of its early versions from the 18th Dynasty Papyrus of Nebseny,17 this link between the djed and the backbone is made clear: ‘You have your backbone (psd), Weary-hearted One [Osiris from other versions], you have your vertebrae¯ (tsw), Weary-hearted One, may you place yourself upon your side so that ¯I may come to you bearing water. Look, I have brought you a djed that you may rejoice over it.’ This linking of the djed with the backbone and vertebrae, we believe, is not casual but associative, just as in the next BD Chapter, 156, the tyet-amulet of red jasper is linked to Isis, blood, and magic.18 In fact, a number of other sources connect djed with backbone and, as in the above, some of them specifically with the backbone of Osiris. To illustrate, in a vignette from the Ptolemaic Papyrus Jumilhac, Anubis prepares the body of Osiris in the House of Gold (the embalming place) at Memphis. Before the body of Osiris, which is wrapped as a mummy, are 12 body parts: the head, the eyes, the jaw, the arm, four fingers, the legs, the heart, lungs, and intestines, the ribs, the phallus and the backbone. The backbone here is a 17

Allen (1974: 154, note 256) uses this version as the basis for Chapter 155. We ourselves have not pursued this latter relationship in possible connection to the later Papyrus Jumilhac’s statement on red parts of the fetus from the red menstrual blood of the dam.

18

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The Principal Supporting Vertebrae for the Body djed. The artist has perhaps drawn the djed as the backbone, rather than the more usual signs, such as psd, because in the previous vignette he drew four ¯ signifying according to Vandier (1961: 253 & hearts or vases and two djeds, Pl. VI) that the four sons of Horus erect the two djeds. Bergmann (1880: 91) hypothesized a relationship between the djed and the djed sign written with a ‘t’ and a flesh sign for ‘backbone.’ Chassinat (1968: 703) shows that the latter is to be read pst.t, i.e. a Ptolemaic graphic variation of psd(.t) ‘back’ or ‘spine’, and, therefore, dismissed the relationship. However,¯ there may indeed be a relationship if the ideogram of djed was chosen for pst.t because djed also had an esoteric meaning of ‘spine’ or ‘backbone.’ Indeed Chassinat gives one example that may be interpreted in that way. In a phrase from Edfu, pr Wsr nb Ddw hr dd-sps psd.t ntr, which ¯ the spine ¯ ¯ were ¯two¯different Chassinat believed implies that the djed and things, it may actually imply that the djed and spine were in apposition (Schwabe et al., 1982: 448); that is, the August djed was the divine spine, in other words the backbone of Osiris. In this phrase, we have Osiris, lord of Djedu, the city of Busiris, which term meant literally the double djed.19 More than anyone else, E.A. Wallis Budge popularized this idea that the djed was the backbone of Osiris. While he described the djed many times, his last observations (Budge, 1925: 307–308) referred to Chapter 155 of the Book of the Dead, in which he associated the djed with the backbone (psd) and vertebrae (tsw) of the deceased or Osiris. Budge believed that the ¯ was a conventional ¯ representation of part of Osiris’s spinal column, he djed thought the sacrum, the oldest representation of which, according to him, was (F41). Budge’s specific identification here is incorrect anatomically because neither the human nor bovine sacrum has the transverse processes shown in this hieroglyph,20 which Gardiner (1957), however identified as part of a mammalian animal, nor the distinct separations of the five fused vertebrae that comprise it. Rather F41 resembles four lumbar vertebrae with their long transverse processes, as viewed from dorsal perspective. as the Sacral and Lumbar Spine Despite that anatomical error, Budge was clearly on the right track here21 because the hieroglyph itself does very closely resemble the bull’s sacrum plus its last three lumbar vertebrae (Fig. 6.8, and see Schwabe et al., 1982) viewed together in dorsal perspective. Anatomically speaking, the sacrum of 19 PT 389b, among others, mention the double djed that stands amid the rubble. The djed may be used as a marker of boundaries, to indicate the corners of the world, etc. (about which see Schwabe and Gordon, 1988; Gordon and Schwabe, 1995). 20 Nor does the sacrum of any other mammal of which we are aware. 21 According to Budge, after the Egyptians forgot what the original djed object was, they elongated the bottom of F11 and straightened the bone projections to make a djed. Elsewhere,

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Fig. 6.8 – The bull’s sacrum with its five fused vertebrae (only the most cephalic of which bears a pair of transverse processes) and the bull’s last three lumbar vertebrae (with their transverse processes). Note the sacrum’s caudal flare immediately posterior to which would attach its coccygeal (tail) vertebrae and the white retractor muscle of the penis (see Fig. 6.1).

cattle consists of five fused vertebrae, providing great stability to the pelvic girdle to which are attached the hind limbs. The long and strong transverse processes of the lumbar vertebrae provide maximum support also, while still permitting maximum flexibility, to the ‘saddle’ of the animal’s back and all of the dependent abdominal viscera. The anterior end of the bull’s sacrum has one pair of transverse processes behind which the bone is smooth sided, gradually flaring toward its posterior end, as does the djed hieroglyph and object. The presence of bones of wild bulls in proximity to those of ancient Egyptians go back at least 10,000 years (see Chapter 3).

Budge (1911, I: 48) stated that the djed was the os sacrum placed on a stand (II, 280). In a third place, Budge (1913: 319–320), notes that one hastily drawn determinative for backbone (Chaine, 1938: F37, frequent in hieratic; see Schwabe et al., 1982: 455), when stood upright, can be confused with the djed. The inside or outside of the coffin might be painted with a large djed signifying the backbone of Osiris.

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The Principal Supporting Vertebrae for the Body As to frequent references (see examples above) to erecting a djed column, in a revivifying sense, we think this simply meant putting the deceased person back into a live posture (i.e., on his feet), as aided by the dead body’s being wrapped tightly in strips of linen and being placed in a wooden mummy case, an upright posture portrayed usually in the Opening-of-the-Mouth ritual (see Chapter 5). An excursus on BD Spell 18 S2 states ‘As for “erecting the two djed pillars in Busiris,” … they were around Osiris like a strip of clothing.’ Could that be like the protecting/supporting strips of linen about the mummy? Spell 20 S2 is similar. Ptolemaic Spell Pleyte 168 S45 states ‘Raise yourself, Djed, in Busiris. The head veiler has hidden your form.’ Those ideas, seemingly all about necessary preparations of the dead, may be suggested also in BD Spell 100 ‘Roll for initiating a blessed one and causing him to embark in the bark of Re’, one variation (BD 100, T5) of which reads: ‘… I have seen secrets22 in Busiris, for I am the companion of the embalmer. I have erected the djed and set up the tyet-amulet. I have sailed at Re’s rising wheresoever he would.’ Those two objects were associated with Osiris and Isis, respectively. Finally – and we think important to the anatomical conclusions about the male’s reproductive system as the Egyptians apparently understood it (a thesis we develop further in Chapter 7) – CT Spell 837 (VII 38) combines the ankh, djed and was (‘Lift up your hand which carries the ankh, and make firm the hand which carries the was so that it may be the djed of the gods’), all three of which were also stated to be parts of gods’ bodies (see Winter, 1968: 94), very commonly portrayed together and, of great importance, especially as a principal epithet of the pharaoh (‘mighty bull’): ‘life, stability, dominion.’ Beside the stability the sections of the vertebral column provided to the body of the bull, god and deceased, this anatomically-derived symbol – probably originally as part of hunting/religious magic (see Chapter 3) – was apparently replicated also in various materials for cultic and other uses, as well as representing similar ideas with respect to pillars supporting buildings and ultimately the cosmos. Besides the unlikelihood that any actual bull’s sacral and lumbar vertebrae – like any of its actual thoracic vertebrae (ankhs) – which may have been present in early Egyptian graves might have been considered by excavators and archeologists to have been cult objects per se, and therefore saved, by early in the Dynastic period, djeds made of other materials began to appear in excavation sites, as was the case too with various objects in the ankh shape (see above). Perhaps the two earliest of such objects were two pieces of carved ivory found by Saad (1947: 27 and Pl. 14b) at Helwan.

22

For more about priestly secrecy, see Chapter 9.

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Chapter Six. Physiology of the Spine Other Theories of Djed’s Origin Subsumed Several non-anatomical origins have been postulated in the past for the djed object, which clearly had magic powers and, as a hieroglyph meant ‘stability.’ Most hypothesized origins were as various trees or other plants, alone or in bundles, or as architectural elements, including supporting pillars or columns for buildings or the tops of doorways. Some of these hypotheses combined both ideas, with the stone architectural column originally representing a plant or plant column (as in the case of capitals of other building columns designed by Egyptians but not especially associated with djed). Plant stems (e.g., tree trunks) are surely a common building material, particularly for support; thus this idea of a djed column made of plant materials, or of stone, both usable as building supports, are not mutually exclusive. While Saad believed his particular ivory objects probably were gaming pieces, we think cult objects more likely. Be that as it may, Saad thought they represented cypress trees with straight trunks and branches tied together in layered bunches. Others have been less sure (Griffith, 1980: 41 and note 5). Schaefer (1932: 424) thought the djed object was a bundle of reed stalks tied together. Firth (1935: 12) believed it was ‘derived from sheaves of rushes or similar vegetable growths, lengthened by the expedient of inserting one bundle inside another and firmly tying the neck of each sheaf to prevent the next slipping within it.’ Newberry (1923: 450–451) suggested that it was a Lebanese conifer tree stripped of its leaves, which he related to Plutarch’s Osiris myth. Bridging the gap between plants or an architectural element, Gauthier (1935: 31–46) suggested the djed was originally a column made of reeds used to support the roof of a Predynastic building. Gardiner (1957: 502), following Schaefer, suggested that it was ‘a column imitating a bundle of stalks tied together.’ In fact, there are several stone and tile representations of the djed in Djoser’s pyramid complex, which suggest an originally plant origin for structural columns (Vandier, 1952: 884–885). That idea was elaborated by von Rosen (1929: 8–12), an anthropologist who had visited Firth at the Step Pyramid. According to him, the blue-glazed tiles found in the substructure represent a wattle-work of rushes with the djeds above representing rush columns, which might have been found in a swampy area, such as the prehistoric Nile Delta. He suggested (p. 11) that papyrus would have been the oldest building material in Lower Egypt. Structures like that, some of them very large, still are built of poles and thatch as cattle byres by Nilotes such as the Dinka and Nuer. Following Firth that the djed columns were constructed from sheaves of reeds or papyrus with reeds tied around the central shaft and the height of the shaft increased by inserting four sheaves one within the other on top of the central column (p.12), von Rosen then addressed the question of why a pillar 122

The Principal Supporting Vertebrae for the Body of reeds could become such an important sacred symbol to the Egyptians (p.13–14). He opined that when Isis found the backbone of Osiris in the swamp, she buried it there and erected a monument over it. Reed or papyrus would have been the only building materials available. In order to raise the monument above the level of the surrounding reeds, the height would have had to be increased by the insertion of sheaves on top of the central one as represented in the djed pillars of the Step Pyramid. Von Rosen suggested that the column used to raise that shrine became identified with the backbone itself. That is, the djed symbol is a representation pars pro toto (part for all) of the shrine erected by Isis for Osiris’s backbone. While von Rosen is here taking myth for historical fact, the idea of using such a papyrus or reed column to achieve a greater height than the surrounding reeds seems reasonable and von Rosen noted further (p. 15) that Osiris presided over vegetable growth and fertility.23 By the Third Dynasty, the djed is also found on ornamental mullions or supporting dividers on doorways in the Step Pyramid. Van Dijk (1993: 171 and note 81) suggested that these represented sky supports, and Clark (1959: 236) noted that, when observed up through a window, the djed does appear to support the sky. PT 389–390a seems to support that context: ‘The two djed pillars stand erect, (even) though the broken rungs (?) have tumbled down. I ascend on this ladder which my father Re constructed for me.’ According to Piankoff (1968: 43 note), the two djed pillars depict the Eastern and Western mountains. If so, it appears that the ankh and the was may substitute for the djed. We believe that virtually all of the more likely of these possible plant and architectural origins for may readily be subsumed under our bovine sacral plus lumbar vertebrae hypothesis. All have connections with hieroglyph’s meaning of ‘stability’, whether for the body, or buildings or, as we shall consider in our Epilogue, for a society and its territory, or some other bounded area. While all of these possibilities seem very old, the true origin of djed as something made of plants is far more tenuous than its anatomical origin as durable (imperishable) bones. First, vertebrae are natural objects that could have been associated with magical uses and mystical properties even before ancient Egyptians possessed domesticated cattle (see Chapter 3). As

23

Other suggestions may be interesting in other senses, but are extremely doubtful as true origins of the djed. Thus Petrie (1892: 31) and Moret (1972: 81) suggested the djed was derived from a pillar with four superimposed capitals. Alternatively, it was a picture of four pillars one behind another according to Egyptian ideas of perspective. It has also been suggested as a pedestal with four door lintels (Maspero, 1894: 139, n. 6) or alternatively as an altar with four tables one on top of the other, a painter’s easel or a Nilometer (Maspero, op.cit.). Kristensen (1925: 104) suggested the djed with its four crenels could represent the four pillars of heaven, while Maspero (1893: 359, n.3) suggested it was a symbolic representation of the four quarters of the world.

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Chapter Six. Physiology of the Spine with other objects and rituals we have considered, we believe it likely these originated with hunting magic in connection with the wild aurochs bull. Second, all of these other djed-as-plant column origins require fabrication, as in the case of many different cult objects also made to look like the ankh (see above). Comparative Observations Again we would note from Chapter 5 the Dinka’s legend about their first priest (Lienhardt, 1961: 174): ‘With the spears, Aiwel [the first priest] gave to these men the power to invoke effectively with them, and the power of spittle to bless and of his tongue to curse, and the Divinity Flesh [Ring], which was his originally. He also gave them [or some of them] other clandivinities, and he took a bull of the colour of the sky and removed from it the thigh [sic]24-bone while it still lived and gave it to Agothyathik [originally an adversary of Aiwel, who to save his people from Aiwel’s fishing-spear, took the sacrum of a bull, and fastened it to a long pole so that it would “move the reeds”], telling him that this would be the clan-divinity of Agothyathik and of his children, and that they must never damage or break a thigh [sic] bone.’ Considering Egyptian beliefs about the bull’s living forelimb, ka, djed as sacral and lumbar vertebrae, and the hypothesized early fabrications of djed objects from plant materials, including reeds, this legend strains belief in the probability of pure coincidence. For an introduction to Greek beliefs and practices about pelvic bones, see Burkert (1983: 6). The Latin sacrum, as used in English, or sacred bone, appears to derive directly from the Greek hieron osteon, a term for the fused pelvic vertebrae found, among other places, in the Hippocratic Corpus (The Setting of Limbs, 45), in Plutarch 2.981d and in Galen (De Usu Partium 5.8). Suetonius Tranquillus called it the ‘spina sacra.’ Singer (1957: 53), writing about Galen, stated that ‘he recognized twenty-four vertebrae terminated by the coccyx and sacrum. The latter he regarded as the most important bone of the spine, and the word he used to describe it was misunderstood by the Latins as equivalent to sacred, hence our term sacrum.’ In Vergil’s Georgics II, 476, and Aeneid IV, 301, the sacrum probably means a ‘sacred object’, perhaps a symbol in a ceremony. Scarborough suggests that the bone’s appearance may have had a link with ancient Roman religion (1992: 128). In Tacitus, Annals II, 14, the sacrum is a ‘sacrificial victim.’ The djed, when linked to Osiris and Seth, sometimes may be related to a sacrificial victim. Aristotle (Balme, 1972: 32), in concluding that semen was not formed in bones or testes, stated that ‘the male channels [for semen], both in those 24

Since it is impossible to sever the thigh from a living bull, this must be an error of translation for the forelimb (as also in mention of ‘thigh bone’ in some Egyptian text translations).

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Conclusions [animals] that have testes and those that have not, … [are] attached at the back in the region of the spine’, which provides ‘stability.’

Conclusions Beside use of a mysterious animating force, ka, which caused animal and human bodies to move (a therapeutic principle experimentally demonstrable in sacrificial bulls’ flesh even after their death), the Egyptian priesthood also attempted to revivify the dead through an understanding of ‘rebirth’ (recreation) as a process analogous to reproduction (procreation). That is, they were interested in what elements caused development of a live fetus and how these elements originated. From observations, first on domesticated herd animals, (1) that the male is essential to reproduction (a realization we explain in Chapter 7), (2) that the male ejaculates white semen into a female animal, (3) that body parts and fluids are either whitish or reddish and (4) that estrual herd animals signal their readiness to copulate by a bloody, vaginal discharge, Egyptian priests concluded that white semen produced the fetus’ white parts and whitish fluids, menstrual/estrual blood its reddish parts and fluids. Coupled with the powerful biosocial concept of a dominant male – plus other anatomical facts gleaned mostly from ritual sacrifices relative to the ka principle – priests concluded further that the spine’s purpose was twofold: (1) the more obvious function of providing a rigid supporting structure for the body’s soft parts and (2) to act as a principle source of, and channel for, semen. They noted further that the bull’s magical forelimb met (protected) its magical spine in the region of its first four thoracic vertebrae. These particular spinal bones – the ankh bones – possessed unusual life-associated powers because they joined ka’s strongest source to semen’s major source. Therefore, they best symbolized ‘life’ itself. The reasoning that translated these anatomical and behavioral observations into physiologic theory depended not only on analogies drawn between bulls and men, but cause-effect relationships between similarly appearing tissues/fluids (i.e., sames, e.g. whites from whites) and classifications by pairs of opposites (e.g., life versus death; reds versus whites). Further resort to anatomical analogies and conceptual opposites included the day-bark’s (sun’s, pharaoh’s) passage through the sky and/or spine of the bull and the night-bark’s passage in the Underworld (i.e., below the horizon from west to east), which could be represented by repeating the spinal voyage of snake poison. This latter caused Egyptian priests also to take advantage of snake poison as the death-producing fluid that arose similarly from the spines of snakes.

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CHAPTER SEVEN. THE MALE REPRODUCTIVE SYSTEM Phallocracy does not allude to male dominance solely within … sexual activity … [it] denotes a … claim by a male elite to general power, … display of the phallus less as an organ of union or of mutual pleasure than as a kind of weapon: a spear or war club, and a scepter of sovereignty. … The entire Dionysiac religion … seems to have sprung out of a systematic veneration of the male generative principle. – Eva Keuls, 1985: 2 and 78

Having laid out what were apparently very early Egyptian physiological theories about muscle contractility and the source of semen (including its role in fetal development), we turn to a necessary linkage between this supposed source of semen in bones and its obvious organ of delivery, the penis. Yoyotte (1962) and Harris (1971: 124) noted that in late times at least, the Egyptians clearly connected the penis with the backbone. In texts from the Osirian sanctuary of Dendera, a ram fertility god, the Ram of Mendes, taking part in the procession bringing in the parts of the body of Osiris, states, ‘I bring the phallus and the back reunited’ and later, ‘I protect the back reunited (?) with the phallus which were found in this place.’ These texts reflected the Egyptians’ fear of dismemberment after death and beliefs that rejoining the body’s parts was a prerequisite to revivification of the body (see Chapter 6). In discussing explicit late texts on semen from bones (see Chapter 6), Yoyotte (1962) hypothesized that the word mnhp, ‘begetter’, was originally a secret anatomical term (in keeping with its etymology ‘that which permits to procreate’) for the reunited penisspine combination. We think that very possible in view of Egyptian priests’ secretiveness generally and, especially, the power obviously inherent in knowing the secret name of something (see Chapter 9). As to an anatomical explanation for the Egyptians’ belief that the penis was attached to the spine, bulls, unlike men, possess a white1 retractor penis muscle, which has its origin on the first coccygeal vertebrae of the spine (the 1 Muscles over which individuals have voluntary control (striated muscles), what most people think of as muscle or meat, are red-colored flesh. Other muscles, including those of the stomach and intestinal walls, are called smooth muscles. Individuals do not have voluntary control over contractions of these, and they are colored white.

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Chapter Seven. The Male Reproductive System ‘root of the tail’, immediately posterior to the base of what we consider to be the djed), whence it splits to encompass the rectum and inserts on the second bend of the sigmoid flexure of the penis (See Larson and Kitchell, 1958, Figs. 1 and 4a).2 This connection of penis to spine would have been readily observed directly by Egyptian priests during sacrificial bull dissections,3 particularly if they had some use for this excised organ. At a relatively early point in these studies, the second author’s first collaborator, Professor Carlton Hodge, suggested that, since the and objects were postulated by us to have originated as portions of the spinal source and conduit of semen, then might also have a bovine anatomical origin, especially since so commonly appeared together not only in varied portrayals, but comprised the principal epithet of pharaoh over millennia, usually rendered ‘life, stability, dominion’. Although the second author suggested then the dried bull’s penis as the most likely anatomical candidate for the object (Schwabe et al., 1982: 461), its physical resemblance was not immediately so compelling as in the cases of and . Therefore, we felt it necessary, before pursuing further that postulated origin for was, to undertake a detailed general review of the staff, symbol and hieroglyph per se (Schwabe and Gordon, 1988; Gordon and Schwabe, 1995) and, especially, the latter’s generally accepted translation as ‘dominion’, and what that implied to the Egyptians. We found that both was and ‘dominion’, as perceived by the Egyptians, had sexual as well as social and power dimensions, and that these may have originated through very early Predynastic Egyptians’ observations of nature, especially of biological and social aspects of the behaviors of wild aurochs bulls and male baboons. Especially intriguing in these several connections were Winter’s citations (1968: 94) of ‘speeches’ of Hathor and other gods in which was (and ankh) were both identified as parts of the body of gods (e.g., ‘I give you the life time of Re and the years of Atum as parts of both masters in the form of ankh and was’) and also use of djed in connection with the so-called ‘back protection’ formula in Old Kingdom times. Consequently we examined a number of possible collateral sources of Egyptological and biological evidence, as well as any possible ethnoarcheological leads. 2 Unlike the human penis, in which erection results from overall enlargement of the external organ by blood engorgement, that of the bull is a slender more fibrous organ about one meter in length that, during erection, extends a considerable distance from the prepuce, but does not enlarge appreciably in diameter. However, when it is not extended, this extra length of the more pliable organ is withdrawn by its retractor muscle and is accommodated in an S-shaped curve beneath the sacral vertebrae (i.e., the djed). When the bull’s penis is erect, its internal portion is readily palpated beneath the skin past the scrotum to the perineal region adjacent to the coccygeal spine. 3 Besides, in some mammals, like the dog, the penis actually contains a bone, the os penis. That could also have been observed by ancient Egyptians.

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The Male’s Role in Reproduction The Male’s Role in Reproduction For reasons we shall elaborate, Hornblower (1943: 31) had already concluded that the Egyptians’ realization that the male was necessary for reproduction was unlikely before their keeping of domesticated ruminant livestock. Walsh (1989 and personal communication) found no evidence to suggest otherwise among peoples anywhere in the Mediterranean region and Near East and Tannahill (1980: 46–48) concluded similarly. It is likely, therefore, that the ancients who first captured and tamed the more tractable females of wild ruminants discovered the male’s role in reproduction by noting that these confined females failed to produce offspring unless exposed to still wild males for the act of coitus.4 Before that, sexual intercourse appears to have been regarded solely as an act of male dominance and enjoyment. That conclusion about the origin of knowledge that the male played any necessary role in reproduction can be argued because a cause and effect relationship between coition and birth would have been virtually impossible to make for the non-estrual human species alone in which males copulate not in a particular season determined by the female (as in most other mammals), but ad libitum. Also in different wild animals the interval between coition and birth varies greatly among species, but is often sufficiently long to make any such causal conclusion for them alone highly improbable (again given the human species’ own pattern of ‘sex on demand’). However, once the necessity for male participation in procreation was understood, an association of semen with life became inescapable. Therefore, a connection between the central source and conduit of semen (the spine) and semen’s delivery organ (the penis), confirmable anatomically in the sacrificed bull, would have rationally defined the male’s reproductive , as indicative also system, which could well have been represented by of the powers this system conferred. Yoyotte’s (1962) suggestion that the secret name of this organ system was mnhp (‘begetter’) seemed therefore quite plausible.

4 Wolfgang Heimpel (1986, personal communication and All-UC Conference on the History and Pre-History of Man-Animal Relationships, Agricultural History Center, University of California, Davis, April 25–27, 1986) presented evidence from the Drehem ‘stockyard’ texts indicating that, even for some time after they had completely domesticated and exercised control over the breeding of small ruminants, Sumerians still continued to expose certain fully domesticated female animals to wild males (perhaps to obtain larger or more vigorous offspring).

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Chapter Seven. The Male Reproductive System The Was-Scepter, Penis and Dominion As discussed in our two papers on utilitarian and cultic uses of was (Schwabe and Gordon, 1988; Gordon and Schwabe, 1995), the notion of dominion in the Egyptian context implied establishment of boundaries for, and other aspects of protection or exercise of power over, the ‘herd’, animal or human, both literally and figuratively. Thus, in its associations with the -object, dominion in the special sense of territoriality is both a practical animal husbandry/land delimiting concept and a cosmological concept. Examples are use of the (d#m = djam), which we regarded as a variant of was, as a herding implement ¯ for the marking of the cardinal points in the sky, respectively. The ritual and use of the was in the surveying of boundaries of a field combined, or bridged those two concepts. Both these uses of was-like staves persist today among some pastoral peoples in northeastern Africa. Dominion as a Behavioral and Social Phenomenon One form dominion takes is territoriality. It is well-known that males of some mammals mark their territorial boundaries with urine, that is, with their penises. That is common to canids and we have noted that was was portrayed with an Anubis fetish on Third Dynasty boundary stelae of the Step Pyramid (Schwabe and Gordon, 1988: 72–73) and that the jackal god Duamutef, son of Horus, was one of the gods leaning on their djam’s (penises?) at the four corners of the sky (Gordon and Schwabe, 1995: 190). A variety of ruminant males, including ones native to northeastern Africa, also mark territory with urine (Gosling, 1982: 89–118; Wickler, 1966: 427– 4295). Since the wild ancestors of domestic cattle are extinct, the last recorded wild bull hunt by a pharaoh being by Amenhotep III (see Chapter 3), we do not know if the wild bull, so emulated otherwise by the pharaoh, was a territorial urine-marker too, but it probably was. In some other early civilizations, the penis also was associated symbolically with boundary demarcation.6

5 As examples, the large East African eland (Taurotragus oryx) urinates, rubs its forehead in the urine and then marks boundary trees with the urine-mud mixture. The male Thompson’s gazelle marks its territory by first defecating, then deliberately urinating on its feces. A male Gray’s waterbuck saturates its undercoat, including its throat hairs, with urine, then marks its female animals directly by rubbing the urine into them. 6 The alleged Babylonian use of phallic boundary stones (see Burkert, 1983: 58 and note 2) and the example of the Greek herms, man-high square stone posts with a bearded man’s head on top and on the front surface an erect penis (Schwabe and Gordon, 1988: note 42) are of revelant interest. According to Keuls (1985: 383), herms, originally priapetic statues of the god Hermes, ‘marked the boundaries of public and sacred precincts’, and were placed on the street side of private homes possibly to denote ownership. For the monumental erect stone penises of Delos, see Keuls’ Fig. 66. We note in passing Hermes carrying the caduceus, snakes twisted about a staff, in connection with our conjecture that the djam staff may bear some relation.

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The Was-Scepter, Penis and Dominion Another prominent use of penis in exercise of dominion is the physical act of the male mounting and/or copulating with his females, his employment of power/authority and their submission to it. In many ruminant species the male leader of the herd expands his dominion by impregnating an ever-larger number of females, bonding them to him and, at the same time, adding their offspring to his ‘domain’. Domestic cows still signal their heat (period of submission) to the bull by mounting other cows in the herd and allowing other cows to mount them. The bull’s libidinous exercise of dominion was obvious in at least that way to the Egyptians. We also noted in passing in Chapter 3 that, rather oddly, baboons, among all animals, were also referred to by the Egyptians as bulls. We believe that identification consistent with Egyptians’ very early associations of the wild bull, as well as the penis, with the concept of the leading male’s domination of his ‘herd’. Baboons and Sexual Exercise of Dominion As examples, from the Pyramid Texts on, the god Babi, and other baboons of more than one type, are referred to thusly, just as the king and the sun also are called ‘bull’ (Wickler, 1966). In that sense, it is interesting that, besides the canine god Duamutef, a second god who leans on his djam (penis?) at a corner of the sky is another baboon god Hapy, also a son of Horus (Gordon and Schwabe, 1995: 190). And, as mentioned in Chapter 3, baboon and bull were also likened to one another in other contexts related to dominion. For example, while dnd (rage) was written with an aggressive bull’s head (F2) as ¯ determinative, knd . (be furious) used as its determinative the baboon (E32). In a footnote to PT 516, Piankoff (1968) interprets ‘Bull of Apes’ to mean ‘lord, the mightiest of the apes.’ It seemed clear, therefore, that some very early Egyptian ideas about ‘dominion’ derived from observations of baboons as well as of wild aurochs bulls. Two baboon species, the hamadryas (Papio hamadryas) and the dog-faced savannah baboon (P. cynocephalus anubis) were commonly portrayed and described in ancient Egypt (Dr. Sarah Hrdy, personal communication). Most interesting, therefore, is that male savannah baboons perform guard functions for their group by sitting, with their thighs spread and penises extended, at prominent sites at the periphery of their group facing outward with their backs to their females and offspring (Wickler, 1966: 422–437). Numerous Egyptian portrayals show baboons in this posture (Montet, 1952: Pls. 3 and 4; the Twenty First Dynasty Papyrus of Hent-Taui [British Museum]; the

Additionally, the Roman god Terminus, interestingly a title first of Jupiter, was depicted too as a block of stone surmounted by a human head.

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Chapter Seven. The Male Reproductive System 19th Dynasty Papyrus of Hunefer [British Museum]; Piankoff and Rambova, 1955: Pl. 8; Piankoff, and Rambova 1957: Fig. 22). Some of these are very old: a 1st Dynasty baboon statue of alabaster bearing the name Narmer was in the Aegyptische Museum, Berlin (Ranke, 1936: Pls. 48–49); another example is in the Cairo Museum (Otto, 1967: Pl. 2). Beside those portrayals, that behavior is recorded in BD Spell 15A4 S2 about baboons at the edge of their group adoring Re: ‘The screeching baboons adore thee; they who are in the seats of the Horizon-Dwellers cheer thee.’ Wickler (1967) remarked on the conspicuousness of these guard baboons’ reddish penises in contrast to their dark fur. And he believed the ‘probable explanation [is] that these “look-out posts” function as optical markers of the presence of the group or of its territorial boundaries.... These higher primates have retained the basis of the response, which served for urine-marking of territory in lower primates, but actual urine discharge is lost and replaced by optical conspicuousness of the genitals.’7 Moreover, the male hamadryas baboon is one of only two Old World primates that possesses a harem and exercises dominion in a similar way to bulls over a group of females and their young. The hamadryas male, which has a distinctive awe-inspiring appearance with its large size, prominant mane, bright red face and bright red bottom and penis, is also a very commonly portrayed and described animal in Egypt, including, as mentioned, as the god Babi. See, for example, PT 1349 or BD Spell 125c S2: ‘May you rescue me from Babi, who lives on the entrails of the [elders] on the day of the great accounting.’ Babi was especially identified, too, with Seth, as in CT Spell 576: ‘My phallus is Babi. I am the outcast (i.e., Seth)’ (see also Derchain, 1952: 43–47). Seth, of course, was associated with the color red, again a resemblance to the hamadryas baboon (see other possibly related ‘red’ associations in Chapter 6). A hamadryas male’s female regularly presents her bright red vulva to him as an act of submission. This is a particularly common practice after she has been reprimanded or punished by the male leader (Dr. Sarah Hrdy, personal communication). The hamadryas male thus dominates his females by three forms of behavior: deliberate stares, painful bites of their necks or by physically mounting them, even when they are not in estrus (Wickler, 1966). Since the male baboon does not usually ejaculate during these punitive displays, these are purely acts of dominance. Wickler (1967) believed that, in both the red-bottomed hamadryas and the gray-green-bottomed savannah

7 For possible significance of brightly colored penises in some primates and brightly colored penis sheaths in people see Schwabe and Gordon (1988: Fig. 1) and Baines (1975: 1–24). Erect penile display to advertise a hamadryas baboon’s domain is shown in a color photograph in Kummer et al., (1981), as well as in a Eighteenth Dynasty relief reproduced by Wickler (1967) from Huard’s Art mobilier de l’Egypt ancienne (original not seen by us).

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The Was-Scepter, Penis and Dominion baboon, ‘male sexual actions imply dominance.’ In as much as leading males also will mount lower ranking males (see below for Egyptian homosexuality themes in the context of dominance), he concluded that ‘extra-sexual social implications of the male copulatory posture suggest some relationship between sex and aggression.’ In aggressive (rage-induced) mountings of non-estral females, the hamadryas male, according to Wickler, sometimes ‘exhibits erection of the penis, masturbation and friction-movements in vacuo.’ It is intriguing to speculate in these regards – since one Egyptian baboon text implies two or three kinds of baboons (PT Utterance 315, Piankoff: ‘an Ian-baboon, a Heter-baboon, a Patet-baboon’.8 Faulkner translating the second animal as ‘hyena’) – that the ‘Red One’, so-called in the earliest know Pyramid Texts, those of Unas (PT Utterance 274) refers to the redfaced, red-penised hamadryas (cf. PT utterance 549, as in Piankoff ’s note to PT Utterance 315, Babi as ‘red-eared with red bottom’; passage translated incorrectly by Faulkner as ‘red of ear and purple (sic) of hindquarters! You have taken the thigh joint of the goddess to your mouth!’). If so, the ‘Green One’ would refer to the green-colored savannah baboon given that in the very next Utterance (275) the king wears the loincloth made of the hide of the baboon.9 The question then would arise whether ‘one’ in ‘Red One’ and ‘Green One’ may refer to these male baboons’ reproductive organs (including vertebrae) rather than to crowns since in CT Spell 573 the deceased sits with his own back to Geb (called Bull of Nut [the sky] in PT Utterance 260) and proclaims: ‘I have cut off the baboons (?) and their vertebrae, I eat of the Green One, I have gulped down the Red One’10.... I eat of their magic, I gulp down their powers.... Their powers are within me.... Their magic is in my belly....’ The eating of parts of baboons is clear in BD Spell 5 S ‘(I) live on the baboon’s entrails.’ Again in CT Spell 421, ‘I am the three baboons; see my hinder parts are at my back, my leg(s) are at my shoulders, my spinal cord is in the nest of children....’ Here this could suggest that the semen of the speaker (from the spinal cord) is in the uterus (‘nest of children’) of a female. Furthermore, in PT Utterance 313, the penis of Babi was drawn back (pulled out?) to open the ‘doors’ (vulvar lips?) of the sky (cow?) so the pharaoh could pass. That here the king emulates this baboon ‘bull’ is immediately evident in PT 8 Probably the hamadryas, the savannah and, if a third, either a hybrid of these or the gelada baboon-like monkey. 9 Interestingly, the two baboon statues described by Montet (1952: Pls. 3 and 4) are made of pink and ‘bleu’ granite, respectively. Much earlier similarly colored examples also exist. For instance a 1st Dynasty blue-green faience baboon from Abydos and an even earlier red clay baboon head from Hierakonopolis (Woldering, 1967: 21, Pl. 8 and cat. 79: 235). 10 The usual interpretation is that Green One and Red One refer to crowns.

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Chapter Seven. The Male Reproductive System Utterance 315 where the king is himself the baboon god Babi ‘red eared with red bottom’. In PT Utterance 320 also: ‘the powers appear and enoble the King as Babi.’ Note also in BD Spell 93 S1: ‘O you phallus of Re, more active (than) he when passionate, (his) torpidity (becomes that of) (Babi). I grow more powerful thereby (than) the Powerful; I grow mightier thereby than the mighty.’ Then, in PT Utterance 317, the king himself says ‘I urinate and copulate with my phallus, I am the owner of seed who takes women from their husbands whenever he wishes, according to his desire.’ Here the king is behaving exactly like the ‘bull’ of the hamadryas apes and/or other territorial male leaders,11 an intent apparent in PT Utterance 320: ‘The king is Babi, the Lord of the night sky, Bull of the baboons who lives on those who do not know him.’ Similar sexual/power behavior is suggested in BD Spell 69a S2: ‘I am Osiris, lord of heads, living of front, [vigorous of rear], vigorous of phallus in the realm of the common folk.’ Penis may be implied similarly in PT 306 Utterance (Piankoff): ‘his magical power is in front of his legs.’ After citing other parts of Babi’s anatomy as representing the Underworld ferryboat’s reeds and fenders, BD Spell 99 Introduction S6 adds ‘“This sky provides a breeze, (but) its wooden (mast) is (lack)ing.” Well, use you this phallus of Baba, which creates youths and begets calves.’ Such associations between dominion in baboons and in men had already occurred to Wickler (1967) when, in noting that it ‘is well known [that] the erect penis may symbolize dominance (power, Herrschaft)’, he recalled that ‘there exists a quite extensive phallus symbolism which, according to some authorities, even includes sceptre, mace, etc. [italics ours].’ He then followed his statement about primate ethology by direct reference to, and illustration of, Amen in his ithyphallic form Min-Amen-Kamutef (see discussion below). We would note, too, that it was in the specific context of offering of scepters that Sethe (1928: 196) directed attention to the Egyptians’ sexual characterization of power, and it is in this precise sexual-power sense also that Griffiths (1958: 39, note.1) saw the story of Seth’s castration as ‘loss of sovereignty’. With reference to scepter, we note also that in her detailed study of the penis as instrument of male dominion in classical Greece, Keuls

11

Of interest in that regard is that a female hamadryas baboon will help her leader steal and ‘adopt’ new juvenile females from other bands. He then raises them to extend his dominion even farther. When a male leader is very old, a young male ‘helper’ may also be present in the group over which the leader exercises his control. This kidnapping of young females, first described in captive hamadryas baboons, has now been well-studied in the wild (Kummer, 1968; Kummer et al., 1981; Phillips-Conroy and Jolly, 1986: 337–350). Dr. Sarah Hrdy believes it impossible (personal communication) that these baboon behaviors would not have been noted by the ancient Egyptians. Compare this female kidnapping behavior with BD Spell 168Ab S15 ‘a portion has been offered to them on earth by Osiris (N.) as possessor of a phallus, who seized women forever’ and similar texts. This particular exercise of dominion is not observed among the green-colored savannah baboon.

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Gods’ Penises and Dominion (1985: 30),12 developed parallel concepts to those explored here (e.g., see this chapter’s opening quotation).13

Gods’ Penises and Dominion With further regard to the prominence of the penis in ancient Egyptian art and lore, we turn in greater detail to the cult of the priapic god Min (LÄ IV: 136–140). His epithet ‘the Bull of his Mother’ (Kamutef) aptly described his generative function and his being likened to bull. In fact, a white lettuceeating bull was often associated with this god (Moens, 1985). Moens notes that the important festival prt mnw (the going out of Min), which apparently was derived from the mswt mnw (the fashioning or birth of Min), was no later than the Old Kingdom and that it may have formed part of the Sed festival. In its representation, a portable altar with lettuce plants often was seen, which represents a growing vegetable garden as a major attribute of the god. A reason for association of Min with lettuce may have been that this particular Egyptian lettuce, which had a large amount of milk-like sap, could have been related by analogy to the semen of the god (see discussion below of semen analogs). For, in the ‘Contendings of Horus and Seth’, a New Kingdom story based on much older myth, Isis caused her son Horus to ejaculate in a pot, whose contents she placed upon the lettuce plants in the vegetable garden of Seth (Moens, 1985: 69). Seth’s eating of these made him pregnant, and thus indicated Horus’ dominance over him. This section of the ‘Contendings’ followed another in which Seth had ejaculated between the ‘thighs of Horus’ and had thus shown his dominance over Horus. In discussing this lettuce in connection with the homosexual relationship between Seth and Horus, Te Velde (1967: 44) noted that Min was equated with Horus in Edfou II: 44 in reference to ‘the effeminate one’ (Seth) and ‘the beautiful green plants on which you [Min-Horus] have emitted your seed.’ These Temple of Edfu texts also contained, as noted by Ogdon (1985/6: 33), the statement ‘Cause your 12

‘To the women of Athens they [herms, with their erect penises] must have been a constant reminder of the phallic power that governed their lives.’ 13 If we have any present difficulty in envisaging the strength of this ancient association of the penis with power and dominion, Hughes (1988: 269) discussed this also in connection with prevalent homosexuality within the British penal colonies in Australia in the 19th century. Prisoners themselves saw this practice less in terms of friendship or affection than a multiplying ‘the injustices of power. It represented an abusive control over the will of others, often involving rape … acts of sadistic humiliation, in which sexuality was merely the instrument of a deeper violence – the strong breaking the weak down into a punk.... He [a gentle former prisoner] described, in language that can scarcely bear to encompass the subject, how sexual contact in prison tends to be metabolized into relationships of power’, in Hughes’ words, ‘a circle of sexual tyranny.’

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Chapter Seven. The Male Reproductive System seed to enter the body of the enemy, that he may be pregnant’ indicating strongly the dominion aspect of the homosexual act. Also of interest in this context was the ithyphallic Amen-Re, a variety of Min (see Wickler’s observations above), in connection with use of a type of situla in funerary processions from no later than the late Eighteenth Dynasty. In tomb scenes in which situlae are depicted, the context is the sprinkling of milk before cattle that haul the coffin (Lichtheim, 1947: 171). Lichtheim also showed situlae in proximity to offering tables in the Ramesside Period. This milk ritual was connected with the funerary cult of the noble’s tomb. In it milk was also drunk by the deceased. While Lichtheim herself disagreed, she cited many scholars, including Foucat and Bruyere, who believed that these situlae were essentially vessels for milk. A number of these situlae (Lichtheim’s Type III) are decorated in three registers, the top depicting the sun adored by baboons, while the middle register shows the deceased offering to the priapetic Amen-Re. As Lichtheim noted, the prominence of the ithyphallic god was perhaps due to the association of his generative force with the revivification of the deceased. We believe it also may imply a symbolic resubmission by the deceased to the dominion of the god, such as is frequently performed by lesser ranking males of a variety of wild animals to the dominant pack or herd leader. In relation especially to apparent Egyptian analogies between semen and milk and other related uses of milk discussed below, those scenes of baboons and the ithyphallic god on situlae used for funerary (revivification) rites seem to reflect accurately the symbolic function of these vehicles as, perhaps originally, receptacles for semen (see Note 5 in Chapter 9). We would note here that the Egyptian word for milk, i Att, might be determined by one or two was’s (Gordon and Schwabe, 1995: 193; Fischer, 1957: 230, 235, Pl. 33; WB I, 27). In revivification Spell 734 from the Pyramid Texts, milk from the breasts of Isis caused the deceased king to arise from the dead. Those ideas of revivification, sustenance and purification often overlap (Lichtheim, 1947: 173). Revivification might also be shown by a libation by a priest or by a goddess pouring the revivifying liquid or suckling the deceased. Aristotle (On Generation) still regarded semen and milk as analogous products of ‘surplus blood.’ Since semen was considered by Egyptians to produce the white parts in female as well as male fetuses (see Chapter 6), it is reasonable that they regarded milk as the female analog of semen. In that same connection, revivification could also be expressed by ‘water’, which came from the body of Osiris to revivify the land. We are reminded, too, of the probably 1st Dynasty bowl in an ankh shape, which Fischer (1972; our Chapter 6) believed delivered ‘water’ in lustration rituals (but might at that early time have been semen) and chains of ankhs portrayed as the liquid in many lustration scenes.

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Penis Analogs Penis Analogs Of animals connected with Seth (Gordon and Schwabe, 1995: Note 36), two are sometimes described as penis analogs, the snake and the oxyrhynchus fish. Especially is the expanded head and erect posture of the cobra (i.e., the uraeus) strikingly reminiscent of the penis. Late texts have Osiris’ penis, thrown into the Nile by Seth, eaten by fish, including the oxyrhynchus fish.14 In addition, the ass has a disproportionately large penis, which is shaped very much like that of man. For suggestions that this great size may have impressed early Egyptian males, see ‘victorious bull’ below in connection , # A, with a possible relation on that same account of the words , # A, (‘donkey’).15 Note too that ‘donkey’ is written (‘great’) and in the Ebers Papyrus (Ebers, 1889: 7)). This might partially explain the ass’ early association also with Seth (Schwabe and Gordon, 1989: 21). (usually transliterated as We draw possibly related attention also to # A#, but is the last a simply a second determinative?) which as # verb, means ‘to engender’ and, as a noun, ‘semen’ or ‘poison’, the latter the same interesting duality, explained biologically in Chapter 6 as for mtwt (Meeks, 1980: 57, 177; Schwabe et al. (1982). Passing note already has been made, too, of other penis analogs, including scepter, spear and sword.16 Bulls’ horns, like scepter, are especially interesting in our context. For example, Keuls (1985: 53, Fig. 33) showed a portrayal of Europa with Zeus as bull in which she is grasping his horn represented as a penis. We would note here, therefore, in connection with was’s as supports of the four corners of the sky (Gordon and Schwabe, 1995: 190) and the hypothesized origin of was as bull’s penis, that bull’s horns also occur at the four corners of the sky (e.g., PT Utterance 304): ‘Hail to you, Bull of Re, possessing four horns. A horn of yours is in the West; a horn of yours is in the East; a horn of yours is in the South, and a horn of yours is in the North. Bend down that Western horn of yours for Unas that Unas may pass.’

14

See Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, 358B, 353C, 380B-C (Babbitt, 1969: 18–19, 46–47, 168–169) for association of the pike with the Oxyrhynchite nome. Indeed, the pike is Seth’s fish. Plutarch (358B) and Diodorus Siculus, Book I, 22,6 (Murphy, 1985) state that Isis was the originator of the phallic festival or cult, which the Egyptians of Greco-Roman times still observed. 15 This association was also clear to the Israelites: ‘[She] doted upon her paramours there, whose members (penises) were like those of asses’ (Ezekiel 23: 20). That passage related to Jewish residence in Egypt (Tannahill, 1982: 82). Burkert (1983: 69–70) noted that the Greeks sacrificed donkeys to the phallic god Priapus. One myth states that their death is due to their lust. In Pindar, Apollo laughs at seeing the donkey’s ‘upright presumption’, Dionysius rode the ‘lewd donkey’, and so on. 16 Analogies between bull’s horns and men’s spears (or swords), and both with penis, have been made by diverse peoples. For example, in a Nile Valley creation myth quoted by Lienhardt (1961: 36), the divine father’s spear is identified with his penis (see also Conrad, 1957, passim).

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Chapter Seven. The Male Reproductive System In connection with these penis analogs, we should mention, too, Te Velde’s discussion of an analogy between the bull’s foreleg and Seth’s arm as a weapon (cf. ‘Horus of the upraised arm’) in connection with masturbation to bring forth ‘saliva’ to fall on the earth, as in CT Spell 80 (see our discussion of semen analogs). With reference to the upraised arm, Odgon’s (1985/86) views on it and penis in the iconography of Min seem especially germane. He concluded that Min’s erect penis had not only a fertility aspect, but that together with his upraised (threatening) arm, it implied protection and intimidation (i.e., aspects of dominion). He also mentioned the close relationships between Min and Horus in these regards.17

as Bull’s Penis To return more directly now to our hypothesized origin of the was staff and hieroglyph as bull’s penis, the penis and/or copulation are also mentioned in a number of other contexts in the funerary literature with direct or indirect reference to bulls. Additional examples to those already provided can be found in the Book of the Dead (Allen, 1974: 88). In Spell 110a3 S2, ‘I became powerful therein [the field of Hotep] and move about therein. I plow therein and reap therein. I copulate therein, … I have inseminated therein, .... Sharp are my horns.’ Then in the same spell (a5 D2), ‘I am this [one] tall bull of lapis lazuli, lord of the field, bull of the gods.’ Again in Spell Pleyte 1677 S1 we read, ‘O thou Bull, lord of the phallus, Horus of the Upraised Arm.’ In that context we could perhaps understand the frequent portrayals on Second Dynasty seals (Gordon and Schwabe, 1995: 187) of both Horus and Seth holding a was. Also, in that connection, see below on masturbation and Ogdon’s interpretations of the upraised arm in connection with penile display. In the same Spell, S2, those notions are elaborated: ‘I am the phallus of Re. O, Drip-twister (s[d]rrpkt), thy straddle is the very largest in Thebes. Be gracious, bull of Tanith [last two words uncertain].... Thou 2-fold spirit, Amen, copulating {bull}, master of the harem’ (BD 216 and Allen’s note 343). And, in PT 1313c, ‘My phallus is Apis, I will ascend up to the sky.’ If the was as a symbol of (divine) power and utilitarian/cult object was originally a dried bull’s penis, then it is likely that it would have been that of a wild bull, and probably one killed by the pharaoh (cf. the tail or 17

Ogdon’s paper did not come to our attention until this part of our study was virtually complete. He, too, draws upon baboon behavior and cites the work of Wickler (see our text) on phallic intimidation and protection. Ogdon also most interestingly cites and reproduces figures from the Papyrus magique illustré de Brooklyn (P. Brooklyn 47.218.156). These show an ithyphallic god with raised arm and holding the was in its other. This combination illustrates ‘dominion’ and associates penis and was.

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Fig. 7.1 – (a) Ankh-djed-was correctly sequenced anatomically and held like an erect penis by the god Montu-Re (Montu was also often portrayed as a bull), who also grasps a sword with the same hand (Chariot of Tuthmosis IV, after Carter and Newberry, 1904: Pl. 12).

ear given the successful Spanish bullfighter today and the bull’s tail also at the rear of the pharaoh’s kilt). Wild bulls were still in Egypt or the surrounding regions up until the reign of Amenhotep III (Epstein, 1971: 235) when hunts ceased to be recorded.18 Bones from North Africa, as well as Europe, show that wild aurochs bulls, some of which stood two meters at the shoulder, were considerably larger than domestic cattle. It is likely therefore that the penis of a mature wild bull was well over one meter in length. Thus the wild bull was not only probably the most powerful, brave and libidinous animal the early Egyptians encountered, but also one of the largest.19

18

According to Epstein, the aurochs hunting scene of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu occurred in Asia. A portrayal of a lion attacking the aurochs bull appears on the reverse side of an ointment pot from the reign of Tutankhamen (von Lengerken and von Lengerken, 1955: Fig. 149). 19 It should be reiterated here with reference to the extinct wild bull, that the most feared wild animal by local peoples in northeastern Africa today is not the lion, leopard, elephant or rhinoceros, but the buffalo, another wild bovid probably of similar size to wild cattle.

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Fig. 7.1 – (b) Osiris holding a was and giving life, stability and dominion to the mouth of Seti I in the form of ankh-djed-was (Budge, 1911, I: 267, after Mariette, Abydos, I: 52).

Old Kingdom portrayals of the cow (sky) goddess Hathor face the sun god Re (bull) with her hand also on the was Re is grasping (Kaplony, 1981: 67,18; 81,3; 88,23). An even more suggestive portrayal of was as bull’s penis is that of Montu-Re on the chariot of Tuthmosis IV where he is shown grasping with his hand a composite staff which projects from his body like an erect penis (Fig. 7.1a and Carter and Newberry, 1904: Pls. IX–XII, Fig. 24). In this scene, Montu-Re also grasps a similarly protruding sword, a common penis analog. The connections with his power are obvious. Montu was also portrayed frequently as a bull god (see Chapter 3). We can also assume from information supplied by Egyptian informants that it is still an actual bull’s penis that is wielded in present-day Egyptian village celebrations, such as noted by Budge (1934: 431, n. 1). Also, in her study of phallic portrayals and symbolism in ancient Greece, Keuls 140

as Bull’s Penis (1985: Fig. 273) showed one dancing girl in which (p. 305) ‘the object prominently displayed on the wall is a bull’s penis, with which schoolmasters chastised their pupils [as whip?]. Here it serves as a humorous symbol of male authority.’ For scholars who still may experience difficulty in thinking that the ancient Egyptians might have used something like a dried bull’s penis as a scepter and object/symbol of dominion (see Wilkinson, 1999: 189), some similar examples that still survive in cultures totally remote to ancient Egypt are also illuminating. These same dominion connotations of bull’s penis are clearly evident, for example, in continued use by some German butchers of the dried bull’s penis as a driving staff for cattle in the killing department of abattoirs. Also, in the Schwäbisch country of southwestern Germany, dried bull’s penises still are used by rural people for driving cattle to market. In fact, an old Swabian saying, ‘den Hagaschwanz an Geppl dua’ (literally, ‘to place the bull’s penis in the cart’) is used by someone in anger to mean his actions will henceforth be less friendly. It is likely that meaning, too, is derived from the recently common rural use of the dried bull’s penis as whip and driving stick for cart oxen and horses. Similarly in Yorkshire, England, earlier in this century, you could buy bull’s ‘pisals’ cooked and sliced and the dried penis was used as a ‘cow-whacker by old farmers to drive the cattle to the barns’ (M.V. Peel, personal communication). Additionally, the current catalog of an American company selling equipment and supplies for hunters – ones which appeal especially to a macho (dominating) attitude toward animals – advertises for sale today for $ 29.99 each dried bulls’ penises as not only to use as a straight walking stick, but also as a curved headed cane (or, fitted, with a brass head as a golf putter or, with an oak head, a shorter section of penis is marketed as a gavel to maintain order at meetings).20 Additional Biological Evidence It is necessary now to return to the anatomy of the bull’s penis itself. Since one of us had previous knowledge that the sacrificed bull’s penis was sometimes dried and worn as a belt by Nilotic Dinka bany bith priests, a practice related to their belief also that semen originates in the spinal cord and brain (Schwabe and Kuojok, 1981) – and that, among the closely related Atuot, the penis and prepuce of the sacrificed bull may be eaten by senior male elders (Burton, 1987) – we undertook several experiments with dissected bull’s penises.21

20

For this German information we are grateful to Dr. Maximillian Baumann and the American information to Dean Franklin Loew. 21 Again, as in our bull sacrifice reenactments (Chapter 5), we are indebted to Professor Robert Ashmore and technician J. Sehnert, this time for their assistance in obtaining the penises.

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Fig. 7.2 – (a) Bull’s thoracic vertebra in cephalic perspective, (b) bull’s last three lumbar vertebrae and sacrum in dorsal perspective and (c) dried bull’s penis, together representing the bull’s generative system ankh-djed-was.

Fig. 7.3 – Bull’s penis dried after wrapping about a stick (as a djam-scepter).

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Fig. 7.4 – Double exposure of a dried bull’s penis with (lower image) and without (upper image) a several kilogram weight suspended from its distal end. In strength, flexibility and texture, the dried penis resembles a fiberglass fishing rod.

We found that the forked end of the Egyptian was-scepter could be duplicated easily in two ways. A forked staff (Figs. 7.2c and 7.3) is formed by severing the penis at its root, that is, where its tunica albuginea ends. The fork then consists of the crura that attach the penis on either side to the ischial arch of the pelvis (with or without portions of the robust ischiocavernosus muscles that arise on the tubera ischii and sacrosciatic ligaments and insert on the crura and penis proper). A similar forked staff, but longer, can be formed by dissecting away these attachments of the crura and ischiocavernosus muscles leaving attached to the proximal end of the penis proper the additional 12 cm. or so of urethra enclosed by urethral muscle. This second fork is formed at the level of the bladder neck, prostate and seminal vescicles by the combination of diverging vasa deferentia, ureters and retractor penis muscle. If this forked bull’s penis is simply suspended by a cord tied below its glans, it will dry as a very strong and tough, yet flexible, one meter long hooked and forked staff whose shaft is very much in its appearance and physical properties like a modern fiberglass fishing pole (Fig. 7.4). Such a staff looks exactly like the Hierakonpolis wall-painting example of a Gerzean period staff with both hooked and forked ends (Schwabe and Gordon, 1988: 66). The twisted groove in the bull’s glans penis may resemble an animal’s eye. 143

Chapter Seven. The Male Reproductive System

Fig. 7.5 – Head of a was represented in (a) a typical Egyptian painting, (b) a typical stone relief, by (c) a bull’s penis dried after partial dissection and positioning of its epithelium just posterior to its glans, (d) head of a present-day Nilotic Turkana was-like staff used for herding animals, constructing thorn-bush corrals for animals and religious purposes, as fashioned from a tree branch.

To closely duplicate the more usual shape of the was’s hooked end with ‘top knot’, however, simply requires that some folds of epithelium (and/or the distal portion of the retractor penis muscle) be partially dissected proximal to the glans and positioned for drying as is the ‘top knot’ (‘ears’) of the was hook (Fig. 7.5c). In such instances, the head shape of the typical was simply accentuates, makes more head-like, the glans with ‘eye’ of the bull’s penis. 144

The Ancient Egyptian Mindset The rigid spiral shaft of the related djam (Schwabe and Gordon, 1989: 16) is as readily duplicated by twisting the penis about a stick before drying it (i.e., like a caduceus; see Fig. 7.3). Perhaps we may look for the origin of the pictorial as a variation of the was with a snake entwined around it. In effect, was is to djam as stick is to ‘snake on a stick’ (i.e., caduceus, a symbol of healing rather than death; see Chapter 2). For an early example of how such an idea may have originated, see Labrousse (1977: Pl. 28, Doc. 20) and also PT 288a, ‘The serpent of Praise is on her djam-scepter.’ In seeing the snake as purveyor of death and Apophis especially as the ‘monster of chaos’ (Te Velde, 1967: 81), we see, too, a possible reason the feline goddess Mafdet (see Chapters 2 and 8), as protectress of the Mansion of Life, holds a was (Gordon and Schwabe, 1995: 187). See above on a possible analogy between penis and snake (e.g., uraeus at one end of the king’s spine, his penis at the other). Te Velde (1967: 38) related the dual meaning of mtwt to the ‘seed of Seth’ in connection with his homosexual relationship with Horus. We have suggested (Schwabe et al., 1982; see also Chapter 6) that the ancient origin of this unusual identity of opposites was an anatophysiological one, namely that the magic of death was believed to originate from the vertebral marrow of the snake because its spine is the analog of the bull’s vertebral column from which comes the magic of life. Or the original reasoning could well have been vice versa.

The Ancient Egyptian Mindset It would appear, therefore, that, while the early Egyptians were adept at making such inferences through the process of analogy, they also viewed alternative (cyclical) phenomena (e.g., life and death) as resulting from mechanisms involving pairs of opposites with similar origins (see Chapter 4). Thus, although Te Velde lacked the anatomical information we have developed since, he reached identical conclusions (and also Henri Frankfort) as to an important part of the process of reasoning by which the earliest Egyptians began to evolve their cosmology. That Te Velde (1967: 48) stated with respect to mtwt, ‘Here we meet with [in Frankfort’s, 1948: 19, words] ‘“[the] deeply rooted Egyptian tendency to understand the world in dualistic terms as a series of pairs of contrasts”’ (cf. Lloyd, 1966; see also Chapters 1 and 4). According to Frankfort (1948: 170–175), there was strong interpenetration of solar and bovine imagery in ancient Egypt. In his view, this was concerned with the problem of revivification after death; the sun was reborn daily. We believe it probable that all those parallels and connections derived originally from hunting and scavenging magic, from anatomical, physiological and behavioral observations on wild, later domestic cattle, with analogies 145

Chapter Seven. The Male Reproductive System then drawn for people (the human ‘herd’ and its chief), the gods, and extended also to the heavenly bodies, in total, the derivation of a cattle-culture cosmology (see Chapter 3), parallels to which can still be found among some Nilotic pastoralists (Majok and Schwabe, 1996). For the thing being compared to is almost always clear. Bulls are not called sun, kings or baboons; rather sun, kings and baboons are called bull. That is because their own (actual/desired) characteristics/behaviors all recall those of this powerful, libidinous bovine leader the Egyptian kings so earnestly wished to emulate. Only in the case of actual living bull gods does the similar likening of god to bull proceed in the other direction, and here the bull is actually deified. as the Male Reproductive System together represented the male bull’s reproductive system: the Thus, principal source and conduit for semen, plus its delivery organ to the female. That is, the expression ankh-djed-was, applied to the pharaoh, represented originally that system’s several properties, the powers it conferred upon the ‘herd’ leader. An early and striking example of these bovine power attributes of pharaoh is in his portrayal as goring bull in the well-known Predynastic palette of Narmer (Fig. 3.3; Quibell, 1900: I, Pl. XXIX). If all this is so, then some of these same associations might also be apparent orthographically in other epithets for pharaoh. One such is ‘victorious , a bull is bull’, k A nht. For here we see that, when written fully ˘ shown together with the ka, or the upraised human arms sign, which was probably originally an imitation by a person of the bull’s horns, as is still the case among Nilotic cattle-culture pastoralists (Schwabe, 1978: 57), and the human penis. In other words, in this representation of pharaoh, the horns and penis, both sources of the bull’s dominion (his victory), have become human imitations of the bull’s organs of power. To round out this discussion, and indicate some other biological implications, let us consider certain analogs for semen, as the Egyptians seemed to understand them.

Semen Analogs In Schwabe and Gordon (1989: 22) we drew attention to the alternative translations ‘marrow’ and ‘incense’ given by Faulkner and Piankoff, respectively, to mn wr in PT 1166a and commented upon its literal meaning ‘great firmness’ (pun on erect penis?). We invited consideration of CT Spell 530 for ‘incense’ apparently being used synonymously with bone ‘marrow’ in: ‘You are made strong by incense.... The incense comes …; there comes the spinal 146

Semen Analogs cord which issued from the backbone of Osiris, there comes the marrow.’ Since semen was considered to arise from bones as their marrow (see Chapter 6), the intended relationships between these terms seems clear. As for semen, which is a milky liquid, possibly being called ‘milk’, we also direct attention to for a milk offering in Ptolemaic times being used to bring life to the sacred tree of Osiris (Volten, 1960: 316; Junker, 1913: 10, 15) and to rejuvenate (srnp"ı ) or animate (s#nh) a god or man (Junker, 1913: ˘ ‘water of life’ (Volten, 1960: 15). This ‘milk’ offering may be called 316; Junker, 1913: 59). Also during Ptolemaic times and at least as far back as the New Kingdom, mw referred to semen as well as water and already in PT 2065 the purification water is said to be made by the phallus of Shu. It appears that milk-like lettuce sap was still another analog/euphemism for semen (see our discussion above of Min with erect penis). In connection with that discussion of Min, and in Schwabe and Gordon (1989: 10), we cited the occurrence of funerary rituals involving situlae containing a liquid sprinkled before cattle and consumed by the deceased. And we noted that some of those situlae were decorated with a priapetic god and with baboons in their characteristic ‘guard’ (penis extended) pose. We speculated therefore upon the nature of the liquid originally poured from such situlae or what it represented. Semen is a milk-like fluid of life par excellence. In connection with both ‘incense’ and ‘milk’ as possible euphemisms/analogs for ‘marrow’ and semen respectively, we direct special attention to CT Spell 21: ‘your cleanliness is by means of natron and incense, milk of thy mother of Apis’. Faulkner (1973–1978: 13, n. 13) justified his addition of ‘the mother of’ on the grounds that the ‘milk of Apis’, as the text actually reads, is a physical impossibility. We suggest again the probability that ‘milk’ referred here to the semen of Apis. Accepting our hypothesis of ankh-djed-was as originally the bull’s reproductive system, one could reach a related conclusion about uses of semen or semen substitutes in revivification or similar rites from numerous scenes of was, often in combination with ankh or ankh and djed shown at the nose or mouth of the king (Fig. 7.1b). Considering the ideas the Egyptians derived about semen from bones and physiology of the spine developed in Chapter 6, we see here that, while the female analog of semen, milk, had a different ‘delivery system’, the male, who contributed the white parts to the fetus, had no delivery system for his blood. Saliva (spittle) also was used euphemistically for (or as an analog of) semen, which may relate to the anatomical facts of the head and mouth being at the top of the spine and the penis at the bottom. Also, it may relate to the analogy drawn between semen and poison (both mtwt) from the snake. In any event, we see, for example, in CT Spell 80: ‘I am Everlasting, who fashioned the chaos-gods, reproduced (?) by the spittle of Atum which issued from his mouth when he used his hand, his saliva (?) will be made to 147

Chapter Seven. The Male Reproductive System fall to the earth.’ And, in Spell 76: ‘I indeed am Shu whom Atum created, whereby Re came into being.’ Faulkner (1973: 86, note 11) concluded ‘the subsequent reference to the “hand” alludes to the creation by masturbation, “spittle” being a euphemism.’ Possibly related also to ‘spittle’/semen from the spinal bones in CT 610: ‘It has been commanded to N that N spit on his scalp and that N comfort his backbone’, backbone being the source of the ‘spittle’=semen.22 Budge (1934: 142) concluded similarly from a Ptolemaic papyrus in the British Museum (n. 10188) about the following creation passages ‘Many creations of creations came into being from the creations of the offspring from the creations of their children. I thrust my phallus into my closed hand, I made my seed to enter my hand. I poured it into my mouth. I evacuated under the form of Shu, I passed water under the form of Tefnut’ followed by ‘I became from god one god[s] three. They brought to me my eye, Following on after these things, I united together my generative members, and I shed tears over them, and men and women straightway came into being from the tear drops which came forth from my eye.’ Tears, therefore, may be another analog of semen.

Conclusions We believe especially in connection with beginning emergence of science from magic, that this large and varied body of evidence indicates that very early Egyptians made observations, largely through dissections and vivisections of sacrificial bulls, that caused them to conclude that (1) semen (the magic fluid of life) arose from bones as their marrow, (2) the most important source, as well as conduit, for semen was the spine23 and (3) the spine, with its connected penis, constituted the male reproductive system, portrayed ortho. Furthermore, those symbols represented graphically and otherwise as the source of life, stability and dominion exercised by the ‘Mighty Bull’ over the community (his herd). In that sociopolitical regard, we shall return in the Epilogue to other interpretive possibilities for some of these biomedical findings within the fused Egyptian society.

22

It is of possible interest that, among the Nilotic Dinka, spitting on someone is a means of blessing them. 23 Especially the four ‘hidden’ vertebrae of its thoracic portion (i.e., vertebrae covered by the also magic-rich bull’s forelimb).

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CHAPTER EIGHT. THE EGYPTIAN HEALING ESTABLISHMENT Between animal and human medicine there is no dividing line – nor should there be. The object is different but the experience obtained constitutes the basis of all medicine. – Rudolf Virchow, founder of modern pathology

Before we summarize our conclusions overall about Egyptian biomedical science and tentatively suggest their possible history of science implications we need to enlarge the context of the discussion by elaborating upon relevant particulars about Egyptian healers, their institutions and one neglected portion of the literature they produced.

Egyptian Healers In ancient Egypt, ministers to the ill bore several titles (Lefebvre, 1956; Jonckheere, 1958; Sauneron, 1960a; Ghalioungui, 1983; Leca, 1983). While more than one class of priests recited incantations, performed lustrations and carried out other magical practices intended to prolong the lives, including curing the ills, of pharaoh and other important persons – and participated in ‘curing’ them of death through revivification – those of the lion goddess Sekhmet were stated to have special abilities to prevent plagues and treat illnesses. They were so mentioned in both the Ebers (c. 1550 BCE) and Smith (c. 1500 BCE) medical papyri. There are also a few other illuminating texts. In one, a priest of Sekhmet, Ahanakht, is shown with the inscription: ‘I was a priest of Sekhmet, powerful and gifted in his craft, who lays hands on patients, and thereby knows their condition, gifted in examining with his hand, who knows oxen’ (Ghalioungui, 1983: 10). Another is the much later tomb inscription of Petosiris that stated ‘your herds are numerous in the stable thanks to the science of the priest of Sekhmet’ (Ghalioungui, p. 12). Sauneroun (1960a: 161) understood these to mean that the priest of Sekhmet ‘is renowned for his medical knowledge, specializing however in animal illnesses; one could [therefore] consider him rather a veterinarian.’ Some other healers called kherp Serket, associated with the scorpion goddess Serket, also enjoyed reputations for curing venomous stings and bites (Gardiner, 1917: 36, 40; Sauneron, 1960a: 161). Serket was sometimes called ‘the lady of life’ 149

Chapter Eight. The Egyptian Healing Establishment (Gardiner, 1917: 42). In addition to such healing priests, were magicians called s Aw, referred to in the Ebers Papyrus (99, 2–3), who possessed special healing amulets. We mentioned them in Chapter 6 in connection with s A (V16, V17) and the transfer of the divine essence of life (semen) from god to pharaoh (or priest) in rituals involving stroking the spine of the recipient. Gardiner (1917: 44) noted possible connections between these last two healers in the other sometimes recorded titles s Aw srkt and also s Aw b"ıt.1 Most interesting with respect to them could be the Egyptians’ analogies between the pairs of opposites life and death (see Chapter 2), and semen and poison (see Chapter 6) in connection with the possible (preventive or therapeutic) significance of the sa ankh ceremony. Other individuals, called swnw, were identified in texts more generally as healing practitioners and are mentioned more frequently than any of these others, especially during the Old Kingdom, but some were also priests of Sekhmet. In fact, of 50 Old Kingdom swnw known by name (Ghalioungui, 1983: 16–23), at least ten also bore that or another priestly title. Three, Irenakhty, Wenennefer and Iry (?), are shown presiding over bull sacrifices and dissections, Wenennefer being also a priest of Sekhmet. Ghalioungui (1973: 137) concluded from such evidence that ‘a very special aspect of the activity of some swnw was the supervision of cattle, possibly their treatment, and the inspection of meat [sic, and that p]art of this function was religious.’ Sauneron’s interpretation (1960a: 78) was that ‘the butcher [sic] kills the beast of sacrifice which a veterinary-priest has pronounced pure’, although, as he had already pointed out (p. 70), these ‘butchers’, who killed and dissected the sacrificial bulls certainly were not simply that, but temple officiants among whom, at least in late times, were some priests of the House of Life or Per Ankh. Two other more rarely recorded but potentially interesting healing titles were also noted by Ghalioungui (1983: 5–6). The first was the wr-h#w . ‘great of the flesh’, a title associated with the priesthood of Sais, which enjoyed considerable medical reputation, at least during the Persian period, because of the renown of their particular Per Ankh. It is intriguing, therefore, in light of the Egyptian’s theory about ‘live flesh’ from the bull and its believed animating powers (see Chapter 5), to speculate that this class of healers might have especially employed that remedy for the ill, a healing practice attested in three of the medical papyri by Bucheim (1960). Possibly related in function, if they actually did attempt to heal, could have been Ghalioungui’s other candidate healer, the hm-kA, servant of the ka, 1 While Gardiner (1917: 44) thought this title should be translated ‘the magician of the king of Lower Egypt’, the b"ıt could have referred literally in the first instance to ‘bee as a venomous animal’.

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Egyptian Healers who fed the ka of the deceased pharaoh. An implicit healing function for them is rather tenuous in that Ghalioungui (1983: 11) based it solely upon a single scene of such an individual performing a circumcision. Montet (1925: 155–156) stressed the prominence of this essentially religio-veterinary hierarchy in connection with Egypt’s livestock wealth (see Chapter 3). In large temples it also included other religious or lay officials who were chiefs of flocks or directors of these horned, hooved and feathered beasts (Sauneron, 1960a: 57). There were also various auxiliaries, including ‘assistants who looked after the sacred animals’ (p. 73). Among specialized temple priests were also stolists who cared for divine statues and ritual paraphernalia (p. 60) and who, at least in late times, were said to have to know ‘the science of animal markings’ (p. 162). Beyond the medical papyri and various tomb inscriptions, another source in late times for religio-veterinary functions priests or other healers actually performed are the descriptions by Herodotus (Book 2, 38) of activities to assure that individual bulls from temple herds destined for sacrificial rites were in good health, free from blemish (Rawlinson, 1952: 57). Before being chosen for sacrifice, the animal’s mouth and tongue were first examined by a priest; then he was examined overall both standing and lying on his flank. Steers that passed this medical examination were marked with a stamped papyrus around their horns. A second very important practice situation, in which knowledge of the bovine body might have been most directly applied, would have been in the maintenance in good health and long life of the living bull gods (see Chapter 3) since records indicate the high level of general care those gods received and the long lives often recorded for Apis bulls especially (Schwabe, 1978: 98–101). A further point to make about healers and healing is that there is no direct evidence before the 3rd century BCE that a distinction existed in either the Egyptian – or Greek – worlds between medical practice on people and practice on valuable animals.2 Most likely, therefore, general or comparative medicine was practiced in more ancient times by many Egyptian healers, as remains the case in many traditional medical systems today – including in Egypt (Blackman, 1968: 214).3

2 The first attested use of the specialist Greek healer title hippiatros or horse healer is in a letter dated 257 BCE found among a number of documents at Hibeh in the Cynopolis nome. It is from a Leodamas to a subordinate named Lysimachus with reference to collecting a horse-doctor tax of some sort (Grenfell and Hunt, 1906: 188). 3 Elsewhere (Schwabe, 1996) we have noted apparent equivalents among present-day Dinka pastoralists for virtually all of these ancient Egyptian healers. Of special interest are the Dinka ran de Ring (‘man of the flesh’) mentioned here in Chapter 5 and the Dinka medical-veterinary atet who carries out wound and abscess surgery and treats fractures in cattle and people, as well as castrates animals and practices bovine obstetrics. Some atet also employ other forms of treatment (Schwabe and Kuojok, 1981).

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Chapter Eight. The Egyptian Healing Establishment Nevertheless, all physician-historians, and other historians of Egyptian medicine influenced by them, have translated the word swnw and some of these others as ‘physician’, a term whose current connotations have specific implications. We believe that tendency exceeds Egyptian evidence and offers an impediment to understanding beliefs and practices in such a basically ‘fused’ pastoral society, or one afterwards in transition from fused to what Riggs (1973) distinguished as ‘prismatic’, a society grounded in a mixed plant-animal agrarian economy (Table 1.1 and Epilogue). ‘Healer’ would seem to be a safer, and potentially much more informative, designation for ancient Egyptians who attempted to treat illnesses. Interestingly in that regard, Nanetti (1942) noted that in Ptolemaic Egypt, most healers identified as iatros bore Greek names, but most identified by the newer designation hippiatros bore Egyptian names, suggesting further that the latter avenue of practice was well known to the Egyptians.4 Some Comparisons with Greece As Lloyd (1979: 38–39; 1992) also indicated for ancient Greece, beside iatros, there were other healers, including herb collectors and drug sellers, midwives, gymnastic trainers, as well as priests and attendants, who practiced ‘temple medicine’, and ‘dividing lines between some of these broad categories were far from sharply defined.’5 That is, in most of the ancient world there was ‘no equivalent to the modern, legally recognized, professional medical qualification’, an exception being Mesopotamia, at least from the time of Hammurabi’s Code. Lloyd was thus cautioning against an anachronistic ‘mindset’ bias that characterizes many writings on the history of ancient medicine.6 In a related vein, it has been a commonly held belief that, in contrast to the rationality of Greek medical science in antiquity, other ancient currents, as in 4 Of further interest is that Apsyrtus, chief veterinarian to the Emperor Constantine the Great, addressed most of his letters (which comprise major parts of the Hippiatrika, compiled centuries later by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus) to nine other hippiatros in Alexandria (Froehner, 1952, vol. 1: 35, 49). 5 Examples of medical areas in which practice ‘specialities’ commonly developed independently in many societies for healers often identified as physicians include dentistry, bonesetting, podiatry, midwifery, psychiatry (including faith healing) and surgery (including leeches and barber surgeons). ‘How far [in ancient Greece] each of … [such] groups took for themselves or were given by others the title “doctor,” iatros, is a delicate and disputed question’ (Lloyd, 1992). 6 Lloyd (1992) added: ‘When we study Greek medicine we have to rid ourselves of many standard modern assumptions, for example, concerning the differences between doctor and lay person. The institutions we associate with modern medicine – the hospitals, teaching schools, research laboratories – have no equivalents in Greek antiquity, where indeed there were no officially recognized qualifications that gave medical practitioners a legal right to engage in healing the sick.’

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Egyptian Healers Egypt, were almost entirely questions of magic or purely religious practice. Lloyd (1979: passim) also gives some salutory reminders, therefore, that Greek medicine too was by no means devoid of magico-religious practices or speculative theories that lacked a factual basis acquired through dissections or otherwise. He noted (p. 42) that even Greek pleas for rationality in medicine sometimes retained such defects, as when the author of the Hippocratic On Regimen IV stated that ‘while prayer is good, men should also help themselves at the same time as they call on the gods.’ Similarly, Galen, the Greek’s most scientific healer, was not immune to magical aspects of practice (see Chapter 4). Lloyd (p.168) stated his further belief that the ‘claim that [Hippocratic physicians] were, or were among, the founders of the empirical method in Greek science [overall] can be upheld only if certain all-important reservations and qualifications are added. […] Yet the claims they made – that their science clearly demonstrated their views – were generally excessive.’ We see evidence, in addition, that the rate of actual knowledge acquisition in Greek medicine some time after the founding of Alexandria took a steady downturn and, except for the great but temporary fillip given by Galen centuries later, who personally revived animal dissection and vivisection, progress in Western medicine thenceforth went into a prolonged inertial decline. Beyond noting such, it is not our intention to enter the controversy over the extent to which early Egyptian ideas, medical papyri or healing practices may have directly influenced Hippocratic or Ptolemaic Greek medicine,7 anymore than we are intent upon entering the equally volatile controversy over how much Egyptian civilization itself might, in these and other ways, owe to the rest of Africa. We are prepared at this point in both situations, simply to let our own ‘chips fall where they may’ for others to interpret as they wish. However, we should repeat that animal dissections and vivisections, which were the main bases for factual biomedical discoveries among those few influential Greek healers still known to us today, appear to have experienced a relative decline in Ptolemaic Alexandria as time went on. That was largely a result of formal distinctions arising among several competing ‘schools of theorists’ (about bodily structure and function and disease pathogenesis), which together diluted immeasurably influence of rare dissection-promoters who survived mostly within the Empirical School. Beyond such changes in approach to unknowns, arguments as to whether Herophilus (and possibly some few other Alexandrian healers) transiently dissected human bodies has been vehemently debated. Von Staden (1989: 7 For an introduction to arguments advanced, pair Saunders (1963), who claimed much influence, against most classicists who, like von Staden (1989) and Lloyd (1979), claimed little, if any. Von Staden did add (p. 7) that ‘[t]his is not to deny that Greek culture also accommodated magico-religious forms of therapy.’

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Chapter Eight. The Egyptian Healing Establishment 142) held that ‘the evidence seems overwhelmingly in favour of the conclusion that he [Herophilus] at least dissected 8 humans.’ Whether he did or not, even as some also claim, vivisected living prisoners as well, there is no evidence from Galen or other later sources that anything significant was learned by this alleged human dissection or vivisection that entered the body of factual biomedical knowledge in the West (until Renaissance anatomists of many centuries later initiated systematic dissections of human dead). We return to this point in Chapter 9 in connection with secrecy among healers and satisfaction of the ‘argument’ qualification for a definition of what constitutes science, in addition to ‘reason’ and ‘evidence’ qualifications. But next let us also consider briefly vis-à-vis healing in ancient Egypt a very interesting Egyptian institution and, finally, one almost totally neglected medical papyrus. Per Ankh, Hut Ankh and Their Functions Egyptian Per Ankh, or Houses of Life, were institutions attached to certain, perhaps all, temples, but only ones at Sais (Schaefer, 1899: 72–74), Memphis, Abydos, El Amarna, Akhmim, Coptos, Esna, Edfu (Sauneron, 1960a: 135) and, perhaps Bubastis (Habachi and Ghalioungui, 1971), have been identified with considerable certainty. Physical remains exist only at El Amarna. Their purposes and what took place in them remain matters of controversy, but some functions seem reasonably certain. Sauneron (p. 63) called them ‘suprareligious institutions’, and aspects of physical layout of one have been described. Some, at least those at Abydos and Sais, definitely enjoyed particular medical reputations. However, in Persian times, the apparently preeminent Per Ankh for medical practice, that at Sais, was said, like others, to have been in a state of decline following the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses. According to an inscription on the statue of Udjahorresnet, identified as High Priest of Neith at Sais, who also bore the title ‘chief physician’, the Persian king Darius, ruler also of Egypt, when informed of the quality of work in that Per Ankh to ‘animate each sick person’, ordered it and others like it to be strengthened. Schaefer (1899: 72–74) considered, therefore, that the Per Ankh at Sais was an institution of higher learning, a medical school. Habachi and Ghalioungui (1971) concluded that another House of Life performing medical functions

8 Given that were so, nothing is apparent from the subsequent writings of Galen or others that Herophilus ever dissected any females, because Galen, who otherwise quoted then extant texts of Herophilus, still assumed that the human uterus, like the bovine, is bicornuate. That mistake, which even the most superficial dissector of a female cadaver could not have overlooked, was not corrected through human dissections for many centuries.

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Per Ankh, Hut Ankh and Their Functions existed at Bubastis, site of worship of the cat goddess Bastet, sometimes assimilated by the other feline goddess Sekhmet, whose priests were known to be healers. Records exist there for at least four named priests of Sekhmet, one said to be the son of another, the chief ‘physician’. Another was identified also as a chief royal scribe of the House of Life. Considering Gardiner’s counterarguments (1938, 1938a) that these Houses of Life were not schools at all but simply religious scriptoria (see below), Volten (1942) reviewed evidence for their functions and concluded (p. 36) with earlier scholars that, from the beginning, the Hut Ankh, associated sometimes or always with Houses of Books and Houses of the Morning (Blackman, 1918: 148–165), were collegia that protected the life of the king and the gods through magic and medicine and were, therefore, ‘a kind of university [where t]he primitive theologian, the African magician, brought forth the beginnings of science.’ Gardiner’s argument had been essentially that two somewhat different hieroglyphic renderings for Per Ankh (House of Life) and Hut Ankh (Mansion of Life) in different time periods were proof of two different institutions in different time periods with totally distinct functions, one considerably predating the other. He based that conclusion almost entirely on descriptions of two different classes of functions for Per Ankh and Hut Ankh, which he felt could not be reconciled, the former in which scribes wrote and copied manuscripts (but which he denied also qualified them as educational institutions), and the latter, older he believed and which he called the Mansion of Life, was simply the king’s living quarters, most specifically where he ate his ‘breakfast’, that is, a place ‘consciously associated with the thought of “victuals”’ (Gardiner, 1938). Those latter conclusions rested almost entirely on presence during the Old Kingdom of an official of this so-called ‘Mansion of Life’ whom Gardiner called ‘Master of the King’s Largess’ and believed responsible for the king’s meals. These Gardiner likened correctly to funerary meals in that their daily surplus was presented by the king as gifts (offerings) to favored persons or gods. That this official was also stated in Old Kingdom times to superintend the national cattle census, the official counting of cattle, indicated to Gardiner simply that he was also provisioner for the king’s table for what Gardiner consistently identified elsewhere as the ‘meat’ or ‘joints’ supplied by the cattle ‘butcher’ (see Chapters 1 and 3). Implied is that in or near this ‘Mansion of Life’, bulls for the king’s table must frequently have been slaughtered. As support for his view, Gardiner cited Blackman’s study (1918) of the House of the Morning, which may have been near the House of Life, in which the king performed a daily washing or purification ritual representing his daily rebirth. The natron in his mouth during it was likened by Blackman (p. 157) to ‘the mouth of a calf of milk on the day it was born.’ Other parts of that ceremony, which seemed analogous to the Opening-of-the-Mouth for 155

Chapter Eight. The Egyptian Healing Establishment the dead, apparently had a similar intent of instilling more life or animating force into the living pharaoh (see Chapter 5). Blackman noted further that direct evidence for that identification of rituals in the minds of the Egyptians was especially clear from a 19th Dynasty inscription in which a House of the Morning was the place in which the Opening-of-the-Mouth ceremony was performed for one Apis bull9 and thus resembled a daily service performed in all Egyptian temples in historic times. Gardiner (1938) believed the king’s meal in the ‘Mansion of Life’ followed these lustration rituals in the House of the Morning, but, quite typically, he concluded that ‘Blackman seems to me to have overstressed the religious aspect of the House of the Morning’ since what would more naturally precede, he wrote, a man’s breakfast in the so-called ‘Mansion of Life’ but his toilet. In his continuing paper, Gardiner (1938a) considered what he believed to be the totally different institution (Per Ankh), in which existed a medical department. That, he claimed, was primarily an institution from the Middle Kingdom on and one increasingly associated with scribes, some identified in late texts as priests, and their copying of sacred books and works of masters of magic. He cited statements of the need to keep these and other things about the House of Life secret from the uninitiated (see Chapter 9). In those two papers, Gardiner admitted that there was at least one anachronistic exception to his association of one hieroglyphic rendering only with one group of these functions and one time period and its variant with the other functions during another period of time. This exception he attempted to explain away but acknowledged his inability to do that in one instance (we think more) when, concerning the reign of Djoser, reference was made to consulting ancient books in what Gardiner considered simply the place where the king then ate, the Hut Ankh. He also mentioned for that earlier period overseers of the priests of Sekhmet, one of whom he acknowledged was also an ‘(“instructor”?) of doctors’, in fact one of the priests named above as overseeing the sacrifice and dissection of a bull. Gardiner could well be correct that formal teaching did not take place in Per Ankh, but surely permitted visitors to these could seek information plus certain ministrying services, including those of a health nature. But, in all of his effort to create two unrelated institutions on grounds of hieroglyphic variations over a very long period, efforts not always accepted as we can judge by scholars before or since, Gardiner appeared to display again his propensity (see Chapter 1) to give ancient Egyptians a mindset similar to 9 Blackman cites Murray (1905: 36 and Pl. XVIII) for believing the oldest funerary rite for which there is written record was in the form of a ‘banquet’. He felt the lustration ritual (later with water, but see semen analogs in Chapter 7), first attested in the Fifth Dynasty, replaced the original ceremony on a daily basis.

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Per Ankh, Hut Ankh and Their Functions modern Englishmen, thus to trivialize deeper meanings or ones personally unfamiliar to him. In no way could he mentally associate bull slaughter, the king’s meals, rituals for the king, treating the ill, the writing and storing of learned documents and scribes and priests. We think these associations are compelling and indicative of the seminal importance to mankind of these similar Egyptian institutions. For there seems no reason to us not to see a similarity or a continuity in the functions over time emphasized for Per Ankh and Hut Ankh or the varied personnel involved, especially in light of what we have attempted to establish about Egyptian biomedical theories and the sources of such beliefs. The Hut Ankh, and perhaps an adjacent House of the Morning, were institutions associated with a major temple in which the king, at least initially, underwent a daily ritual of reinforcement of his ka (the animating force of life), a symbolic rebirth analogous to the Opening-of-the-Mouth and associated funerary rituals. For this purpose, bulls were sacrificed and employed (as in Chapter 5), portions of which were probably eaten by him in theophagic communion meals, with the remainder and other parts of this meal passed on as offerings to individuals or temples. Recall from the Pyramid Texts, about the king’s meals, ‘He has broken the back-bones and has taken the hearts of the gods’ (PT 409bc); ‘Lo, their souls are in the King’s belly, Their spirits are in the King’s possession As the surplus of his meal out of (?) the gods Which is cooked for the King out of their bones’ (PT 413ab). As Sethe and others noted, these referred to making a decoction or broth from the bones of the sacrifice, its source of semen. And, in PT 517 (Piankoff, 1968: 20) ‘O thou, whose Back is on his Back, bring to Unas the seferet of the meal that was on the back of Osiris, so that Unas may ascend on it to heaven, so that Unas may serve Re as courtier in the sky’, about all of which, see Chapter 6. Priests of Sekhmet, other priests and swnw probably oversaw at least the early bull-related stages of all this. Gardiner’s supervising official overall for these important rituals in the Hut Ankh quite naturally bore the additional title superintendent of the counting of cattle since the temples (and the pharaoh himself) possessed herds largely for such ritual purposes – and as substantial parts of their individual wealth. During such herd maintenance, bull examination and selection, but especially during rituals of bull sacrifice and dissection, these officiants learned bull anatomy, aspects of bull physiology, and, no doubt, also facts about diseases to which cattle are susceptible (recall the biblical plague of cattle). From such activities – beginning with dissections following wild bull hunts – they derived at some very early point and later amplified and reinforced the theories we have identified and attempted to apply them not only to revivification, but also to curing illnesses. Those beliefs and background knowledge could be applied by them not only directly to temple herds and especially living gods incarnate in bulls, but also to the pharaoh and other important persons. 157

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Fig. 8.1 – The feline goddess Mafdet as Mistress of the Hut Ankh probably grasping the was with her right forelimb. A missing fragment is reconstructed with dotted lines (redrawn with reconstructed forelimb [dotted lines] after Wilkinson, 1999: 289).

However, all evidence indicates that such more scientific lore continued to be intimately intertwined in Egypt with other purely magical practices and beliefs, including ones about healing. We suggest, moreover, that this ‘wisdom literature’, both factual and otherwise, was written down and preserved in these Per Ankh, and perhaps the Hut Ankh, by scribes or officiating priests themselves, and these institutions accreted significant healing (and general learning) reputations, which also attracted to them others concerned more with celestial bodies (as analogs of kings and cattle) and the fertility-providing river and its associated gods, especially ones also associated, like the ram god Khnum at Elephantine, with life or warding off of death. Also in connection with the healing or life-extending functions of these Hut Ankh is their interesting association with the snake-killing feline protectress Mafdet. As mentioned in Chapter 7, Mafdet, who fulfilled this death158

Per Ankh, Hut Ankh and Their Functions preventing role, was sometimes portrayed holding the was scepter, the bull’s organ of power and dominion, his delivery organ for semen, the fluid of life. Two recently reunited First Dynasty stone vessel fragments (O’Connor, 1987: 35, Fig. 14; Wilkinson, 1999: 288–289 & his Fig. 8.6) show the feline goddess Mafdet with her right paw (reconstructed by us) extended, holding a was at an angle that may simulate an erect phallus (Fig. 8.1). She is pictured above a neb basket, which is hanging from what appears to be three quarters of a rectangle with an ankh in it. Realizing that the missing fragment would show the rectangle completed, we would then have a visual representation of Mafdet as nb(t) hwt . #nh, ‘The mistress of the Mansion of Life’. Mafdet’s ˘ connection with the Mansion of Life is later reiterated in the Pyramid Texts (PT 440c, 442c, 677d), and 685c from the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties. The was extending from her right hand perhaps supplies an apotropaic function, much as the display of the Hamadryas baboons or the Roman herms. That is, she is the guardian of the Mansion of Life for the king against snakes and other dangers. The papyri these Per Ankh and perhaps Hut Ankh staffs prepared and preserved were said to have been stored in chests. Again, from an inscription of the Fifth Dynasty pharaoh Neferirkare, we read about his ill vizier that ‘his majesty had the … chief physician come.... His majesty [had] brought for him a case of writings .... They said to his majesty that he [the vizier] was unconscious’, that is, was near death (Breasted, 1906 I: 112; Breasted, 1930: 3). Thus, Sauneron (1960a: 61) concluded that personnel of these Egyptian Per Ankh, Houses of Life, included scribes and scholars, at least some of them priests, who possessed technical knowledge and wisdom, foretold the future, brought rain, knew the signs of sacred animals, knew medicinal plants and could heal the sick. Others were stated to be priest-readers who also were concerned with healing prescriptions or were priest-timekeepers and astrologers. The staff of the Hut Ankh were apparently concerned with many similar functions. Some Comparisons With Greece During the Ptolemaic period, the famed Library of Alexandria was founded by the first Greek Pharaoh, Ptolemy I Soter, very soon after the city’s founding in 331 BCE. Alexandria’s equally renowned Museum was begun later in his reign, or in that of his son, Ptolemy II Philadelphus (Lloyd, 1973: 3). Largely a community of scholars – a research institution – it survived until the 5th century CE, although the Library itself had been partly destroyed before that in tragic fires. In Lloyd’s opinion, the Museum was modeled upon Aristotle’s personal Lyceum, although Greeks had never before established any scholarly institution on anything like its scale. 159

Chapter Eight. The Egyptian Healing Establishment In fact, it is rare indeed to find a classical scholar who even mentions an alternative inspiration for these institutions in the possible precedent of the Egyptians’ Per Ankhs, much vaunted by foreigners in antiquity and to which a number of famous Greeks before the Ptolemies either paid written tribute or actual visits. Among the latter was the reputed founder of Greek philosophy, Thales of Miletus, who supposedly made a pilgrimage to the Per Ankh of Memphis. Neglect of that possible inspiration for the Museum is odd especially since, in discussing the first Ptolemies’ roles in Greek science after Aristotle, Lloyd (1973: 1) stressed that the Greeks were ‘known to have been particularly ruthless in their exploitation of the lands they possessed.’ We read elsewhere, for example, that, in their zeal to collect and amalgamate all scholarship of the Greek world and beyond, the first Ptolemies required all sea captains visiting their ports to surrender any written works carried on board, for which they eventually returned only copies made in the new Library. As one of their most celebrated collecting tasks, they assembled what has been called since the Hippocratic Corpus on medicine, so-named for a prominant healer from Cos, of whom Ptolemy I must assuredly have been aware already, since his personal epithet Soter (savior) had been earned during his military campaigns on that island. Were he and his son so zealous in pursuit of diverse knowledge and its amalgamation, would they have excluded from their collections the array of Egyptian learned papyri that must still have been preserved in the several Per Ankhs? Noting, therefore, that, even at his own late date (3rd century CE), Galen wrote that Greek physicians still visited the Per Ankh at Memphis, Ghalioungui (1973: 66) opined that, ‘whatever the attributions of these institutions, they were certainly the model on which the Mouseion of Alexandria was founded.’ That idea deserves much more serious consideration, as do some subsequent precursors of European Christian universities, like the Dar al Hikmat of Abassid Baghdad and the great library of Cordova in Omayad Spain, especially in light of the immediate importance to Christian scholarship of the conquest of Arab Sicily by Roger I and maintenance there of a bilingual, bicultural society. Thus, while most classicists have stressed the isolation of those ruling Alexandrian Greeks from Egyptian intellectual influences, and suggest that they already may have come to despise the ruled by the end of Philadelphus’ reign, the Greeks clearly did very early embrace with enthusiasm much of the Egyptian religion as part of a geographically wide-ranging religious syncretism, a blending that especially emphasied the originally bull god Apis, thence merged with Osiris as Serapis.10 Credited with a major role in introduction throughout the Greek world of this Cult of Serapis was a Greekspeaking Egyptian priest, originally of the temple at Sebennytus, named 10

As the Greek Hermes was merged with Egyptian Anubis as a god Hermanubis, etc. Prior Egyptian influence upon Greek religion is alleged, as in the Cult of Dionysus.

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Per Ankh, Hut Ankh and Their Functions Manetho11 (Waddell, 1940: xi), who is now remembered almost solely for his provision of the chronological list of Egyptian kings upon which the currently accepted dynastic system is based. However, Manetho was alleged by subsequent authors, including Plutarch, to have been a priestly adviser to Ptolemy I (Waddell, 1940: xii) and, in a letter written by Manetho to Ptolemy II, to whom he dedicated some of his translations, he identified himself as ‘high priest and scribe of the sacred shrines of Egypt.’ Waddell (p. xi) thought it reasonable to conclude that he was at that time high priest in the Temple at Heliopolis. Seven other works beside his history have also been attributed to Manetho by some, of which different scholars accept the genuineness of three to six (Waddell, p. xv), one bearing the title An Epitome of Physical Doctrines. Waddell (p. xxvii) first speculated, but then conjectured otherwise, that that book’s apparent object was ‘familiarizing the Greeks with Egyptian science.’ While in his own treatise on Alexandrian medicine, Von Staden (1989) concluded that the Greeks’ great spurt of theorizing there about bodily structure and function and disease pathogenesis – plus some significant empirical scholarship in medical science – owed virtually nothing to Egyptian influences (p. xx), he did acknowledge (p.1) that this ‘rapid, exceptional development of medicine in a Greek city on Egyptian soil is particularly interesting in view of the almost legendary reputation which Egyptian medicine had acquired throughout the Mediterranean at least as early as the second millennium B.C.’12 In citing further a number of well-acknowledged instances of Egyptian influence upon Greek therapeutics (p. 14), he hedged somewhat on his overall conclusion that the Alexandrian Greeks despised and remained isolated from their Egyptian vassals and surely learned nothing medical from them in Alexandria by emphasizing that ‘for present purposes, … it is more important to recognize that Egyptian drug ingredients entered Greek medicine well before the founding of Alexandria.’ Here, of course, we have been relatively little interested in prescription ingredients per se or such late events. Rather, we are interested in the way that learned Egyptians acquired anatomical and physiological knowledge and evolved theories from some of their observations and attempted to use these beliefs in practice. In that regard, after citing a number of Greek sources for their own belief in semen from bone marrow, recapitulated by Plato and Aristotle (see Chapter 6) and traceable as far back among Greeks as the ˇ y, 11 An odd coincidence is that Manetho’s name is said by one scholar, Cern ´ cited by Waddell (1940: ix) to be the Coptic for ‘horse herdsman’ (since Hippocrates bears essentially the same name in Greek), although others consider Manetho to mean ‘Truth of Thoth’. 12 He then pointed out that ‘Hittite and Persian kings employed Egyptians as court physicians, and Greek authors of the archaic and classical periods record the high esteem in which the medicine of the Pharaohs was held. It was from Egypt that Helen of Troy obtained the miraculous drug described in the Odyssey.’

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Chapter Eight. The Egyptian Healing Establishment healer Alcmaeon of Croton (6th century BCE), Von Staden (p. 288, Note 168) acknowledged that that theory may not have been indigenous to the Greeks, ‘it is possible that this theory entered the Greek world through the Pythagorean … school of philosophy.’ Where Pythagoreans, in turn, may have acquired it, he doesn’t suggest. Let us return to one little considered medical papyrus, which may have been among those reputedly compiled, copied and stored in chests in the Per Ankh.

The Kahun Veterinary Papyrus In November 1889 W.M. Flinders Petrie found at Kahun near Ilahun in the Fayum one sheet and a few additional fragments (apparently from different missing sheets; Griffith, 1898: 12 and Pl. VII) of what Griffith, who examined them, believed was probably originally a papyrus of great length. Since the largest fragment was 60 cm long and appears to have been cut, Kosack (1969) believed it was probably originally part of a long rolled papyrus that had been cut open later. The surviving portions are at University College, London. Dated from about 1850 BCE, it clearly is one of the two oldest surviving medical papyri, and its archaic grammar suggests an originally Old Kingdom date. Uniquely among all medical papyri, it is written in the first person by the healer himself, although reference seems to be made in some cases to things to be done also by an assistant. Moreover, it is written in cursive hieroglyphic columns usually reserved for religious texts, rather than the hieratic lines of secular papyri. As in the Book of the Dead, every line has a frame around it and important points (therapy or apparent quotations) are mostly written in red. One can reasonably conclude it is a religiously significant work and that its author was a healing priest. Surviving fragments concern bulls for two diseases, dogs in one (or possibly two), geese in one and fish in another. One other describes an animal (species name missing) large enough for the examiner to put his hand into its hmw, which Kosack believed to be the female genitalia, although the . animal is called ‘he’. Walker (1964) believed it was the rectum of a bull. Thus this papyrus is one describing comparative medical practice not only on mammals, but also birds and fish. Kosack concluded, probably correctly, that that implies the ancient Egyptians had domesticated some fish species as well, since no treatment intervention would have been possible or likely on wild animals. Griffith (1898) prepared an original translation and Wreszinski (1926) a second, the latter accepted by Grapow (1954–1958, IV, 1: 317–319; IV, 2: 237–240; V: 346–349). Early commentaries were by a physician, Oefele (1899), and two veterinarians Neffgen (1904) and Jaeger (1922), who 162

The Kahun Veterinary Papyrus used the Griffith translation. We have not seen Oefele’s or Jaeger’s papers (Froehner, 1952, Vol. 1: 41). More recent commentaries have been provided by Grapow (1954–1958), Sigerist (1967: 301–302), Kosack (1969) and Walker (1964, 1964a), the latter a veterinarian-historian with some knowledge of hieroglyphs, who, with the advice of R.O. Faulkner, prepared an additional translation. In the Kahun papyrus, a consistent form is followed for each disease, which begins ‘When I see a diseased animal “A” which is suffering from “B” and it has these symptoms, then that is called the “C” disease’ (if that is not already clear from the title). Next follows ‘What one reads for it is “D”.’ Then follow treatment prescriptions ‘E’, a prognosis ‘F’ and, finally in some cases, what appear to be instructions on how to make the animal more comfortable, or if it is not getting better, further examination and treatment ‘G’. In this orderly format, it resembles the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus (Walker, 1964). Mention in all surviving case titles is given to the eyes, except in the one from which that portion of the title has been destroyed. Where the disease is not solely of the eyes, the title is completed by the most prominent other symptom (Walker, 1964). Thus, this surviving section of the total Kahun Veterinary Papyrus probably represents a systematic anatomical grouping of diseases in which eye lesions or symptoms are especially prominent. In one disease either a manual rectal (Walker) or uterine (Kosack) examination and/or treatment are suggested. Both procedures are followed currently by veterinarians for large animals like cattle, for example for manually palpating via the rectum the ovaries of cows to diagnose early pregnancy or, in the uterus for difficult deliveries of calves or intrauterine medication. During this process in the Kahun case (according to Kosack) the healer strokes the length of the spine (clearly from the inside) and, on repeated tries with a washed hand, may encounter something sticky and withdraw blood, things in it or mucus. In this same disease (by Kosack’s rearrangement of the fragments), the animal is said to have a snake-like ‘nest’, behaves nervously and may even fall. The snake-like nest could indicate the presence of tapeworms or sizable roundworms in the animal’s bowel (or see Chapter 9 for another possibility). However, Neffgen, with a less adequate translation perhaps, considered that the latter referred to a ‘nest of worms’ in the eye of a dog (?), which he felt would have been impossible for an ancient healer to find. However, there are nematode worms of the genus Thelazia, which parasitize the conjunctival sacs and wander across the cornea of dogs. Another worm in that genus (Thelazia rhodesii) parasitizes the eyes of cattle in Africa today and both parasites are readily seen with the naked eye. However, Walker (1964) translated that case as: ‘[Instructions concerning the eyes of a bull (?) with a] nest of a worm [noting that worms were statedly blamed for conditions of unknown cause] … if afterwards he stretches itn 163

Chapter Eight. The Egyptian Healing Establishment [possibly grunting or bellowing] and he falls to the ground [here the writer changed to red ink and appears to be quoting from another source] “It is called the hidden bendings [bendings of unknown cause]. What is to be read for him? I must thrust my hand into the interior of his rectum. A bowl of water is by my side. A man’s hand comes upon (the bull) to stroke the spine of his back. The man rinses his hand in the bowl of water every time. [A scribal error.] The hand is kmya [an unknown word]. You must remove the blood clots, things or mucus thence.” [There the quotation appears to end, and the red ink reverts to black.] You will recognise that he is well because the mucus comes and restrain your fingers because …’ The least fragmentary case gives a fuller idea of the nature of this quite modern-sounding papyrus. In Kosack’s reading: ‘Healing art, examination of a bull, who has snorting (head cold?). Whenever I examine (a bull who) has headcolds, it is thus: Its eyes are dripping, its two temples are afflicted, the roots of its teeth are reddened. But the back of the neck always thrusts forward. What is read for it: It should be laid on one of its sides. Then one should always be there to sprinkle it with cool water. One should rub both its eyes, its flanks, and all its limbs with “stinkweed” or “shuu-weed”.... (Then) one (should) make smoke to the point of an evil smell’s arising with.... (Then) the herdsman (is to get it up and drive the bull into) the water. When (it has bathed) in the water one should get it out. When it is far from water, it is rubbed with “stinkweed” of the k Adt. Then you should make an incision on its nose and tail. Then you should say to him “It is one with an incision! And he (can) die of it, he (can) also live.” If he does not get well and is afflicted under your fingers, both his eyes are turned (?), you should surround both his eyes with a shard which has been warmed in the fire to get rid of the dimming.’ For that case Walker reads: ‘Instructions concerning the eyes of a bull with nft. If I see a bull with nftw [literally “breaths” or panting], then his eyes are discharging; his tears are thick; his gums are red; his neck having on it lumps. What is to be read for him? He should be cast on his one side and sprinkled with cold water. His eyes and flanks and all his limbs should be rubbed with hnˇ . s or sˇ sˇ ww [unknown plant substances] … [here the text is broken] … he is removed from the flood … when he is far from water he should be rubbed with hnˇ . s of the k Adt plant [an unknown plant]. You should bleed him from the nose and tail. You must say concerning him “having been bled, he will recover from [the disease] or he will die with it.” If he does not recover and he is lethargic under your fingers and tmtm [literally close-close, possibly blepharospasm] his eyes, you should bind his eyes with linen heated with fire to dispel the cloudiness.’ Neffgen (1904) had only the Griffith translation and Maspero’s comments, plus knowledge of the other published medical papyri, to guide him in postulating diseases and meanings for treatments and other procedures mentioned in these Kahun fragments. After considering bloat and traumatic pericarditis 164

Conclusions as possibilities for the lengthiest fragment immediately above, he felt the total symptoms best fit a diagnosis of malignant catarrh, a serious viral infection of cattle present in Africa today. As a non-veterinarian, Kosack did not venture a diagnosis. Walker (1964) interpreted it as a situation of panting, ocular (mucoid) discharge, inflamed oral cavity, lumps on neck, which could be enlarged superficial lymph nodes, use of cold water suggesting pyrexia, rubbing entire body, which may suggest overall integumental involvement. The prognosis is guarded. On reexamination of unsuccessfully treated cases, the bull is in depression and has keratitis. There are possible nervous eye complications (blepharospasm). He, like Neffgen, whose paper he does not cite, diagnosed malignant catarrh. One particularly interesting aspect of this disease’s treatment is bleeding as therapy, attested also in the later Ebers Papyrus (Steuer and Saunders, 1959: 6; Saunders, 1963: 30, Note 103). Thus the Kahun Veterinary Papyrus provides the first mention anywhere of bleeding a patient as treatment for illness, a method that the Egyptians considered analogous to an enema (Saunders, 1963: 25) or inducing a wound to suppurate (p. 28 and see our Chapter 9). As we mentioned in passing in Chapter 1, Grapow’s (1954–1958) initial reactions to the Kahun Veterinary Papyrus, especially its unique form and its other special characteristics were that such descriptions of animal healing may have provided the prototypes for subsequent Egyptian medical literature. But he quickly dismissed that idea with the thought that it made much better sense to assume instead a lost book on human medicine upon which this Kahun veterinary papyrus also was patterned. Clearly, nonetheless, the sole evidence indicates that we have here a very old religio-veterinary text written by the healer himself (not in the third person by a scribe as for the other medical papyri), organized by him in a consistent very modernsounding fashion and virtually devoid of magic. Anything beyond that is pure speculation.

Conclusions We can see that the ancient Egyptians used several types of healers, some with apparently overlapping functions. Several of these, including the swnw and Priests of Sekhmet, have been associated with veterinary medicine, that is, with the maintaining in health of animals. That these healers could have dealt with both humans and other animals, we think, is a natural outcome of the environment in which they functioned. We see ancient Egyptian medicine as having a large component of comparative medicine. That is, a healer who treated animals might also treat humans and vice versa. While swnw, which we see as ‘healers’ rather than 165

Chapter Eight. The Egyptian Healing Establishment the more specific ‘physicians’, seemed to have treated humans more than animals, a number of them were also priests of Sekhmet, whose functions included the treatment of animals, such as in or for the Per Ankh or ‘House of Life’. Some scholars, such as Ghalioungui, consider these priests of Sekhmet to have been veterinarians. Gardiner’s study of the Per Ankh and Hut Ankh shows the former as places and/or organizations that dealt with books, medicine, the maintaining in health of sacred animals, especially cattle, the presence of slaughterers or hntyw, the revivification of the dead, and druggists . (i.e. those who deal in drugs). The latter were places, we believe, where the king ate sacrificial meals of bulls (kau) for sustenance (kau) to raise the level of his life force (ka). While the two institutions may not have been identical, they shared similar religious assumptions. With regard to the Hut Ankh, ‘the Mansion of Life’ and the Per Ankh, ‘the House of Life’, we see them with some overlapping functions. The former apparently appears first, and is associated with the feline goddess Mafdet (Fig. 8.1), she who protects against snakes, in the Pyramid Texts. Gardiner (1938: 84) downplayed its religious aspect, and thought it a place where the king was fed. But as we have shown, food (kau) is connected to a person’s life force (ka) and to bulls (kau), which are very strong in that life force. From the Old Kingdom, it was associated with the Houses of Books, and by Ptolemaic times, if not earlier, it was the place where ancient writings were kept and consulted or new works were written (Gardiner, 1938: 83l; Wilson, 1997: 628). The Per Ankh was a place where books, including medical books, were kept, consulted and written, where sacred and secret matters were revealed (Gardiner, 1938a: 160), including magic (Gardiner, p. 164, 166–167, 176) and medicine (Gardiner, pp.157–159, 165, 168, 176). Books in the House of Life might not only grant life, but also maintain it. (Gardiner, p. 168). While Gardiner did not understand why a slaughterer (hnty) would be associated with the House of Life, it seems clear that a . slaughterer of bulls would increase the life force for medicine and/or magic, and that priests of Sekhmet who cut up bulls were also associated with the House of Life (Gardiner, p. 173 & note 4). Also, the staff of the House of Life inspected bulls, such as the Buchis bull (Gardiner, p. 172). In summation, a major purpose of the House of Life was to ‘vivify that which was dead’, (Gardiner, p. 178.) through use of its books and or personnel. While Gardiner associated the Per Ankh with scriptoria or places where books were stored and copied, others, such as Reeves (1992: 22–23) have felt that it functioned as a medical school. Perhaps the Per Ankhs had several overlapping functions, which included the storing and copying of texts but also included the inculcation of medical, scientific and magical knowledge to the present and subsequent generations. Finally, both Hut Ankhs and Per Ankhs were concerned with bulls, giving life to the king or revivifying the sick or deceased. 166

CHAPTER NINE. EGYPTIAN BIOMEDICAL SCIENCE: THEORIES AND IMPLICATIONS A synthesis [links] together many ideas and pieces of information into a new generalization in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. – W.I.B. Beveridge If someone tells me that in making these conclusions I have gone beyond the facts, I reply ‘This is true, I have freely put myself among ideas that cannot be rigorously proved.’ – Louis Pasteur To lift us out of a Ptolemaic or anthropocentric into a Copernican or universal medicine. – Sir Clifford Allbutt, 1888

We can now reiterate the working definition accepted in Chapter 1 of science as an attempt to describe and explain nature by a process of reason, evidence and argument, usually with personal and often experimental, production of evidence. Despite the fact that not all natural scientists are experimenters, that component, at least in first hand delving for evidence, most distinguishes science from other forms of inquiry or discovery. What can we then say overall about what the Egyptians accomplished in biomedical science? Evidence we have laid out here includes (1) acquisition of factual information through dissection and vivisection of animals, principally bulls, (2) resort to comparisons among animal species that could be observed directly, with analogies from animals to people when direct empirical evidence for the latter was impossible to acquire, (3) resort to a comparison or classificatory system of opposites (such as red organs/tissues/fluids versus white organs/tissues/fluids) and ‘sames’ (like white semen from white bones) to generate two rational physiological theories within the bounds of their apparent knowledge, plus, most specifically, (4) two examples of rational experimental or clinical ‘proofs’ in practice, namely, inductions of muscle fasciolations and/or contractions, with applications in treating illnesses or death, in one instance, and ‘understanding’ a strange causal relation of vertebral dislocations to priapism and seminal emissions in the second. 167

Chapter Nine. Egyptian Biomedical Science Structure of the Body From evidence presented, we can venture quite confidently that Egyptian anatomical information for which there is any documentation or inferential probability was derived largely from sacrificial dissections and vivisections, chiefly of the bull. While that has been acknowledged by the most informed scholars, few, if any, followed up that fact even to the extent of exploring its circumstances in relation to the possible beginnings of medical science, much less – until Yoyotte, Sauneron and Buchheim – showed any inclination to explore religious and other apparently nonmedical texts or portrayals for their possible biomedical implications. Our own most interesting anatomical finding per se is of probable bovine anatomical origins for the important and previously obscure objects, which together portrayed the bull’s generative system and represented the powers of life, stability and dominion that this system conferred on the ‘herd leader’ in relation to his societal ‘herd’ (see Chapters 6, 7 and Epilogue). Since the oldest of such Egyptian anatomical observations and inferences apparently predate by millennia a similarly documentable process in the Greek world,1 it is unfortunate that modern scholarly inquiry into the beginnings of biomedicine has concentrated so exclusively in Egypt on only the few most obviously medical texts plus evidence for pathology which present-day medical researchers can explore in still extant mummies. The latter, while useful in understanding the history of diseases, contributes little or nothing to understanding the beginnings of science.

Functions of Organs In Chapter 5, we indicated additionally, in the instance of ‘live flesh’ as a prescription ingredient, and ka, the responsible animating principle present in muscle, that Egyptian physiological observations and inferences were equally early and, in that instance, hold up amazingly well against modern knowledge concerning ATP, the ‘fuel of life’. Not so, however, their theory on the physiology of semen production (see Chapter 6), where resort to classification by ‘sames’ (i.e., whites from whites) and opposites (i.e., fluids of life versus fluids of death) yielded an incorrect, albeit reasonable, theory.2 Moreover, that belief remained convincingly uncorrected anywhere, apparently, until 1 We must continually remind ourselves, too, that dates considered ‘late’ in Egyptian history – as in the New Kingdom, or even the period of Persian conquest – are still very ‘early’ in terms of Greek history or the general history of science. 2 Somehow, nonetheless, that erroneous belief about semen’s source as the marrow of bones became widely disseminated and was accepted far beyond Egypt’s borders at some point in antiquity (see Chapter 6), a curious fact surely in need of follow-up by relevant specialists.

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The Egyptians’ Synthesis: A First Approximation Galen established early in the present era that testes were the only source of semen. As to related information about female reproductive functions, the Egyptians’ observations on and inferences from the anatomy of the bovine uterus had caused them also to assume that same structure for women, an anatomical error that also remained uncorrected even for many centuries after Galen. Beyond that, and by further resort to rudimentary scientific reasoning, they concluded, too, again erroneously, that the female’s white milk was an analog of the male’s white semen in some of its physiological properties and that her blood produced the fetus’ red parts. Since ‘best’ explanations for, or best approximations of, natural phenomena by contemporary scientists also frequently stand correction, the process at that early time becomes far more important than the Egyptians’ results. For, as put by Ian Beveridge (1957: 32), ‘an attitude of mind is required for [the process of] discovery which is different from that required for [the process of] proof.’

The Egyptians’ Synthesis: A First Approximation At this point let us attempt to pull together some of the things we regard as either true or probable about the state of Egyptian biomedical knowledge. In the Egyptians’ understanding of procreation, the white parts of the fetus were provided by semen and the red or colored parts by the menstrual (and umbilical?3) blood. While the oldest Egyptian text we have seen, the Papyrus Jumilhac, says that explicitly, it is late on the Egyptian time scale, but early on the Greek. However, a number of much older texts cited strongly imply belief in the former relationship. Further study of the ‘tie amulet’, connected with the blood of Isis and other associations with the color red, might provide antecedent texts also for the latter relationship. Of further interest is that both beliefs remain part of the oral traditions of some contemporary African peoples (see Chapter 6). But, in sustaining (or invigorating) this created life in a living individual, we believe that, as the Egyptian priests perceived them, these male/female roles became partially reversed over time, that is the female’s milk became the main nutritional source of this ‘white tissues’ magic.’ As we have indicated (see Chapter 7), milk was regarded as a semen analog. Therefore, as time went on, ejaculated semen itself probably remained very secondarily, if at all, a sustaining exogenous source of white magic (and maybe then only ritually or symbolically). Milk seems to have become its substitute, although, for 3 The mammalian placenta and umbilical vessel connections were surely recognized (see Chapter 3 on ka).

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Chapter Nine. Egyptian Biomedical Science the pharaoh at least, an extract (broth) prepared from the marrow of the sacrificial bull’s bones4 probably remained a supplementary replacement for the original. Similarly, a sex role reversal for sustaining a body’s red parts also apparently occurred. That is, associated rituals involved the bull, no longer the cow mother, and the red magic passed on to sustain the pharaoh’s life (and other lives) was almost entirely in the form of a sacrificial bull’s red flesh.5 In the case of ‘live’, still fasciolating flesh, this red magic simply as nourishment (kau) was joined with the ka’s animating magic, another lifesupporting property bovine flesh also possessed, a property taken advantage of in therapy, according to Egyptian medical papyri. All that was essentially straightforward biology. But in the pharaoh’s re-creation as a god – in contrast to procreation and life maintenance (or enhancement) – the gods, as in creation itself, reenter the process more directly (just as they had in the original creation of man, the cosmos and the maat or natural order). Thus, in scenes of the symbolic sa ankh transfer of magic from the god to the spine or mouth of a dead pharaoh (Fig. 6.3a), a semen vehicle is again strongly implied,6 although juxtaposed to some such scenes are other portrayals in which the dead pharaoh is also being suckled by a goddess (Fig. 6.3b). Thus, in this revivification process, both male and female gods may here be symbolically supplying the white magic in more or less equal measure. In actual priestly rituals all of this may, again over time, have become represented more and more by milk libations and lustrations only. Similarly, through the bull’s flesh – especially again his animating karich flesh – the red magic is restored to the pharaoh’s dead body by the god Re (or possibly at times some other sun-creator god surrogate). That was through priestly rituals, first the Opening-of-the-Mouth with the sacrificial bull’s forelimb, and in the intervals between those formal rituals by more ordinary offerings of flesh. Roles for red blood itself also in sustaining life or in revivification rituals seem much less clear, though possible.7 We believe that something like these postulated beliefs and practices with respect to ka and ‘live flesh’ go back at least to the Predynastic wild bull hunt, and probably to Neolithic times. An association of mother’s milk with sustaining an infant’s life could also have had a very early origin. However, 4

As in the so-called Cannibal Hymn. We are reminded again that Anaxagoras (the Milesian near contemporary of the ‘first Greek philosopher’ Thales who was said to have visited the Per Ankh at Memphis) implied that ‘flesh in our body grows by the addition of “seeds” of flesh which we cannot see, but whose presence we infer in our food’ (Lloyd, 1966: 244). 6 In the Kahun Veterinary Papyrus, in one case in a bull the priest-healer recommends stroking the animal’s spine either from the outside or internally via its rectum (see Chapter 8). 7 Maasai, for example, mix cattle blood drawn by venesection with milk and drink this mixture from special gourds. Rural Irish from Cork, too, have traditionally eaten a coagulated mixture of milk and cattle blood, a product called drisheen (Schwabe, 1979: 391). 5

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The Egyptians’ Synthesis: A First Approximation with regard to an adult’s drinking cow’s milk (a biologically unnatural act; see Chapter 3) and cow milk’s subsequent ritual uses, plus associations of semen with milk and the body’s white parts – that is, the total corpus of biomedical theory and practice complex postulated above – these would have had to await the domestication of herding animals. Therefore, this total interrelated complex of physiological theory in even its most basic forms must have arisen in Egypt or the Sahara sometime after the date domesticated cattle were first kept there but long before the time the various Pyramid Texts were derived initially by the king and his priests and passed on thenceforth orally among them. The latter must have occurred some time before development of hieroglyphic writing and surely before the oldest surviving written version of the Pyramid Texts was engraved on the interior walls of the Pyramid of Unas at Saqqara. We think, further, that these things took place as the Egyptian society only gradually evolved from a primarily transhumant pastoral society,8 with complementary, ritual and recreational hunting, to the much more sedentary mixed plant-livestock agrarian society characteristic of later phases of Dynastic Egypt (Table 1.1). The determinant of that social evolution could have been largely the progressive pasture loss through the Nile hinterland’s continued drying. Experience of such an Agrarian Revolution was probably made possible through the yoking of ox power to plant production, giving people for the first time power for food production far greater than that provided by their own muscles. That quantum leap in technology may have served first, as Lobban (1989) hypothesized, to produce fodder to sustain the growing cattle wealth accumulated through raids by these newly permanent Nile-dwellers from their riverine homeland upon other still entirely pastoral neighbors to the south and west. If plant production for human consumption essentially accompanied or followed those other events, the earliest roles of semen/milk and ‘live flesh’/game animal meat to sustain their king’s life (and as offerings to ‘feed’ his ka upon death; see Chapters 2 and 5) were probably supplemented/replaced more and more as the Old Kingdom progressed by bread, beer and other plant-derived foods as shown upon offering tables. Such plant feedstuffs must also have provided the bulk of the diets of a growing population of ordinary people. As one more peripheral facet of this Egyptian biomedical synthesis, Egyptologists have long noted with interest the large number of bird hieroglyphs in the Egyptian language. Gardiner (1957: 544–545) has represented 54, plus 8 parts of birds, compared to 34 hieroglyphs representing mammals, plus an 8 With, as among today’s Nilotic Dinka, some digging stick agriculture in oases and/or on the Nile and in its delta, a cultivating pursuit which may have developed first as postulated by Grivetti, 1980; Chapter 3).

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Chapter Nine. Egyptian Biomedical Science additional 52 for mammalian parts.9 The Nile Valley remains today an important migratory flyway for birds between Eurasia and Africa, and the marshes of its delta especially provided resting and food possibilities for these migratory species. Indigenous bird species would have bred there (Houlihan and Goodman, 1986). Abundant pictorial evidence other than hieroglyphs also indicates the importance of wild fowling as an Egyptian occupation. Domesticated chickens and other birds also were raised as food (Darby et al., 1979: 272–336), and the Egyptians eventually invented egg incubators to control and augment bird production both for offerings and food. In that connection, readily observable stages of avian embryology10 provided, perhaps, the first basis for an understanding of fetal development also within the mammalian placenta, including the postulated developmental roles of semen and blood. Such an avian source for reproductive information is suggested in comparative analogies the Egyptians made in developmental anatomy between creation of life in a bird’s egg and within the mammalian belly. Thus, in CT Spell 989 about the god’s semen and ‘molding’ of bones, we read also ‘who will break the egg? … he will break the egg’ (see Chapter 6). Could egg here also refer to placenta? For a bird-mammal analogy becomes much more explicit in 17 later texts on semen from bones compiled by Sauneron (1960) and Yoyotte (1962): namely the creator gods’ roles in making the chick grow in the egg; in semen coming from bones inside the egg and, somehow also from bones ‘in the belly’, and finally as the fertilizing of women as well with semen from bones. Interestingly, too, of the several surviving cases in the presumably originally lengthy Kahun Veterinary Papyrus, one fragment concerns a disease of some bird and, among the thousands of birds later mummified are some in which fractured bones have apparently been ‘repaired’ either before or following death. But beyond all consideration here of Egyptian anatomical knowledge or of these early Egyptian physiological theories per se, we need also to mention a third biomedical theory as evidence for beginning evolution in ancient Egypt of a scientific basis for healing. Pathogenesis For, beside (1) bodily structure and (2) bodily functions, which the theories we explore address, the other main scientific underpinning to progress in healing practice has been (3) evolving conceptions of pathogenesis,

9 Interestingly, too, is that by the time the alphabetic consonantal hieroglyphs were derived, some bird hieroglyphs became phonograms. 10 By accidentally or intentionally breaking eggs at different stages of their incubation. For example, Filipinos relish eating raw a dish called balut, that is the almost fully formed embryo with amniotic and allantoic fluids from birds’ eggs (Schwabe, 1979: 400).

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The Egyptians’ Synthesis: A First Approximation

Fig. 9.1 – The priest-healer Irenakhty smelling the sacrificed bull’s blood on the fingers of the dissector and saying ‘it is pure’ (Paget et al., 1898: Pl. 36).

mechanisms explaining abnormal structure and function, that is, disease. The principal result of earlier inquiries about Egyptian biomedical theory – drawing almost exclusively upon the purely medical literature, especially two of the most rational medical papyri, Ebers and Smith – has been identification of an Egyptian theory of pathogenesis and its therapeutic applications. Namely, the intestines and associated blood vascular system were regarded as the source and disseminating channel, respectively, for whdw, a putrefactive etiologic principle that the Egyptians believed was ˘ present in fecal matter (Ghalioungui,1973: 56; Steuer and Saunders, 1959). If not evacuated regularly, it could rise to the heart, cause blood to coagulate and be destroyed, thus producing pus and local or general suppurative lesions which, if unimpeded, led to death and eventual putrefaction of the entire body (except its bones). This was, perhaps, the reason for the Kahun Veterinary Papyrus’ early priest-healer author recommending that something, including blood clots, be removed manually from the rectum of a sick bull (see Chapter 8). Steuer and Saunders (1959: 3) believed that theory of pathogenesis originated quite rationally from observing an apparent analogy between transformation of ingested food to feces and decay of the dead body (i.e., another obvious difference than motion between a live and a dead body), notions that may have led to attempts to prevent decay of the dead by mummification, which the Egyptians viewed, therefore, as a form of medical treatment. We could easily conclude, too, that another very early observation (beyond white from white and the resemblance otherwise of semen to bone marrow) that reinforced the Egyptians’ association of semen’s creative magic with a body’s bones would be that the bones were the only parts of the body that were ‘imperishable’, could resist this whdw putrefactive ˘ principle that acted on the bodies of the dead or the dying (sick). That surely was strong evidence of their special properties. Steuer and Saunders thus attributed to that theory Egyptian healers’ preoccupation with prevention of 173

Chapter Nine. Egyptian Biomedical Science intestinal putrefaction in the living also by routinely administering preventive and therapeutic emetics, purges and enemas, methods still documented by Herodotus and Diodorus, as well as in the medical papyri. The rationale here was similar to that of bloodletting, which could prevent this pathologic process in a later stage after whdw had entered the blood but before blood coagulation and its believed ˘ sequelae occurred (Steuer and Saunders, 7). As indicated in Chapter 8, bloodletting was one form of therapy applied to cattle as well as people, and, in fact, first attested in the Kahun Veterinary Papyrus. Thus, Fig. 9.1 shows the Egyptian priest-healer Irenakhty smelling the sacrificed bull’s blood on the fingers of a dissector and stating ‘It is pure’, which probably meant it did not smell corruptedly of whdw, that is, like pus or feces. ˘ Also apparently treated as a symptom in the Kahun papyrus was fever, thought by the Egyptians to have been an early consequence of the ‘rising’ of this pathogenic whdw factor from the bowel toward the heart via the blood ˘ 4). Here the healer prescribed sprinkling the bull’s (Steuer and Saunders, body with cold water, driving the ill animal into a body of water and possibly also rubbing its hot body with unknown plant substances. Although it is not a point made by Steuer and Saunders, this equation of disease causation with putrefaction, as evidenced by feces, pus formation and suppurating wounds and other lesions (that is, local or more general blood and tissue destruction in this way) perceives disease as an intermediary state of the body – of being – between the polar states of life and death. Here we sense an exception to the ‘excluded middle’ generalization stressed by Lloyd (1966: 6–8) for ancient peoples, including the pre-Socratic Greeks who, in the two hundred years before Aristotle, also began classifying things or phenomena in terms of pairs of opposites. All of the above indicate to us that, by criteria used to identify precursors of explicit rules of scientific evidence in Greece before Aristotle (Lloyd, 1966), ancient Egyptian priest-healers had begun considerably earlier a partially scientific approach to biomedical problems. The ‘publishing’ of such information in the systematic format of some medical and religio-veterinary papyri for instruction of others partially satisfied, too, the argument criterion of scientific method, about which we shall say more later. To introduce the general consequences to biomedical progress and human health of such periods of perceived closeness and interdependence between human and animal medicine as apparently prevailed for millennia in ancient Egypt, we sketched in Chapter 4 some pivotal breakthroughs during the much later Microbiological Revolution in biomedicine of the 19th and early 20th centuries. By identifying specific etiologic agents for widespread diseases, it finally put to rest the domination of human medicine in the western world by the elaborately convoluted theories of humoral causes and treatments for diseases that proliferated largely among the Greek physicians of 174

Comparative Reproductive Physiology and Medicine Ptolemaic Alexandria. These, in turn, were predated by Egyptian beliefs in the putrefactive whdw etiological principle. Therefore, what is interesting to ˘ note additionally about these early Egyptian biomedical theories, especially Egyptian priests’ beliefs about reproductive biology, is that reproductive biomedicine has remained to this day one of the major areas of science and practice for which analogical reasoning from observations and experiments on nonhuman animals yields results of great importance to people’s wellbeing. A sketch of some of these advances should provide a better feeling for what the early Egyptians were actually starting by capitalizing on their prescient, more Copernican conception of ‘one medicine’ than the anthropocentric view of medicine and its processes assumed by most physician practitioners from Ptolemaic times on.

Comparative Reproductive Physiology and Medicine The first thing to note in tracing knowledge acquisition and practice applications since the Egyptians vis-à-vis the reproductive process is that, until fairly recently, practice of human obstetrics remained almost entirely in the hands of traditional female midwives in practically all cultures (Lloyd, 1983: 568). In many it still does. This activity did not begin to become part of regular medical practice in Europe until the 18th and 19th centuries.11 For example, not until the mid-1700s were England’s few ‘man midwives’ eligible for election as Fellows of the College of Physicians (Graham, 1951). In contrast, obstetrics and reproductive surgery have been integral parts of regular veterinary practice since the dawn of history and, as odd as it may now seem, the veterinarian’s connections with human obstetrics as well were probably older generally, and perhaps as significant overall, as the practicing physician’s. In a related area of early practice, it is evident that, at least until the testes were demonstrated by Galen to be the sole source of semen, the main reason bulls were castrated was to make them more docile, be more readily controllable (as with similarly old nose-ringing surgery) or to ameliorate untoward consequences of their normally aggressive behavior (as also by surgical dehorning or detipping of their horns). But how and why such much more dangerous and anatomically and surgically complicated practices in females as ovariectomy, hysterectomy and the caesarean operation (to deliver live offspring from live dams) were first learned, and why, we do not know beyond the unsupported statement in a 3rd century CE work by Athenaios, a Greek 11

Dentistry, bone-setting, ‘psychiatry’ – even surgery – remained separate from ‘physik’ or the work of ‘physicians’ in some societies for varying periods of time.

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Chapter Nine. Egyptian Biomedical Science from Naucratis in Egypt, that ovariectomy was first performed on animals by an early Lydian king named Andramylis (Froehner, 1952, vol. 1: 44). Be that as it may, we know that one of the world’s earliest healers12 identifiable by name, the Mesopotamian Urlugaledinna who lived in the court of a king of Lagash about 2200 BCE, practiced veterinary obstetrics. He is pictured on his cylinder seal with a remarkably modern-appearing obstetrical cord for delivering calves (Hausmann, 1966: 73; Schwabe 1978: 145 and Frontispiece), simpler versions of which were also in use in ancient Egypt.13 Moreover, by the 4th century BCE Aristotle was writing quite matter-of-factly in Historia Animalium about ovariectomies in sows, and the Jewish Talmud records performances of obstetrical surgery in sheep, as well as embryotomies (Froehner, 1952, vol. 1: 29).14 Even into modern times rural veterinarians have commonly served as consultants to midwives for difficult human deliveries and continue to be called upon to deliver babies in emergencies (Mott and Roemer, 1948). Thus, for a time during the mid-18th century, the first veterinary schools (in France) included instruction in human obstetrics in their curricula (Hannaway, 1977). Such human practice by veterinarians seemingly originated very early, and it is not surprising, therefore, that, while amputation of the prolapsed human uterus (vaginal hysterectomy) was carried out in the late 15th Century by the physician Jacopo Berengario da Carpi (Cianfrani, 1960), the first abdominal obstetrical surgery of record on women was performed by veterinarians. Johannes von Essen, a veterinary obstetrician who practiced on swine, did the first human ovariectomy on his own daughter in the early 16th century to control her lasciviousness,15 while already in 1500 Jacob Nufer, another swine practitioner from Siegerhausen in Thurgau, Switzerland, had performed the first successful human caesarean operation delivering a live baby from a living woman16 after midwives were unsuccessful in delivering his own wife. She subsequently produced other children by normal birth and lived to an old age (Graham, 1951). The first successful caesarean operation by a physician was by Christopher Bain in Italy 40 years later (Cianfrani, 1960).

12

The two earliest Egyptian healers (swnw) in a veterinary setting, Irenakhty and Wenennefer, lived at the end of the Fifth Dynasty about 2400 BCE (Ghalioungui, 1973: 137; Ghalioungui, 1983: 17, 87). 13 According to Cianfrani (1960), the equivalent of this bovine obstetrical cord, the fillet precursor of obstetrical forceps to deliver live infants, was not documented before 1864 CE. 14 According to Professor Shlomo Sternberg (Department of Mathematics, Harvard University, personal communication, 1997), the Jewish Mishnah compiled c. 22 CE, contains a statement from the beginning of the second century CE to the effect that, to protect their monopoly of certain breeding stock, Alexandrians only exported cows and sows on which hysterectomies had been performed (Tractate Bechorot Chapter 4, Mishnah 4). 15 This practice in humans, initiated in connection with European witch-hunting, has been studied by Graf von Matuschka (1981 and 1982). 16 Julius Caesar, for example, was born by cutting open his already dead mother.

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A Further Word about Materials and Methods In more modern times, animal studies and close medical-veterinary interactions have continued to contribute equally seminally to advances in reproductive biology and surgery. For example, infectious and noninfectious causes of spontaneous abortions and abnormal fetuses and offspring in domestic animals (as first associated with bovine brucellosis and subsequently with several other infections, toxic plants, oxygen deprivation, etc.) have long been recognized and studied on both individual animal and population bases (Schwabe, 1984c: 102–104). In a related example more immediately beneficial to human health, the British veterinarian Coombs developed the test specifically for diagnosis of erythroblastosis fetalis in Rh-positive babies carried by Rh-negative mothers, a single contribution that has saved countless infants’ lives since. One need but mention also in this connection artificial insemination and its related technology that had become routine for livestock practice many years before human applications. Associated with that were major advances in sperm physiology and preservation. More recently, ovum and embryo transfer and underlying physiological knowledge and practice technology have had a similar history within the veterinary, then human, fields. Other new areas of reproductive research in domestic animals currently or potentially important to human health include work on controlled timing of estrus and ovulation, photoperiod-endocrine interactions, control of ovulation rates, detection of estrus, genetic and immunological approaches to embryo-uterine compatability as related to embryonic deaths, maternal recognition of embryonic signals, transport and endocrine physiology of the placenta in relation to embryo survival, genetic control of length of gestation, mechanisms for ovum survival and maturation in the ovary, control relations between the ovary, pituitary and hypothalamus, in vitro embryonic culture systems, cloning and nuclear transfer and sex selection by sperm fractionation (Cartwright et al., 1980), as well as complex fetal surgery. Not surprisingly, a leading veterinary endocrinologist, Roger Short, was selected in 1972 to be first director of the British Medical Research Council’s newly created institute for research on human reproduction.

A Further Word about Materials and Methods In our collecting, presenting and attempting to interpret this Egyptian material in terms of its possible history of science significance, we have been reminded repeatedly of Thorndike’s (1923: 27) prescient admonition that there is another point to be kept in mind in any comparison of Egypt … with Greece in the matter of magic. Our evidence proving the great part played by magic in the oriental civilizations comes directly from them to us without

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Chapter Nine. Egyptian Biomedical Science intervening tampering or alteration.... But classical literature and philosophy come to us as edited by Alexandrian librarians and philologers, as censured and selected by Christian and Byzantine readers, as copied or translated by medieval monks and Italian humanists. And the question is not merely, what have they added? but also, what have they altered? what have they rejected? Instead of questioning superstitious passages in extant [Greek] works on the ground that they are later interpolations, it would very likely be the point to insert a goodly number on the ground that they have been omitted as pagan and idolatrous superstitions.17

Comparative biomedicine is predicated upon the correct belief that man is an animal much like other animals. Such notions, shared by the ancients, were as much an anathema to medieval Church fathers and early Christian apologists as they remain among present-day champions of biblical creationism. We have also mentioned (see Chapters 1 and 8) other biases of a late 20th century mindset that have characterized some past attempts to explore and evaluate the Egyptian biomedical contribution. We believe, in fact, that the main reason evidence presented here about bulls and the sources of life’s ‘magic’ (see Chapters 5, 6 and 7) has not been joined before is that, as suggested in Chapter 1, it is very difficult for any of us from such highly ‘differentiated’ societies as the modern West, with its highly specialized divisions of labor, highly compartmentalized institutions and clearly divergent fields of knowledge, to adopt the mindset of people from highly ‘integrated’ societies. As suggested previously not only by Frankfort (1948: 162 ff.), but Child (1969: 6–7) and Aldred (1965: 21–22), considerable aid in this process of cross-cultural understanding in time and space might be provided in the case of Egypt through attention to an accumulating literature concerning the way of life, beliefs, practices and evolved cosmologies of present-day Nile basin cattle-culture pastoralists (or, better, from first hand experience of these societies). 17

In Lloyd’s (1992: 567) words 70 years later: ‘[for] the Greek case in particular, we must be aware … that the data we have to work with have already been extensively processed: by the selectivity of the evidence, mostly literary, that has survived, by the vagaries of transmission, by the pressures of constant reinterpretation.’ This, in part, has led, in Pingree’s (1992: 555) words, to ‘Hellenophilia’ whose advocate ‘suffers from a form of madness that … creates in the imagination the idea that one of several false propositions is true. The first … is that Greeks invented science; the second … that they discovered … the scientific method …; the fourth … that the true definition of science is just that which scientists happen to be doing now, following a method … adumbrated by the Greeks.’ A leading exponent of the unique Greek contribution, Von Staden (1992: 584), sees the issue as ‘the distorting consequences entailed by the historiographic habit of brightly foregrounding elements of legitimate continuity … while relegating discontinuities [in the Greek record] to a shadowy, obscure background at best … [thus] privileging, historiographically, Hippocratic methodological debates …, criticisms of magic …, impressively detailed observational accounts …, and attempts at measurement and quantification over the “irrational” or “folkloristic” or “magical” within Hippocratic writings.’

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A Further Word about Materials and Methods This process of synthesis on our part was aided immeasurably by intermittent opportunities for one of us to work with and among such peoples over a period of decades (Majok and Schwabe, 1996) – and also by injection of biological training and perspective for us both – plus further biomedical knowledge and experience. In those senses our joint effort is part of a plea for more cross-disciplinary studies in Egyptology and other humanities, such as have for some time characterized almost all important research efforts in rapidly advancing natural sciences (Schwabe, 1978a). Furthermore, as in Chapter 3 concerning Breasted’s (1912: ix-x) deliberate omissions of all considerations of animals in discussing evolution of the ancient Egyptians’ religion, there have been similar omissions by other scholars of related discussions of sex in connection with biomedicine or the origins of religions more generally. Walsh (1989: 8), in her dissertation about religious beginnings in the ancient Mediterranean region and Near East, noted how ‘Carl Sauer in his 1952 book, Agricultural Origins and Dispersals, fully embraced [Eduard] Hahn’s [1896] thesis regarding [animal] domestication [being religiously motivated]. He [Sauer, 1952: 88] agreed that religious ideas concerned with the origin of life were deeply involved in the domestication of herd animals and that these animals were used by humans for ceremonial purposes, in particular in connection with fertility cults …’ In referring to evolution of a Great Mother, wholly or in part a cowmoon goddess in many cultures, Walsh then noted that this was ‘replete with orgiastic ceremonies that were increasingly sexual in nature. Hahn’s views were resisted by his contemporaries … Sauer contended [because these other scholars regarded] “direct economic motives … [as] the mainspring of human inventiveness” …, and also because … [Hahn’s thesis] placed sex at the center of exoteric religious matters (Sauer, p. 93).’18 We believe, too, that, as with their prominent cattle motif, the Egyptians’ frequent texts and portrayals of a sexual nature (see Chapters 6 and 7) must be permitted to speak for themselves both specifically and in total. They should not be particularized overly or otherwise trivialized, as has been the wont of some students. For, as Furubotin and Richter (1991) have pointed out in a totally different context, all intended rationality is ‘bounded rationality’, bounded by the information anyone, ancient or modern, possesses at the

18

With some hesitation, because the source, an official report of the Government of the Colony and Protectorate of Kenya written just before Kenyan independence, is a very one-sided historical account of the Mau Mau revolution (Corfield, 1959/60), we quote an account of the Kikuyu revolutionists’ oathing ceremonies to suggest that something of what we have implied for the prominent sexual context of Egyptian rituals are not unknown elsewhere. On page 167 the Corfield report states: ‘As the terms of the Mau Mau oath became increasingly more violent and bloodthirsty … concoctions of the foulest and almost unimaginable ingredients were eaten and drunk.’ Then in the cited Note 3, in the ‘“Kaberichia cocktail,” semen produced in public was mixed with menstrual and sheep’s blood and drunk while repeating the oath.’

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Chapter Nine. Egyptian Biomedical Science moment.19 We are reminded, too, that the fact that present-day Hinduism, also rooted in an ancient cattle culture, is still replete with popular superstitions in no way negates its many profoundly deep and morally rich aspects. Its early history offers some parallels to the ancient Egyptian experience, as exemplified still by the persistent importance of the phallus and the bull Nandi in popular worship of its major god Shiva. Consideration of such mindset problems in current scholarship raises similar questions about what can explain this very early process of rudimentary biomedical science on the part of the Egyptians in apparent contrast to their contemporary neighbors?

Boundaries to Biomedical Innovation The second author argued in his Spink Lectures on Comparative Medicine (Schwabe, 1978) that the rate of medical progress over time has been positively correlated with periods of perceived closeness of human and animal medicine on the part of physicians. Even today, when this relationship is again well-understood by medical researchers, the western public still expresses surprise or is entertained (as evidenced, for example, in frequent popular press coverage) whenever an interesting similarity between human and veterinary medicine is revealed to them. The main reason for that remains the commonly and erroneously held belief (perhaps unconsciously, as part of medical myth) by the majority of the public, including newspaper editors, that veterinary knowledge and practices are and always have been wholly or largely derivative, that progress in the veterinary sphere has been a total parasitization upon advances originally made directly in human medicine per se. On the contrary, it is useful to note here that there is more than one avenue by which knowledge acquisition in biomedicine occurs first through animal observations and research. One involves studies on healthy animal subjects within the basic sciences underlying both branches of medicine, such as anatomy, physiology, biochemistry or pharmacodynamics, studies often with no immediately visualized practice applications in either medical branch. Increasingly, researchers in such basic science fields have been, like Pasteur, scientists who are not qualified as physicians or veterinarians. A second avenue for research progress in general biomedicine via animal studies is represented by what is often called comparative medicine (or 19

Drawing upon Lloyd (1992), Rochberg (1992: 552–553) notes that biases like this reflect limitations in the ability of [many] modern observers of ancient science ‘to come to terms with ancient sources in accordance with the degree of incommensurabity between their notions and ours.’

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Boundaries to Biomedical Innovation comparative pathology). Here, one animal species is intended to substitute for – be the research object or ‘model’ for – obtaining answers to a diseaserelated question concerning another species, often man. Thus, comparative medicine is analogous methodologically to comparative anatomy or comparative physiology. The reason for each of those avenues to a range of human biomedical unknowns is that, largely for moral reasons, most experimental research cannot be carried out directly or initially on people. But, in contrast to human medicine, such a comparative approach is as fundamental to veterinary practice as it is to veterinary research. Because veterinarians are concerned with diagnosing, preventing, treating and controlling the same diseases or their analogs within an ever widening range of animal species, they naturally and necessarily think comparatively about all biomedicine. And, largely for economic reasons, veterinary researchers also may carry out initial experiments concerning a disease problem of, say, expensive cattle on a less expensive surrogate species like goats or even mice. However, as performed by physicians since the Microbiological Revolution, such comparative medical research usually involved, until quite recently, attempts to induce a particular disease deliberately in some healthy animal and then study its mechanism, outcome or treatment. Robert Koch was largely responsible for popularizing that exclusively laboratory-based ‘guinea pig’ approach to answering questions about human diseases. Thus, from Koch’s time until well after the end of World War II, most research physicians depended upon very few, arbitrarily chosen (but readily obtainable and maintained) animal species such as rodents, cats and dogs as their research subjects. In the case of the latter two, such activities encouraged growth of an active anti-vivisectionist movement in the West. In that process of transferring the ‘animal studies arena’ for physicians from the field and the laboratory – as during the early years of the Microbiological Revolution (see Chapter 4) – to the latter exclusively, a whole generation or more of research physicians (except a rare few20) lost sight completely of the unique veterinary field origin for most of the major breakthrough discoveries leading up to and during the Microbiological Revolution. That is, those had been the results of a third very important avenue for biomedical progress that involves totally unanticipated fall-outs in human health terms from observations and experiments first made in connection with spontaneously occurring animal illnesses. For example, it can be said with virtual certainty that the causes of dozens of important human diseases now known to have a viral etiology would have remained unexplained – at least until the time the electron microscope was 20

For example, the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research’s physician Richard Shope, who, as a boy, really wanted to become a veterinarian, a choice resisted by his parents (1963, personal communication).

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Chapter Nine. Egyptian Biomedical Science invented – had viruses as a completely new causal phenomenon, not been discovered in this natural laboratory of animal diseases, and techniques for their identification and study been largely worked out there (see Chapter 4). And the impetus for development of the electron microscope itself may have been considerably delayed if these early virological disclosures and techniques that evolved that way had not occurred. A Natural Laboratory This ‘natural laboratory’ of spontaneous animal diseases remains highly important for identifying totally new biomedical phenomena. Today, there are literally dozens of biomedical arenas, large and small – in addition to microbiology and reproductive biomedicine – in which significant new breakthrough discoveries have been unintentional fallouts from pursuit of purely veterinary problems. To mention just one major human life-extending example to emerge since World War II from this natural laboratory, we can presume with virtual certainty that widespread anticoagulant therapy to successfully treat and prevent several important types of human cardiovascular disease today would not be available had not a new epidemic hemorrhagic diathesis in cattle, which occurred spontaneously in the North American Middle West in the 1920s, been studied and its cause, moldy sweet clover silage – or more specifically, a new plant chemical dicoumerol – been discovered and exploited through a series of important efforts by Canadian and U.S. veterinarians and biochemists (see Schwabe, 1984c: 185–186). More and more of this research today is upon other naturally occurring noninfectious diseases or those of unusual infections with previously obscure etiologies, like the complex of Aleutian mink disease, ovine scrapie, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (‘mad cow disease’) and human kuru and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (Schwabe, 1984c: 267–268). Such animal diseases are increasingly ones with some genetic etiologic component. Thus, not only are new animal counterparts to known human conditions with unknown or genetically-related causes being constantly identified in nature by veterinary practitioners and researchers, but other totally new diseases or other biomedical phenomena unknown to human medicine, as during the Microbiological Revolution. Moreover, apt research models are emerging today not only among domesticated animals, but from virtually the entire animal kingdom. This process has been accelerated especially through increasingly common veterinary clinical practice, not only on farms and ranches for domestic animals, but among wildlife species, often in zoos, aquaria, game reserves and the like, or among more exotic pets than dogs and cats (Schwabe, 1984c: 506–513). This natural laboratory is a research arena to most of which now, as during those earlier very exciting years of the Microbiological Revolution, veterinarians 182

Boundaries to Biomedical Innovation have most direct or easy access and are best prepared to observe and describe new findings. Thus, after several decades of practically overlooking one another’s fields, physician-veterinarian cooperation is once again demonstrably essential to human medical progress. What can be equally informative vis-à-vis the history of much earlier Egyptian biomedicine and its legacy is some understanding of why the crest of medical-veterinary cooperation of the Microbiological Revolution, so responsible for enormous research strides – for arguably advancing human health more than the total medical experience preceding it – was followed by a trough period between about 1910 and 1950 when human and veterinary medicine again drifted quite far apart and physician researchers almost completely forgot the truly superior research arena spontaneously occurring animal diseases identifies. During those four decades the rate of always highly episodic biomedical progress entered another historic period of relative decline. Let us indicate briefly, therefore, something of what happened then, because it had a much earlier, much longer lasting and more consequential parallel, though partially for different reasons, in Ptolemaic Alexandria. Episodic Biomedical Progress The causes of this early 20th century hiatus in medical-veterinary interdependence were multiple, but, from the veterinary side, it was overwhelmingly a catastrophic ‘one-two punch’ dealt the veterinary profession during that period. The first almost fatal blow was very rapid replacement in all of the most economically advanced countries of the horse and ox by the internal combustion engine as power mainstays for transportation, plant agriculture and some other areas of their economies. The ‘follow-up punch’ was the general economic collapse, especially of the agricultural sector, during the Great Depression of 1929, continuing well into the 1940s. With these two overlapping blows, the then existing economic foundations for veterinary practice were practically destroyed and a pronounced professional malaise and disillusionment set in (see Schwabe, 1984c: 262–264, 311). During that period in the United States 18 out of 27 veterinary colleges closed completely, including most urban schools that had emphasized veterinary roles in public health and pathobiology in their curricula. Those schools that survived were largely in Land Grant universities emphasizing agricultural practice exclusively, universities that usually lacked a school of human medicine. As a result of these near collapses in major prior veterinary practice bases and often in their sustaining institutions, a rapidly enlarging veterinary presence and participation until then in provision of environmental and broader human health services reverted to a narrower range of purely meat and milk hygiene functions and, in some countries, even those ossified into less and less creative routines (Schwabe, 1984c: 310–312). 183

Chapter Nine. Egyptian Biomedical Science To illustrate for the United States, in the late decades of the 19th century and first two of the 20th, veterinarians not only founded environmental health services in many city health departments,21 but some became the Chief Public Health Officers of their cities. One of the latter, Nathan Sinai, also pioneered in provision of rural health services by establishing in Stockton and San Joaquin County, California, the first combined city-county health department in the United States.22 Veterinarians were also appointed members of State Boards of Health in several American states23 and sessions of annual meetings of the then newly formed American Public Health Association were devoted to pioneering veterinary food safety and other environmental health programs. Thus, in California, its state public health laboratory was founded by a veterinary authority on milk hygiene, A.R. Ward, the University of California’s first professor of bacteriology. But, reeling under the successive blows dealt the overall veterinary infrastructure by the internal combustion engine and the Great Depression, virtually this entire veterinary linkage to human health in the United States disappeared, only to begin to be rediscovered afresh, redeveloped and expanded post-World War II (see Schwabe, 1984c: 312–316). Following this veterinary retreat during the interwar period, we witnessed on the physician’s side, notably during the Great Depression, a renewed prominence of ‘turf ’ considerations within biomedicine, especially in its public health practice sphere where veterinary perspective and training were equally apt, the result of heightened veterinary orientations historically to population, environmental and preventive aspects of medicine. But beyond protection of their own ‘turf ’ in public health (i.e., population medicine) – an area of practice never given much emphasis in physician training – most new research physicians during those decades seemed to have lost sight completely of the obvious fact that even their ‘guinea pig era’ research was, by definition, within the veterinary branch of medicine. It is easy to illustrate the extent of this 1910–1950 communication breakdown and breach in interprofessional cooperation. For instance, when some leading research physicians in the late 1940s began to realize that unstandardized and poorly managed rodents, dogs and cats were introducing

21

The cornerstones for public health and responsible governmental units were water (including sewage), meat and milk sanitation. Veterinarians established the latter two and frequently directed the overall effort. 22 He reasoned that, if livestock were provided governmental health services, rural people should be too. At the University of Michigan, Sinai subsequently became the first professor of public health economics anywhere and played a leading role in creating social security and medical insurance programs in the United States and, subsequently, as a consultant in public health economics to the fledgling World Health Organization. 23 In 1903, a veterinarian was elected president of the Washington State Board of Health.

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Boundaries to Biomedical Innovation major confounding nutritional, genetic and concurrent disease variables into many of their experiments, and that they themselves were ill-prepared to correct this situation, they were already so unaccustomed in some countries to understanding the real research and practice interdependence between human and veterinary medicine, that they rarely sought veterinary assistance. Thus, when New York city’s medical research establishment held a pioneering symposium under the auspices of the prestigious New York Academy of Sciences to consider solutions to this research animal problem soon after the end of World War II, it occurred to none of these physicians to invite any veterinary participation.24 This recent breach in fruitful medical-veterinary cooperation – reflecting among many physicians a mythic distance between biomedical science’s two branches – offers some hints at what happened millennia earlier in Ptolemaic Egypt. Here we are interested not only in exploring evidence for Egypt’s biomedical pioneering, but, secondarily, to stimulate further inquiries as to how, much later, in Greek Alexandria, a very consequential hiatus within ‘one medicine’ was precipitated. We might begin these preliminaries by attempting to understand why the very early Egyptians, but apparently not their contemporaries in similarly early civilizations, evolved rudiments of a scientific process in the first place through an association in some of their minds of healing practice with religious ritual with animal qualities and husbandry. That will entail some consideration of the historical importance not only of chance associations, but especially of a ‘prepared mind’ in the processes of scientific discovery. Let us note first a few seeming contrasts of Egyptian with early Mesopotamian biomedicine. In observing 5th century BCE practice there, Herodotus (Book 1, 197; Rawlinson, 1952: 45) concluded that ‘they have no healers, but when a man is ill, they lay him out in the public square, and passers-by come up to him, and if they have ever had his disease themselves … they give him advice.’ Whether or not the last statement was true then, the former surely was not, since documents discovered in the last two centuries clearly establish that surgeons at least did indeed exist in ancient Mesopotamia and, in fact, their practices were being legally regulated from a very early date. Nevertheless, Oppenheim could still conclude in 1964 that, ‘although the

24

Within a few years a veterinary clinical practice specialty of laboratory animal medicine developed (Schwabe, 1984c: 284–294) and, concurrently, highly inbred strains of mice and rats were developed that practically eliminated genetic variability as a confounding variable in these still arbitrarily chosen experimental subjects for much biomedical research. Recent cloning of sheep using adult DNA offers amazing potential for controlling these major confounding variables in biomedical experiments and especially of cloning populations of animals with particular livestock diseases and their human disease counterparts in animals.

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Chapter Nine. Egyptian Biomedical Science study of Mesopotamian medicine is nearly a century old, … Assyriology still has to show its results are important to the history of medicine.’ That is in notable contrast to Egypt.25 In an earlier work, one of us attempted to explain that difference in accomplishments largely in terms of the effects of a premature division of labor in Mesopotamia among classes of individuals who healed and ones who had opportunities to observe relevant biomedical facts, especially an apparently very early separation between practice of human and veterinary medicine as compared to either Greece or Egypt (Schwabe, 1978: 101–107, 143–153). To summarize that, the very earliest Sumerian lexical texts already mentioned not only the general healer, the azu, but already a specialist equine healer for domesticated asses, the azu anse. Although the c. 2200 BCE cylinder seal of the first identified Mesopotamian healer Urlugaledinna showed that his title still was this undifferiented azu, he indicated his practice then as chiefly bovine obstetrics (Hausmann, 1966: Schwabe, 1978: frontispiece and p. 145). However, by the time the Old Babylonian legal Code of Hammurabi was compiled about 400 years later, Mesopotamia also had specifically designated cattle healers as well as the earlier equine specialists, thus an early and permanent professional divide existed throughout the medical practice realm. But, beside that early separation among lay healers per se, the Mesopotamian priesthood apparently had totally different classes of priests responsible for tasks potentially related to healing or acquisition of relevant factual knowledge. That is, persons responsible for animal and organ divination (baru, who meticulously examined animal viscera and compiled manuals of anatomical variations for fortune-telling purposes) were not the same persons as the shanga and nash patri who carried out the actual animal sacrifices and dissections. Still others selected these animals for sacrifice. And all of these individuals were different from the ashipu, who were religious healing exorcists who, like earliest azu, practiced on both people and some of their animals. Thus, there seemed to have been fewer opportunities in early Mesopotamia than in Egypt for individual healers of people to personally make comparative biomedical observations on animals or benefit from ones made by others.26 In any event, lesser division of labor apparently occurred in Egypt over a very long period and, indeed, it has always been striking to observers how many individual Egyptian officials retained multiple titles, presumably 25

Be that as it may, such is not true for mathematics or astronomy. We would direct attention here to recent findings by Mack-Fisher (1990), which provide evidence for Phoenician origins for the until now etymologically obscure Latin title veterinarian first documented in formerly Phoenician-ruled areas of Roman Spain at the beginning of the Christian era (Schwabe, 1978: 149–150). He traces it to the title of a royal official in Phoenician Ugarit responsible for care and treatment of horses.

26

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Boundaries to Biomedical Innovation performed several quite different jobs (see Chapter 8). That is, while divisions of labor and specialization have generally been associated with progress, they assuredly can be premature or, at any time, thwart communications and crossfertilization of ideas among different professions and disciplines. Vital to this matter of communication, of opportunities for interactions among differently derived biomedical information and ideas – that is, the argument criterion of science – are questions of disciplinary and professional ‘turfs’ generally and of secrecy among healers more specifically. Secrecy and ‘Turfs’ as Antiscience Historically, healing and religion have been attended by a great deal of secrecy encouraging popular belief that practitioners of each have sole access to unusually powerful information in people’s lives. Serving commonly as sole intermediaries between life and death on the one hand and the possible consequences of death on the other, both have attempted to reserve exclusively to themselves these areas of service, including through personal memorization of secrets, secret texts, substances and skills. Such secrecy about knowledge and methods within particular ‘turfs’ is the antithesis of science in that it forecloses upon its vital argument criterion27 except among ‘initiates’, and even there individual healers have often preferred to maintain their own secrets and encourage their own unique reputations for success. ‘Argument’ is, first of all, elaborating and sharing ideas, including for breadth of potential argument especially, through writing. We know that such limitations to science also operated strongly in Egypt, especially in very early times with respect to a communication gulf between priesthood and laity. Baines (1990: 1–23) argues that there was considerable restricted and sanctioned religous knowledge limited to groups of initiates. He states that such restriction of knowledge was nearly universal in the ancient world. These restrictions offer probable explanations for why explicit texts, especially publicly available ones, concerning, for example, the physiologic theory about the white fluid of life from bones, were so relatively late on the Egyptian time scale (while still very early comparatively speaking), although a multiplicity of implicit allusions to different aspects of those and related beliefs were quite matter-of-factly stated repeatedly on the interior walls of earlier pharaohs’ sealed pyramids and tombs. That secrecy about such powerful information about life and death was intentional is clearly stated in particular texts. Thus, in the Chester Beatty Papyrus (Grapow and Westendorf, 1970: 112): ‘Guard this scroll!! Do not permit another to unroll it’, ‘it is a genuine secret; the profane mob dare

27

Modern examples are classified military and industrial research.

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Chapter Nine. Egyptian Biomedical Science not know it’; ‘do not pronounce it to anyone; take care of it at all times.’ Similarly, in the Book of the Dead, Spell 161 T2: ‘No outsider is to know (this spell for) it is a secret; the rabble is not to know (it).’ Gardiner (1938a: 167–168) also stressed measures taken by priests to ensure secrecy of sacred books copied in Houses of Life. The nature of such a secret hidden power is indicated clearly in Coffin Texts Spell 532: ‘I have received my spinal cord through Ptah-Sokar, my mother has given me her hidden power.’ This spinal cord of the creator god Ptah (to whom Sokaris, the god of the ‘mysterious flesh’, is here assimilated) was, to the Egyptians, the spine’s ‘marrow’, the source and collecting conduit for his semen; the mother’s power may well have been the female’s life-giving analog of semen, milk, and/or it may have been her menstrual and umbilical blood, source of the fetus’ ka-containing flesh. Especially relevant again is Coffin Texts Spell 759 where the deceased knows ‘the secret path in which is the vertex [i.e., bull’s horns or poll] of Re and these four knots [i.e., vertebrae] which belong to the celestial kine [cattle] are hidden (?) because of them, I also know … what is loosed for it is the backbone, when Re speaks about it. See (?), you are lifted up alive …’ Four hidden vertebrae are the thoracic vertebrae (e.g. Gardiner F38) covered by the scapula of the bull’s forelimb (see Fig. 6.1) but exposed when this first part is removed during sacrifice. See also in that connection BD Spell 64 S4: ‘Behold, the foreleg is bound on the neck of the West.’ Thus, the ‘secret path’ through which you are ‘lifted up alive’ is probably the pathway whereby life’s magic in the form of the animating force of the bull forelimb’s ‘mysterious flesh’, ka, is joined to the semen-producing spine. This connection of two sources of life-giving magic explains, we believe, the very special life-associated significance of the bull’s hidden thoracic vertebra, ankh. Further, in Coffin Texts spells 406– 408 (Faulkner, 1978), a point is made of ‘knowing the [names of] seven knots [i.e., vertebrae] of the celestial kine’ to make one hale and support one’s bones. This again is probable reference to the seven cervical vertebrae in cattle and people. In another example among many others of power over something simply by knowing its secret name, BD Spell 31a S states ‘Back! Give way! Back crocodile! Come not against me, (for) I live on my magic, lest I tell this thy name (against thee) to (any) great god who lets these come.’ If, as Yoyotte (1962) hypothesized, mnhp, ‘begetter’, (‘that which permits to procreate’) was originally the secret name for the penis plus spine (i.e., the total male reproductive system), as also seems possible to us, then we would suggest that ankh, djed and was were also the Egyptian priests’ secret names for the most important anatomical and physiological components of that mnhp system and that would explain why, in this BD Spell 31a S the accompanying vignette shows the deceased threatening to spear the death-causing crocodile with a -scepter, his bull penis symbol of power/domination. 188

Boundaries to Biomedical Innovation Such secrecy among this select group of priestly initiates, plus the probably prehistoric origins of such centrally important ideas and objects, could account for why no surviving texts have been found specifically identifying ankh as vertebra or was as penis, although both of these objects, like djed (see Chapter 6), were referred to textually as parts of the bodies of gods (Winter, 1968: 94). To be considered too in that connection are possibilities that the Pyramid Texts, for example, also existed as secret papyri, or that priests memorized them, as numerous Moslems have done since for the entire Koran. Either could explain how those lengthy but disjointed texts, reflecting so much unstated but implied secret ‘insider’ information, could have been repeated almost verbatim in the sealed tombs of successive pharaohs. Now, more as to why (besides a premature division of labor in the case of Mesopotamia) we believe that what very early Egyptian priests did in anatomy and physiology in connection with medical practice was not also done by their contemporaries. As pointed out by Ian Beveridge (1980: 17) in his discussion of the art of scientific research, ‘creation, making new ideas from available information, should not be confused with discovering new factual information’, although both frequently depend upon chance observations in the latter or chance associations in the former in the minds of researchers. Furthermore, it is sometimes discovery of one new piece of factual information that triggers a truly creative process, such as derivation of a new theory. This raises the question of conditions favoring the creativity and discovery aspects of science. Chance Observations and the Prepared Mind For, as brain physiologist J.C. Eccles (1970), among others, has noted ‘good … research workers are those who can recognize and appreciate the significance of the unexpected.’ That is, ‘the majority of discoveries in biology and medicine [probably] have been come upon unexpectedly, … especially the most important and revolutionary ones’ (Beveridge, 1957: 31). That notwithstanding, ‘philosophers of science [generally speaking] have failed to appreciate [this] cardinal role that chance and opportunism play in research’ (Beveridge, 1980: 118). Chance can enter into the scientific process in at least three ways: (1) chance observation and follow up of a ‘curious fact’, (2) recognition by chance of the answer one seeks to some problem, even (3) chance realization of the answer to a question one has not even asked28 (Schwabe, 1984b). The well-known statement of Louis Pasteur that ‘in the field of observation, 28

The second author’s serious pursuit of the subject matter of this book followed a chance observation, and juxtaposition of apparently unrelated information in 1961 that caused him to

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Chapter Nine. Egyptian Biomedical Science chance favors only the prepared mind’ means that the chance disclosure of a curious fact often has at first no intrinsic significance per se. ‘The discoverer gives it significance by relating it to other knowledge, and perhaps by using it to derive further knowledge’ (Beveridge, 1957: 34, italics added). Especially in the process of a major new synthesis – the tying together of loose threads from previously unrelated ‘patches of weave’ into a new whole, such as a new theory – the mind needs to have already within it, and accessible, all of these other necessary patches of information or perspective for the one new observation or recall to spark the creative weaving of some totally unanticipated ‘tapestry’ or provide some completely new perspective for reweaving an old one. Relative to how the most creative scientists have always done that, Beveridge (1980: 117) ventured further that, in contrast to a purely reductionistic [and usually highly compartmentalized] approach to problems in nature, ‘modern scientific thought, under the influence of systems theory [scientific holism in which the whole often becomes very much more than just a simple sum of its parts] recognizes the need to take into account an extra ingredient, that cannot be weighed or measured and eludes detection by instruments, because it is intangible, abstract, neither matter nor energy. It is difficult to conceptualize or define. The nearest I can get to it’, he opined, ‘is “a pattern that conveys both information and a program of instructions.”’ While examination and deliberate use of this elusive ingredient are ‘modern’, its applications are not. In our perception of this extra ingredient – this spark – it is essentially the ‘prepared mind’ template for examining critically a pool of other, often apparently unrelated, information, ideas or perspectives to which the observer has the interest, curiosity and intellect to juxtapose and relate a new chance finding. Surely, all people make chance observations of potential significance yet have insufficiently prepared minds. Mostly, they do not know or care whether their observations are new or not, or if rarely they do, do not know what to do with them. During their research most scientists may regard such chance disclosures as a nuisance, a laboratory accident that should be overlooked or explained away. Thus, most persons, even if they rarely do believe they have observed something new or valuable, not only are unequipped to follow it up personally, but do not know even who to report it to or how. For, as Pasteur’s student Charles Nicolle subsequently put it, ‘chance favors those who know how to court her.’ Elsewhere, we have suggested that, in biomedicine, there can be institutional/environmental aids to encouragement of chance discoveries and resultant creativity (Schwabe, 1984b).

advance the hypothesis of the ankh’s origin as the thoracic vertebra of a bull (Schwabe, 1984b: 7–9).

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Boundaries to Biomedical Innovation On a grand scale such creative weaving or reweaving of a new tapestry, a new whole, resembles a Kuhnsian revolutionary process for a whole science in which, in Kuhn’s revised terminology (1970), a new breakthrough perception encompasses concepts both of ‘disciplinary matrices’ (the science’s infrastructure) and ‘paradigms’ (its model approaches to problem solving). The much stressed ‘Aristotelian Revolution’ vis-à-vis science has been visualized even more broadly to encompass numerous disciplines – science as a whole (and more) – and has rightly received enormous emphasis in modern scholarship by diverse disciplines. However, various assumptions not only underpin a great deal of this inquiry, but raise the particular question of a ‘new Greek mentality’ somehow associated with those events and, more generally, the nature and roles of different ‘mentalities’ of groups of people. Thus, Burke (1986) characterized mentalities not only as involving (1) a focus upon ideas and beliefs of collectivities rather than individuals, but (2) inclusion as data unconscious as well as conscious assumptions by that group and (3) a focus on structure of beliefs and their interrelationships as opposed to individual beliefs in isolation. While we are not prepared to enter this general debate about mentalities of different peoples and how these ways of thinking might change, we would suggest only that the Egyptian mentality at the dawn of their civilization, or before, contained something that permitted the beginning recognition and use of key ingredients of science to an extent that their contemporaries at that very early time seemingly did not,29 at least in medicine. We would note especially, with Lloyd (1990: 4) also, that this notion of different mentalities stresses networks of beliefs, attitudes, ideologies or worldviews, which Riggs (1973), in the totally different context of international cooperation in Third World development, also stressed in distinguishing today the functioning of ‘fused’ or ‘integrated’ (that is, hunter-gatherer and pastoral) societies from ‘prismatic’ (agrarian) and ‘diffracted’ or ‘differentiated’ (industrian) societies (see our Table 1.1 and Epilogue). However, while Lloyd (1990: 5) opined further with respect to mentalities of such collectivities that ‘collectivities do not think, only individuals do’, others believe collectivities sometimes do interactively ‘think’. That is, thinking may seemingly involve sometimes a collective process – a creative interaction – which yields results quite different or more profound 29

While we and others have suggested Nile basin ethnoarcheology as a route to reducing observer bias or incommensurability between different historical eras and different cultures, Rochberg (1992) introduces a series of papers on approaching origins of science that explore varied middle-ground opinions between beliefs that the gulf between modern observers and ancient actors can never by bridged (e.g., claims by some Egyptologists who do not feel it is possible ever to identify and understand the origins of ancient symbols like and concepts like ka) and beliefs reflective of a totally modern mindset (e.g., about cattle slaughter and attitudes toward cattle in ancient Egypt).

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Chapter Nine. Egyptian Biomedical Science than a simple collecting of independent thoughts on the same subject by each of the individuals comprising a collective. We suggest that deliberate and spontaneous examples include, in the first instance, the modern ‘brainstorming’ process, which typically involves 6–12 people (Beveridge, 1980: 17–18) and, in the second, a historically older, more mystical process, which is sometimes strikingly apparent in what Quakers call a ‘gathered meeting’. The latter is a collective process in which sometimes profound ‘syntheses’ result from brief oral expressions that emerge from a collective’s unpremeditated meditation or ‘thinking together’ within a background otherwise of total silence (Kelly, 1944).30 One of us, having experienced the latter, still cannot explain it (Schwabe, 1999, 2004). However, the argument criterion of science, less dramatically or suddenly, encourages new syntheses over time. Let us simply reconsider further from such a perspective the Egyptians’ conclusions about ka, Opening-of-the-Mouth and ‘live flesh’ to heal (Gordon, 1996; Gordon and Schwabe, 1998 and see Chapter 5) versus a seemingly contrasting lack of such associations or juxtapositions, or the ability to infer as much from them, in Greece at an even much later time. First, every ancient hunter who promptly dressed his kill in the field – and surely every slaughterer of domestic animals since – has observed the spontaneous muscle fasciolations after death described in Chapter 5. Many must also have inadvertently restimulated these and whole muscle contractions. Probably to some at least that was magic or evidence of the supernatural. Surely Greece’s Dionysian priests and other participants in their tearing apart with bare hands of a bull representing the god and communally eating its ‘live’ quivering flesh (Young, 1979: 14; Way, 1912: 734 ff.; Dodds, 1960: xvi, xx) believed, beyond such, that this magic was somehow associated with life force. Why then do we not find evidence in the Greeks’ earliest biomedical literature of attempted preventive or therapeutic use of this amazing ingredient or similar effort, as for ka, to theorize at length about it, what it meant or its properties? Why, in fact, did not even Praxagoras – credited until now by one modern scholar (Bastholm, 1950: 55) with the most rudimentary beginnings of muscle physiology in the 3rd century BCE by throwing a piece of freshly excised muscle to the ground and seeing it ‘pulsate’ – have the ‘prepared mind’ to tie together hunter’s magic, religious ritual and sacrifice, the beginnings of comparative anatomical observations and healing practices and do with these juxtapositions of knowledge or experience what the much earlier Egyptians did? Third century Greeks or their considerably earlier predeces30 In a Quaker meeting for worship, most individuals remain silent throughout and, by tradition, those moved at some point to speak from the palpable silence, may do so but once. Brevity of expression is considered a virtue, so in no sense does this process resemble a discussion.

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Boundaries to Biomedical Innovation sors could have. Or was it simply that any record of such linkages was never produced? Or had that synthesis been forgotten already among them by the 3rd century BCE? Or, as Thorndike suggested, there may have been lots of tampering since with the original Greek texts. The early Christian Church surely did not look kindly upon comparative medicine, an approach to nature that assumed that man was not an especially unique creation in many ways. Or, in fact, did Greeks who observed such relatable events have no resort before the comparative anatomist Alcmaeon to the argument/publication criterion of science, for consolidating and perpetuating such observations, knowledge and collective experience such as surviving Egyptian texts of very early date represent? In attempting to explain these contrasting situations in Greece and Egypt hundreds of years before Aristotle, we might also suggest, perhaps, more secrecy among individual Greek healers then, premature divisions of labor (as in Mesopotamia), perhaps a more ‘advanced’ stage of transition from a ‘fused’ or ‘integrated’-pastoral to a ‘prismatic’-agrarian society already in Greece, a lesser extent of literacy there, or a greater degree of urbanization (which might tend then as now to insulate some individuals and their personal experiences from contact with nature). But we have little or no evidence for any of that. Therefore, above any of those explanatory alternatives, we are inclined to stress most the argument criterion of science, as exemplified, at least among the Egyptian priesthood, by an extensive, highly associated and very early medical, religio-veterinary and funerary literature that intermittently exercised the ‘prepared minds’ of possibly a few very early ‘renaissancetype’ priests in full possession of this broad pool of available knowledge and experience. As acknowledged even by Von Staden (1992), ‘long before the “literate revolution” in Greece, significant pre-Greek Mesopotamian and Egyptian scientific achievements already depended crucially on the existence of writing as a technology of communication.’31 Surely, among all healers throughout history, only the rarest have contributed anything to biomedical progress by passing on something new they may have learned to colleagues or followers through teaching, or by arguing through discourse in publications what they had learned or come to believe.

31

With reference to the oft-cited scientific revolution in 4th century BCE Greece, Von Staden (1992) notes that ‘unlike ancient non-alphabetic scripts, the Greek alphabet … is simple to master and …, in principle, readily accessible to large numbers of people. Furthermore, Greek … writing was free to function also as a secular, non-sacred, and unofficial tool of communication. Unlike writing in some other ancient cultures, it was neither the “property” nor the “secret” of a small scribal or priestly class.’ Moreover, being in the same linguistic phylum as most modern European languages, classical Greek is far more readily translated and understood today than is ancient Egyptian.

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Chapter Nine. Egyptian Biomedical Science The written and pictorial record shows that some Egyptians did that in very explicit terms very early comparatively speaking (Yoyotte, 1962; Sauneron, 1960) and implicitly, at least, even in their very earliest funerary texts and associated artwork, predating the Greeks by millennia, as in important instances we have described (see Chapters 5–7). Finally, let us mention here the permanent division between human and veterinary medical practice in the West that accompanied the rise in Alexandria of competing ‘schools’ of biomedical theory and the concurrent downgrading of factual evidence obtained analogically through animal studies. Encouragement of this practice split – for which evidence from the Greek world exists only from the 3rd century BCE – possibly derived originally from an apparently increasingly mercenary approach to practice among Greek healers then that favored exclusive attention to human patients, particularly wealthy ones. According to Edelstein and Edelstein (1945): ‘[Greek healers] wanted to make money and were not ashamed to admitting it.’ One result of this increasing problem was that, finally in 5th century CE Rome, legislation was forthcoming in the Theodosian Legal Code that physicians could no longer charge what patients would be prepared to pay when they faced or feared death, but only what a well person might rationally pay for a similar service (Mommsen, 1934). On the veterinary side, this practice split may have been encouraged, for possibly similar reasons by the great importance horses had assumed, and the value attached to them, in their becoming the keys to creating, communicating within, and otherwise maintaining the cohesion of the first great land empires. Aristotle himself mentioned as a mark of wealth, ‘the number of horses which … [people] keep, for they cannot afford to keep them unless they are rich’ (Thompson, 1952). This highly consequential sundering of ‘one medicine’ in Alexandria surely demands much more attention than has been accorded it for its negative legacy still persists today.

Conclusions One of the important clues to medical progress appears to be not so much what healers have opportunities to observe, but observations they ponder, ‘understand’, attempt to use and perpetuate for posterity. That some very early Egyptian priests apparently did all that – used reason to relate empirically-acquired evidence about nature, especially about the behavior and qualities of dominant bulls in relation to their herds – appears to have played a key role in their developing some analogical elements of religious ritual (vivisection and dissection of bulls) that in turn provided new opportunities to learn much more about nature, including some additional rudiments of scientific method. In rare instances, Egyptian priest-healers even 194

Conclusions appear to have tested experimentally their observational findings and reasoning or ‘confirmed’ them through recorded clinical observations and/or other attempts to apply this new knowledge to healing or preventive practice.

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EPILOGUE. BROADER IMPLICATIONS OF HEALING IN A FUSED OR INTEGRATED SOCIETY Some writers identify the creative act in its entirety with the unearthing of hidden analogies. – Arthur Koestler, 1964: 200 The body is a model which can stand for any bounded system … any boundaries which are threatened.... The functions of its … parts and their relations afford a source of symbols for other complex situations. We cannot possibly interpret rituals concerning excreta, breast milk, saliva, and the rest unless we … see in the body a symbol of society. – Mary Douglas, 1966: 115 We have to recover … the original context in which the ideas were put forward, the goals, assumptions, and methodologies of those who put them forward, and … the social and cultural institutions within which they worked and with which they interacted. – G.E.R. Lloyd, 1992: 567

We (1) have already directed attention to consequences to scholarship of the modern mindset (‘incommensurabilty’) biases of some Egyptologists, (2) have attempted to clarify some of these through comparisons of Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egyptians to present-day Nilotic pastoralists and (3) have speculated about why very early Egyptian priests achieved what they apparently did concerning formulation, testing and application of biomedical theories. In directing attention to the basic ‘fusion’ inherent in the Egyptian society, culture and literature we noted how interwoven are ideas about healing with practically everything else. As one good example, why stages of the journey from a state of death to rebirth (i.e., to a renewed state of life) could be visualized successively and/or complementarily not only by (1) the deceased pharaoh’s actual crossing in a bark from the east bank to the west bank of the 197

Epilogue. Broader Implications of Healing Nile and by (2) the daily rise and course of the sun from east to west and by (3) a voyage analogous to both in a boat moving across the ‘sky sea’, but also by (4) repeating the course of semen from its source through the vertebral column of a bull. And beyond all those, that part of that journey – in the Underworld – was visualized as also involving (5) the deceased’s passage through an anatomical analog of the bull’s spine – representing life’s opposite, death, and its source – namely, the vertebral column of a snake. If one accepts the implications to biomedical theory formulation of such fused notions about religion, healing and animal husbandry – reflecting the natural order, maat, as we have attempted to lay them out in Chapters 5–7– then some other texts and products of the Predynastic Egyptian mindset may also begin to fall into place, become more comprehensible. As an example, one could begin to understand why – beyond a simple imitation by pharaoh of the bull’s horns he lacked – the upraised human arms (Gardiner D28) might have been chosen by ancient Egyptian priests to represent ka as the animating principle, plus such other uses of that sign and sound as in kat for ‘work’ or ‘construction’ (see Chapter 5). For, as already suggested, these and other uses of ka are consistent with the idea of creating (or re-creating) something. And, therefore, in the journey of rebirth, we have the deceased also passing through Sokaris, the mysterious realm of the ka-containing flesh (i.e., muscle), the bodily source and reservoir of this animating principle. But beyond such, a network of additional fused relationships to maat or natural order could also be visualized from only this one case of the upraised arms. These might include (1) the arms and hands of men are the human anatomical counterparts of the bull’s especially ka-rich forelimb; (2) these are also among men’s most obvious organs of creativity; and (3) human arms are also the functional or physiological counterparts as weapons of the bull’s horns and, therefore, an important vehicle for an individual’s power in the sense of dominion. Thus, both horns and upraised arm were portrayed in connection with the pharaoh’s power on the Narmer palettes (Figs. 3.3 and Epilogue:1; see also Fig. 5.3a–b). That is, the Gardiner D28 hieroglyph, more than the Gardiner F13 bull’s horns hieroglyph itself, directly links all such bull-related notions to the human pharaoh, ‘mighty bull’.1 Thus this choice by priests of the upraised arms of D28 for ka seems to have been clearly intended to unequivocally relate all these other bovine ideas and things embraced by ka to the human pharaoh’s roles in society, including as intermediary between the gods and the people. Here we see obvious religious and political, as well as other social, analogies relating human society to the bodies, biology and behavior of cattle. 1 On the other hand, the actual bull’s horns hieroglyph Gardiner F13 was used anatomically to represent also the human brow.

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Fig. Epilogue.1 – Predynastic palette of Narmer (recto) showing the pharaoh preparing to strike his enemy with a club held in his upraised right arm. On both sides he is shown under the protection of the cow goddess Bat (Emery 1961: 44 fig. 4).

As an even more encompassing example, we find it impossible to overlook the prominence of other power/dominance (including sex) themes overall, and often together, in the Egyptian literature, frequently in connection with boundaries both literal and figurative, and with bulls or bull surrogates. Te Velde (1967: 59–60 and passim) understood the unique roles of the god Seth in Egyptian thinking, at least partially, within such a context. That is, (1) in the divide between Upper and Lower Egypt – and then in the progressively broader geopolitical senses of (2) the separation of the desert from the Nile Valley, (3) Egypt from foreign lands or (4) the heaven’s or world’s boundaries – Te Velde interpreted Seth’s varied functions among the gods and within the social order. We would recall as one instance related to the boundary between the desert and the Nile valley, associations of was (bull’s penis, one of his organs of herd dominion and territorial marking) with both Seth and "Ig Aı" , the ‘Lord 199

Epilogue. Broader Implications of Healing

Fig. Epilogue.2 – Hypothetical pastoral migration routes between the drying Sahara (see Chapter 3) and permanent oases and the Upper Nile as postulated by Van Lepp (1990) (map reproduced by courtesy of Jonathan Van Lepp).

of the Oasis’. An oasis is a discrete sharply bounded area and, from at least the Third Dynasty, the name and emblem for the god "Ig Aı" is (Fischer, 1957: 230). Of course, Seth himself was referred to as bull as early as Pyramid Text Utterance 580 and this determinative ‘Lord of the Oasis’ was borne by him on a Third Intermediate Period stela (Naville, 1892: pl. 12, 37). "Ig Aı" appears also in side by side shrines with Seth on a temple relief of the same period where he ("Ig Aı" ) is called ‘pre-eminent in the Sed festival’ (Fischer, 1957). While in later times "Ig Aı" is god of all the oases, Fischer believes that originally he was associated specifically with the oases of Farafra (Epilogue:2) and Bahria (Fischer, 1957; Fahkry, 1974). Interestingly, this Farafra Oasis was called T A-"ıhw, . ‘Land of bulls and cows’ (Gordon and Schwabe, 1995: 189), and Fischer (1957:233–234) believed that an early connection probably existed between those two oases and the Oxyrhynchite nome, whose emblem contained a foot sign (Gardiner D58) bracketed by a was on either side. That nome was associated too with Seth (Te Velde, 1967: 90 and see our Chapter 7). On the map (Epilogue:2) we also see that the Farafra Oasis lies on the main seasonal and/or long-term migration route for pastoralists postulated by Van Lepp (1990 and personal communication) from progressively drying pastures of the Sahara’s Diyala region to permanent oases thence other identifiable Predynastic cattle-culture sites in Upper Egypt (see Chapter 3). 200

Epilogue. Broader Implications of Healing Let us consider further as contextual background the hypothesis of Lincoln (1981) that overriding ecological determinants gave rise to the similar and distinguishing socio-religious structures that emerged for pastoral societies in these and others of the world’s great natural grasslands. Basically he argued that, if we add people to large natural grasslands with seasonal and geographic distributions of rainfall and a population also of wild (then domesticated) cattle, then climate plus resulting vegetational cycles plus other resulting migratory considerations (see Majok and Schwabe, 1996: 21–40), yield and sustain a distinctive social structure.2 Lincoln sees this pastoral pattern as an originally undifferentiated society of warrior-herders (cattle-herding men, but who can, as required, perform warrior roles). In such societies the only significant divisions of labor are by sex and age group. At some point, perhaps determined by the size of these migrating kinship groups, some senior elders who possess admired qualities in unusual measure, including decision-making qualities,3 assume an overall fatherpriest-prognosticator-intercessor role. One of these may eventually assume the role of chief or king, becoming the paramount intermediary with the divine4 and link to the natural order. Frankfort (1948, 1961) visualized something like that in Predynastic Egypt. Therefore, we believe that the bull-king, cattle-people analogies we have illustrated among ancient Egyptians not only have the biomedical and scientific implications with which we have been concerned, but fill in an explanatory gap in Lincoln’s original analysis between (1) overriding ecological determinants of the natural grasslands cattle-herder ecosystem and (2) the special complexity of the cultural, social and political patterns that ultimately emerged. In our view – shared previously in important particulars by Te Velde (1967), Frankfort (1948, 1961), Childe (1969), Aldred (1965) and some earlier Egyptologists – the Egyptians’ maat was their conception of these complex interactions of environmental determinants, including heavenly bodies, with an originally pastoral ecosystem, climatic changes within which were forcing some of these pastoralists and their cattle to spend increasingly longer portions of their necessary seasonal migrations not only in the scattered, but probably increasingly crowded and overgrazed, permanent pastures (eventu-

2 Lincoln compares what we know of patterns among ancient Indo-Europeans with surviving patterns today among Nilotic pastoralists. 3 For example, about times to migrate, likelihood of rain, settlement of cattle ownership disputes, responses to epidemic diseases of animals or people, intercessions with ‘Spiritual Force’, etc. 4 That is also the cattle-warrior/herder-priest religio-social system that Lincoln saw forming, among other things, the origin among Indo-European pastoralists for a caste system still perpetuated in India as a consequence of such an originally pastoral people coming to rule over other settled agriculturalists.

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Epilogue. Broader Implications of Healing ally just a few oases) and ultimately, perhaps, between them and areas near the banks of the perpetually sustaining Upper Nile. At this point we can profitably reconsider, therefore, more detailed implications to these Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egyptians of Riggs’ (1957, 1973) comparisons of ways of thinking, interpersonal and broader societal relationships and loyalties, decision-making procedures and the like – that is, the mentality or mindset – characteristic of fused-society pastoralists (as they must be understood by diffracted-society Egyptologists today).

Integrated Societies Revisited Riggs (1957) was largely concerned in his own work with administrative structures appropriate for Third World modernization post-World War II. Interested initially and primarily in the very prevalent and widespread settled agrarian smallholder society, usually village centered, with mixed plantanimal economies, he eventually (Riggs, 1973) addressed his comparisons of those traditional societies with much shorter-lived Western/Northern industrialized societies through an illuminating optical analogy in which he considered as a third societal alternative hunter-gatherers and pastoralists lumped together. While his personal experiences with these latter situations were evidently more limited, his generalizations about them hold up well. Included among such peoples, of course, were Africa’s more than 30 million present-day migratory pastoralists (Majok and Schwabe, 1996, Chapter 1). In his optical analogy, Riggs likened such ‘fused’ or ‘integrated’ societies to a beam of white light, agrarian ‘prismatic’ societies to the continuous spectrum produced when such a light beam enters a prism and an industrial ‘diffracted’ society to the completely separated colors projected from the opposite surface of the prism (Table 1.1). Beside no appreciable division of labor in fused or integrated pastoral societies (i.e., all are warrior-herders and their families), there is little if any differentiation among institutions like religion, healing and animal husbandry or among interlocking values related to these or loyalties with respect to nuclear families and larger kinship structures like clans. Moreover, though not considered by Riggs, such societies have historically integrated religiously, culturally, socially and economically other species of animals, especially the herding animals upon which they are so totally dependent (Majok and Schwabe, 1996: Chapters 2 and 3; Schwabe, 1994). The result among peoples such as the more than two million present-day Dinka on the Upper Nile is an overarching three-way covenant among people, cattle and ‘Spiritual Force’ within their grasslands ecosystem, with the governing determinants chiefly variable rainfall, but, secondarily, such other major threats as epidemic diseases of cattle or people, or external enemies, that is, within their version of maat or natural order. 202

Broader Implications of the Boundaries-Bull Model All of which reminds us further of Forbes Irving’s (1992: 196)) conclusion more generally that the context of human-animal metamorphoses in antiquity (like bull-man identifications) almost always involved crossing of a major boundary, as between the ‘home’ and the wild, the world of the living and the world of the dead, gods and people or men and women. Equally related are the ideas about living bodies serving as early models for societies, which have been examined by Mary Douglas (1966: 115), as in the quotation at beginning of this chapter. Through such thought processes, primitive minds seemed to start with the immediate, the familiar, the knowable and then progressively abstract from and enlarge the dimensions of their observations about nature. Their primary root observations most forcefully and obviously reflected in the first instance things other animals they admired or feared – and lived among – actually did. Objectivity has always proved far simpler for individuals or societies to achieve about someone or something else than themselves.5

Broader Implications of the Boundaries-Bull Model There is, therefore, in our opinion challenging evidence that these explanatory notions – ultimately about the cosmos, political entities, social groupings and the male generative system and its roles in territoriality and reproduction (and the source of those roles) – go back in significant measure to behavioral and anatomical observations by prehistoric and Predynastic Egyptians on the dominant wild bull and its herd. It seems quite evident that those emphases, particularly about male sex/dominance roles, were not limited to the Seth stories (nor to heavenly and/or geopolitical boundary considerations) or even to other questions directly concerned with exercise of power and dominion. Rather, in the fused or integrated Egyptian society of prehistoric and Predynastic times, the biology and behavior of the bull as paradigm of strength, bravery and libido became central to other significant religious questions (e.g., revivification per se beyond the immediate Seth-Osiris story), as well as in identifying some rudiments of a scientific approach to healing, of which revivification was but the ultimate example. Together these composed for the Egyptians one seemingly rational and holistically fused or integrated biological-sociological-political-religious system, maat.

5 For example, in the matter of prejudices, these are far easier to recognize in others than in oneself. Thus Americans have little difficulty in condemning, the ‘irrationality of Indians’ for maintaining one of the largest cattle populations in the world, yet not eating beef (Schwabe, 1978a). So much simpler is that than examining, with similarly cold objectivity, our own custom of not eating dogs and cats (Schwabe, 1979: 7–8, 12–13,167–171).

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Epilogue. Broader Implications of Healing This first become apparent to one of us some years ago when he concluded that people he was working among in fused or integrated pastoral societies of the Middle East and Africa had a much greater ability to view nature and society as an interacting whole, and to think holistically, than did we who live such diffracted or differentiated lives. These pastoralists make multiple environmental, social and personal linkages all the time, and decisions based upon them, while we hyperspecialists in our compartmentalized, often fragmented, lives have great difficulty doing that, of visualizing the larger picture (Schwabe, 2004). Admittedly such peoples have always lived under far less complex circumstances than we. Yet their way of thinking, which we believe ancient Egyptians possessed, remains a keystone to really creative science – or creative solutions more generally – though one as equally neglected by philosophers of science as by modern governments.6

Some Final Thoughts As we look back on our collaboration of over 20 years, we believe that our similar backgrounds in the biological sciences have allowed us to communicate more clearly on other matters, just as the ancient Egyptians did with their obvious similarity of backgrounds and assumptions. In trying to recover this subtext, we have not only worked from biological, anthropological and economical perspectives, but also from a lexicographical one. We are fortunate that the Egyptian propensity for recording and the hot dry climate have yielded abundant texts for us to study. Nevertheless, we have barely scratched the surface of their texts, especially the religious texts, which we believe have a wealth of information on biological matters. While many parts of these texts are currently obscure to modern day researchers, some have yielded to our different perspectives. To take just one example, the seven knots of the bull are more likely the seven cervical vertebrae, the number of which both men and bulls share. We view this subtext as almost a hidden language, which we have been attempting to decipher. As we have looked at these texts for the Egyptians’ understanding of medicine, we have seen that they were both connected to, and active observers of, their environment. Religion was fused into their world view, was the way that they looked at their world. Their keen perception

6 Thus, such a prevalent modern notion among many differentiated society economists about ‘externalities’ – to embrace (then usually ignore) a whole array of important non-monetary forces in the motivations of people and the functioning of human societies – would have been even less comprehensible to ancient Egyptians than it is to many socially concerned individuals today.

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Some Final Thoughts of the natural world and their religion reinforced one another, yielding a world view known as maat, based on insight, perception, experience, and judgment. Maat is the right order, established at creation, which the natural world must follow. Their religion, rather than being obscure, was, at least in part, a vibrant response to their perception of their natural environment. It was clear to them, although not to modern western observers. Their world functioned according to maat, and theirs was a natural response to its principles. We are not, of course, claiming that they would have understood everything about their religion or culture, but their cultural underpinnings would have made many things clear to them that are obscure to us. Parts, at least, of their ritual as described in the Pyramid Texts, Coffin Texts and Book of the Dead would have been eminently understandable to them. Their ideas of how animal and human bodies worked were also a natural response to their environment. Attempting to keep their animals healthy, and watching the intimate details of dissection during the sacrifice of animals, especially bulls, they incorporated these details into their knowledge, and therefore their texts. This knowledge found its way into their religion and their maat. It could not have been otherwise. While we will never fully understand the Egyptians, that has always been and will remain our problem, not theirs. From the time the ancient Africans started to domesticate cattle about 10,000 years ago, until the time they succeeded about 9,000 years ago (after they had started to protect their domestic cattle from diseases to which wild cattle and some other animals were susceptible), the ancestors of the ancient Egyptians began to accumulate lore that they might naturally have applied to themselves as well. Sometimes, this knowledge of animals could be successfully applied to humans and sometimes not. In fact, until the Renaissance, physicians and other healers did not know that women did not have the same bicornuate uterus that cows have. Before the dissection of humans was allowed, there was no way to contradict this ancient assumption. Because of their considerably greater knowledge of animal anatomy over human, it is natural that the ancient Egyptians would have used for people also hieroglyphs that represented the internal organs of animals. Through their observation of the animal world, they saw their own place within it. Sometimes, they were wrong, but they had rationally applied analogical reasoning In the Egyptians’ frequent grafting of an animal’s head onto a human body in representations of particular gods, we see a portrayal of how they saw themselves in the world. Animals and humans were connected. In our joint study, we have tried to acquire the same mindset, metaphorically putting the human body below the animal head. We believe we have acquired – partially through anthropological observations on present-day Nilotic pastoralists – a 205

Epilogue. Broader Implications of Healing view of the ancient Egyptian world more like the Egyptians would have seen it. We think that this perspective might well yield many more valuable insights into the ancient Egyptians and their world.

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GENERAL INDEX Aelian, 22 Aesop, 22 Agothyathik, 89, 124 A-Group, 39 Aha, 36, 43 Ahanakht, 149 Aitareya Aranyaka, 112 Aiwel, 124 Aiwel, 89 Akan, 19 akh, 18 Akhmim, 154 Al Ubaid period, 24 Al Ubaid, 43 Albertus Magnus, 64 Alcmaeon of Croton, 57, 59, 60, 113, 162, 193 Alexander, 60 Alexandria, 60, 152, 153, 185, 194 Aleyin, 26 Amduat, 17, 110 Amen, 21, 52, 134 Amenhotep II, 42 Amenhotep III, 20, 37, 130, 139 Amenope, 62 Amen-Re, 107, 136 amputation, 77, 82 Amratian Period, 33 amulet(s), 2, 15, 33, 101, 103, 107, 121, 150, 169 Anat, 26 Anatolia, 24 anatomists, 59 anatomy, xvi, 3–9, 51, 57, 59–62, 71, 95–98, 157, 169, 180, 181, 189, 205 Anaxagoras, 90, 170 Anaximenes, 90 Andramylis, 176 Ani, 115, 116 animating force or principle, 20, 21, 30, 46, 58, 82, 84, 85, 87, 95, 124, 156, 157, 168, 198

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ankh, xvi, xix, xxi, 84, 96, 99, 102– 106, 108, 112, 116, 121, 124, 125, 127, 136, 147, 159, 188–190 ankh-djed-was, 139, 140, 142, 146, 147 Ankhmahor, 75 Anu, 25 Anubis, 29, 96, 118, 130, 160 apes, 131, 134 Apis, 37, 43, 46, 51, 52, 76, 78, 84, 88, 89, 97, 118, 138, 147, 156, 160 Apollo, 26 Apophis, 145 Apsyrtus, 64, 152 Aristaios, 60 Aristotle, 59–61, 92, 113, 124, 136, 159, 161, 174, 176, 193, 194 arteries, 77, 80, 91 Ashanti, 113 ashipu, 186 Asklepios, 60 asps, 27 ass(es), 99, 137, 186 atet, 63, 151 Athenaios, 175 Athens, 2, 135 Athothis, 7, 8, 62 Athribis, 34 ATP, 92, 93, 168 Atum, 20, 45, 101, 128, 147, 148 Atuot, 141 aurochs, 23, 27, 35–37, 54, 99, 106, 124, 128, 139 Ayuel-Longar, 89 azu, 186 azu anse, 186 ba, 18, 115 Baal, 26 Babi, 54, 131–134 baboon(s), xix, 17, 53, 54, 115, 128, 131–133, 134 , 136, 146, 147, 159

General Index Bosphorus, 48 boundary stones or stelae, 17, 130 bovid(s), 41, 108, 139 Brauell, 65 Bubalis, 108 Bubastis, 154, 155 Buchis, 46, 47, 76, 88, 166 bucrania, 25, 33, 34 Budahishn, 112 buffalo, 139 bukolion, 47 bull(s), xvi, xvii, xix, xx, 6, 16, 19, 21, 22, 24–27, 30, 33–37, 41, 43–48, 50–54, 62, 63, 73–90, 92, 95–101, 104–106, 109–113, 117–121, 124, 125, 127, 128, 130, 131, 133–135, 137–144, 146–148, 150, 151, 155– 157, 159, 160, 162–168, 170, 173, 174, 178, 180, 188, 190, 192, 194, 198–201, 203–205 bull sacrifice(s), 9, 38, 48, 54, 59, 62, 71, 73, 74, 77, 79, 79, 82, 84, 87 Busiris, 119, 121 butcher(s), 6, 7, 13, 45, 49, 141, 150, 155

Babylon, 26 back, 97–99, 106, 107, 110, 113, 114, 119, 120, 127, 133, 157, 164 backbone, 78, 89, 96–98, 100, 108, 114–116, 118–120, 123, 127, 147, 148, 157, 188 Badarian (Period), 7, 33, 41, 76 Baganda, 19 Bahria Oasis, 200 Bain, 176 Bantu, 19 bany bith priest(s), xviii, 87, 141 Barthelemy, 65 Bastet, 155 Bat, 199 bee, 29 begetter, 127, 129, 188 Berengario da Carpi, 176 Berlin Papyrus, 81, 85 biases. 4, 6, 197 bicornuate uterus, 8, 24, 51, 154, 205 Big Dipper, 78 birds, 9, 28, 96, 98, 171, 172 birth(s), 15, 18, 31, 57, 76 bison, 23 bkat, 84 bleeding, 165 blood, 31, 38, 62, 64–66, 77, 90, 101, 103, 112, 118, 125, 169, 170, 172–174, 188 bloodletting, 174 Boetia, 48 bone(s), xvii, 27, 38, 39, 77, 79, 84, 89, 90, 95–99, 101, 106, 109, 112– 114, 117, 120, 124, 125, 127, 147, 157, 161, 167, 168, 170, 172, 173, 187 Book of Caverns, 17 Book of Gates, 17, 110 Book of the Dead, xxi, 17, 44, 89, 96, 97, 110-111, 115, 118, 121, 122, 132, 134, 138, 188, 2005 Book of the Heavens, 17 Book of What is in the Netherworld, 88, 109 Books of the Netherworld, 16

caduceus, 28, 130, 145 Caesar, 176 calf or calves, 43, 47, 53, 82, 92, 108, 134, 176 Cambyses, 154 canids, xix, 27, 29, 108, 111, 130 Cannibal Hymn, 98, 100, 170 cannibalism, 7 Carystus, 91 castration, 41, 50, 73, 76, 134 Catal Huyuk, 24, 33 cats, 29, 108, 181, 182, 184, 203 cattle, xv, 6–9, 11, 24, 26, 27, 29, 31–36, 38, 39, 41–45, 47–49, 51– 55, 63, 66–70, 73. 75, 77, 78, 81, 85–87, 92, 97, 102, 106, 109, 113, 114, 123, 130, 136, 139, 141, 145, 147, 150, 151, 155, 157, 163, 165, 166, 170, 174, 179, 181, 182, 186, 188, 191, 198, 201–203, 205

228

General Index 171, 174, 187, 188, 192, 194, 197, 198 Debehni, 89 dehorning, 41 Delafond, 66 Delta, 34 Dendera, 96, 97, 127 Deng, 88 Dilmun, 24 Dinka, xviii, 28, 31, 34, 37, 47, 50, 51, 63, 76, 84, 86–89, 113, 122, 124, 141, 148, 151, 171, 202 Diocles, 91, 113 Diodorus, 174 Dionysus, 22, 47, 90, 160 disease(s), 3, 38, 40, 60, 62–65, 67–71, 157, 163, 165, 168, 172, 174, 181, 182, 185, 201, 202, 2005 dismemberment, 27–29, 96, 127 dissection(s), xix, 7, 9, 10, 16, 48, 51, 57–62, 71, 73, 77, 81, 148, 153, 154, 156, 157, 167, 168, 186, 194, 205 Diyala, 40, 77, 200 djam, 130, 131, 142, 145 djed, xvi, xxi, 89, 97, 114–118, 119– 124, 128, 147, 188, 189 djed pillar(s) or column(s), 115, 118, 121–124 Djedu, 119 Djoser, 122, 156 doctor(s), 6, 156 dog(s), 9, 27–29, 96, 128, 162, 163, 181, 182, 184, 203 domestication, 21, 27, 32, 38, 39, 41, 43, 73, 179 dominion, 128, 130, 131, 134–136, 138, 140, 141, 146, 148, 158, 168, 199, 203 donkey, 137 door bolt, 97 double, 19, 46, 118 Drehem, 129 Drvaspa, 26 Duamutef, 130, 131 dung, 31 Dyaus Pitar, 26

cattle culture, xvi–xviii, 11–13, 22, 28, 31–33, 38–40, 45, 54, 78, 86, 101, 146, 178, 180, 200 cerebrospinal fluid, 100 cervical vertebrae, 101, 113, 204 Chalcedon, 91 Chandragupta, 60 Cheiron, 60 Chester Beatty papyrus, 187 chickens, 172 chicks, 98 childbirth, 24 circumpolar star, 20 cobra(s), 27, 86, 137 coccygeal vertebrae, 99 coccyx, 124 Coffin Texts, xxi, 16, 17, 47, 54, 78, 89, 96–98, 100, 101, 112, 115, 121, 132, 133, 138, 146–148, 172, 188, 205 coffins, 15 Congolese, 113 Constantine the Great, 152 contagious bovine pleuropneumonia, 67 Coombs, 177 Coptos, 154 Cos, 91, 160 cow(s), 22–26, 36, 38, 42–46, 51, 53, 54, 86, 89, 99, 131, 140, 163, 170, 171, 176, 199, 200 creation, 18 creation, 19 Cretan Minotaur, 47 crocodile, 188 crow, 27 crucifixion, 28 Cynopolis nome, 151 Dar al Hikmat, 160 Darius, 154 Davaine, 65 de Solleysel, 65 death, 1, 3, 15, 16, 18, 19, 21–23, 27–31, 34, 49, 57, 58, 69, 73, 76, 78, 80, 82, 83, 88, 96, 106, 108– 111, 125, 127, 145, 149, 158, 167,

229

General Index foot-and-mouth disease, 67 foreleg, xvii , 75, 78, 84, 85, 138, 188 forelimb(s), 47, 50, 51, 73–81, 89 , 95, 102, 105, 124, 125, 148, 158, 170, 188, 198 Fracastoro, 65

Early Dynastic, 11, 18, 31, 38, 44, 49, 102, 106, 121, 197, 202 Early Neolithic, 38 East African Cattle Area, 31 East African Cattle Complex, 31, 54 Ebers Papyrus, 81, 85, 137, 149, 165, 173 Edfu, 98, 119, 135, 154 Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, 4, 100, 108, 149, 163, 173 Egyptologists, xxi, 32, 52, 76, 81, 96, 109, 191, 197, 201 ejaculate, 47 ejaculation, 108 El Adam, 38 El Amarna, 154 El, 26 eland, 130 elephant, 60, 139 Elephantine, 76, 98, 158 embalmer, 7 embalming, 4, 7 Empirical School, 59, 60 Enlil, 25 Enneads, 95 Ephesus, 60 epidemic hemorrhagic diathesis, 182 Erasistratos, 61 Eridu, 24 Esna, 154 Euboea, 48 Euripides, 90 Europa, 137 Eve, 112

Galen, 2, 51, 60, 61, 91, 98, 114, 124, 153, 154, 160, 169, 175 Garang, 88 Garbha Upanishad, 112 gazelles, 39 Geb, 44, 133 geese, 162 Gerzean (Period), 7, 77, 143 Giza, 76 goat(s), 39, 43, 59, 99, 108 Goshurun, 26 graves, 34 Great Bear, 78 Gula, 28 Hammurabi’s Code, 152, 186 Hapy, 131 Harris Papyrus I, 52 hartebeest, 99 Hathor, 25, 27, 42–45, 47, 86, 89, 128, 140 Hatshepsut, 20 Hazda, 114 healer(s), xviii, 4, 8, 51, 60, 61, 63, 149–155, 162, 163, 165, 173, 174, 176, 185, 186, 193, 194, 205 healing, 2, 12, 13, 15, 21, 59, 82, 108, 145, 151, 154, 158, 159, 162, 172, 202, 203 Hearst Papyrus, 81, 85 heart, 8, 51, 96, 118, 119, 173, 174 Heh, 115 Helen of Troy, 161 Heliopolis, 45, 46, 52, 53, 161 Helwan, 121 Hera, 22, 24 Heraclides, 59, 60, 63 Hercules, 26 Hermanubis, 29, 160 Hermes, 29, 130, 160

Farafra Oasis, 200 fasciolations, 74, 77–79, 81, 85, 87, 89, 167, 192 Fayum, 27, 41, 111, 162 feces, 32, 130, 174 fellahin, 11 First Intermediate Period, 16, 48 fish, 9, 137, 162 flesh, xvii, 1, 6, 27, 33, 45, 47, 74, 81, 84–92, 118, 124, 150, 151, 170, 188, 198 food, 83–86

230

General Index Irenakhty, 150, 173, 174, 176 Iry(?), 150 Ishtar, 24, 26 Isis, 103, 112, 118, 121, 123, 135–137, 169 itali, 26

Hermonthis, 46 herms, 17, 130, 135, 159 Herodotus, 33, 151, 174, 185 Herophilus, 59, 60, 91, 153, 154 Hibeh, 151 Hierakonpolis, 33, 36, 77, 133, 143 hieroglyph(s), xxi, 62, 79, 95, 100, 107, 108, 119, 120, 122, 128, 171, 172, 198, 205 hieron osteon, 124 Hinduism, 180 hippiatros, 64, 151, 152 Hippo, 113 Hippocratic Corpus, 60, 160 Hittites, 24 Hordedef, 16 Horizon-Dwellers, 132 horn(s), 25, 33–35, 41, 44, 46, 50, 73, 83–86, 98, 103, 137, 138, 146, 175, 188, 198 horse(s), 64. 183, 186, 194 horse healer or doctor, 151 Horus, 78, 88, 98, 130, 131, 135, 138, 145 House of Gold, 118 House(s) of Life, 7, 13, 29, 88, 150, 154, 154, 155, 159, 166 House(s) of the Morning, 155–157 Houses of Books, 166 Hurrians, 24 Hut Ankh, 154–156, 157–159, 166 Huy, 84 hyena(s), 29, 133

Jabbaren, 77 jackal, 111, 130 Jeroboam, 27 Jezebel, 27 Jezreel, 27 Johannes von Essen, 176 joint(s), 6, 13, 45, 79, 84, 85, 133, 155 jok, 29, 38, 87, 89, 113 Jovis Pater, 26 Jupiter, 131 ka, xvii, 18–21, 30, 46, 82–86, 88, 89, 92, 95, 103, 105, 115, 118, 124, 125, 146, 151, 157, 166, 168–171, 188, 191, 192, 198 Kaberichia cocktail, 179 Kahun, 162 Kahun Veterinary Papyrus, 5, 9, 62, 100, 104, 162–165, 170, 172–174 Kaiechos, 46 Kamutef, 47, 135 kat, 84, 198 kau,, 83–86, 166, 170 kfa cloth, 88 Khentika, 75 Khepri, 110 Khnum, 19, 76, 98, 106, 158 Khonsu, 47, 98 Kikuyu, 179 knot(s), 78, 97, 100, 101, 103, 104, 107, 109, 112, 188, 2004 Koch, 66, 181 kra, 19 Kush, 84

iatros, 62, 152 ibex, 99 ibis(es), 76 ideograms, xxi, 99, 100, 119 Idut, 74 Igai, 199, 200 Illahun, 162 imperishable stars, 47, 78 Inanna, 24 indestructible stars, 78 Indus Valley, 37 Io, 22 Ionian Sea, 48

Lagash, 176 Late Neolithic, 39 law of contradiction, 59 Lazarus, 28 Leodamas, 151

231

General Index meat, 6, 13, 27, 45, 49, 74, 77, 81, 84, 127, 150, 155, 171, 183, 184 Medinet Habu, 139 Melampus, 60 Memphis, 46, 52, 118, 160, 170 Memphite Theology, 19 Mendes, 106, 127 menehe, 19 Merimde, 27 Meydum, 50, 79 mice, 185 Middle Kingdom, 6, 16, 45, 46, 48, 51, 78 Middle Neolithic, 39 milk, 24, 29, 31, 36, 38, 41, 43, 49, 54, 102, 107, 112, 135, 136, 147, 169–171, 183, 184, 188, 197 Min, 47, 135, 136, 138, 147 Min-Amen-Kamutef, 134 Min-Horus, 135 Mithra, 26 mitochondrial DNA, 39 Mnevis, 44, 46, 88 Mondino de Luzzi, 51 monkey, 133 Mont(u), 46, 139 Montu-Re, 139, 140 mound, 34 Mouseion of Alexandria, 160 multiplicity of answers, 30 multiplicity of approaches, 30 mummification, 4, 7, 8, 96, 173 mummy, 7, 51, 76, 82, 118, 168 muntu, 19 muscle(s), xvii, 1, 38, 47, 54, 74, 77, 79, 80, 82, 85–87, 90–93, 99, 127, 143, 167, 171, 192, 198

Leontopolis, 34 leopard, 139 lettuce, 135, 147 libido, 22, 25, 203 Library of Alexandria, 159 life force, 20, 73, 82, 83, 86, 166 life, 1, 15, 16, 21–23, 25, 27, 30, 57, 58, 62, 73, 75, 78, 79, 81–83, 85–89, 92, 95–100, 102, 103, 106–110, 112, 117, 125, 128, 140, 147–150, 155–158, 166, 168, 170, 174, 178, 179, 187, 188, 197, 198 life-spirit, 19 lightning, 35, 47, 103 lion, 29, 97, 139, 149 live flesh, xvii, xix, 81, 82, 85, 88, 89, 105, 150, 168, 170, 171, 192 lumbar spine, 114 lumbar vertebrae, 101, 116, 119–121, 123, 124, 142 Luxor, 185 Lysimachus, 151 Maasai, 45, 87, 170 maat, 21, 27, 30, 170, 198, 201–203, 205 Macardit, 47 Macedonia, 24 Mafdet, 29, 145, 158, 159, 166 Magathenes, 60 magic, xvi, 1–3, 21, 23, 37, 41, 45, 54, 78, 79, 81, 82, 84, 86, 89, 92, 95, 98–100, 103, 118, 122, 145, 148. 153, 155, 166, 169, 170, 177, 178, 188, 192 magician(s), 2, 6, 107, 150, 155 malignant catarrh, 41, 165 Mandari, 87 Manetho, 7, 46, 62, 161 Mansion of Life, 145, 155, 156, 159, 166 Marduk, 26 marrow, 25, 78, 95, 97–100, 109, 112– 114, 145–147, 161, 168, 170, 173, 188 Mau Mau, 179 Mazda, 26

Nabta Playa, 38, 39, 41, 54 Nandi, 180 Nandi, 29 Naqada, 33 Narmer, 35, 36, 52, 96, 132, 146, 198, 199 nash patri, 186 Naucratis, 176 neck, 89, 97, 113, 165, 188

232

General Index pastoralists, xviii, 3, 12, 13. 30, 32, 37–40, 49, 51, 52, 63, 84, 89, 146, 151, 178, 197, 200–202, 204, 205 pathogenesis, 58, 60, 153, 161, 172, 173 pecuaria, 53 peculio, 53 pecunia, 53 pecus, 53 pelvic bones, 124 pelvic vertebrae, 124 penis(es), xvii, 17, 97, 99, 102, 104, 113, 117, 120, 127–135, 137–141, 143, 144, 146–148, 188, 189, 199 Pepi, 88 Per Ankh, 13, 62, 63, 87, 88, 101, 150, 154–160, 166, 170 Pergamun, 60 Petosiris, 149 phallus, 108, 118, 127, 132, 134, 138, 147, 148, 159, 180 phonograms, xxi, 172 Phrygians, 24 physician(s), 5, 6, 62, 65, 69, 70, 152, 154, 155, 166, 174, 176, 180, 181, 183, 185, 194, 205 physiology, xvi, 3, 8, 9, 59–61, 71, 91, 92, 96, 157, 180, 181, 189 pig(s), 27, 61 pike, 137 placenta, 19, 20, 169, 172 Plato, 86, 113, 161 Plato, 90 Plutarch, 90, 137, 161 poison, 79, 108, 110, 125, 137, 147 Praxagoras, 91, 192 Predynastic, 11, 18, 31, 32, 38, 41, 44, 46, 49, 51, 54, 82, 86, 105, 113, 117, 122, 128, 146, 197–203 pregnant woman, 84 Priapus, 137 priest(s), xvi, 16–18, 43, 46, 58, 62, 63, 73–75, 78, 81, 84, 86, 87, 89, 91, 92, 96, 103, 107, 108, 124, 125, 128, 149–151, 156–159, 162, 166, 175, 186, 192, 194, 197, 201

Neferirkare, 62, 159 Nehebkau, 110 Neith, 100 Neolithic, 170 nephesh, 19 Nephthys, 115 New Kingdom, 16, 17, 37, 45–47, 50, 52, 76–78, 116, 147, 168 Nihialic, 38 Nilo-Saharan, 12 Nilotes, 11, 12, 28, 34, 37, 38, 45, 50, 54, 74, 86, 122 Ninhursag, 24, 25, 28, 42 nose-ringing, 41, 73, 175 Nubian C-group, 34 Nuer, 31, 73, 83, 84, 87–89, 113, 122 Nufer, 176 Nut, 96, 110, 133 Ohrmazd, 113 Old Kingdom, 4, 9, 16, 48–50, 61, 74, 76–79, 84, 88, 89, 95, 102, 106, 128, 135, 140, 150, 155, 162, 166, 171 Onians, 25 Opening-of-the-Mouth, xvii, 17, 18, 75, 76, 78, 79, 81, 82, 85, 88, 93, 95, 108, 121, 155–157, 170, 192 os sacrum, 120 Osiris, 30, 46, 88, 96–98, 110 , 114– 121, 123, 124, 127, 134, 136, 137, 140, 147, 160, 203 ox(en), 8, 25–27, 34, 53, 77, 79, 88, 95, 102, 107, 108, 113, 149, 171, 183 Oxyrhynchite nome, 137, 200 oxyrhynchus fish, 137 Paleolithic, 114 Palermo Stone, 46, 52 pan graves, 34 Papyrus Jumilhac, 78, 112, 118, 169 Papyrus of Hent-Taui, 131 Papyrus of Hunefer, 115, 132 Parsees, 28 Pasiphae, 47 Pasteur, 66

233

General Index Rig Veda, 26 rigor mortis, 93 rinderpest, 45, 67, 69 Ring, 86–89, 124, 151 ritual sacrifice or slaughter, xvi, 8, 50, 73 ritual slaughterers, 6 rodents, 181, 184 Roger I, 160 Rome, 64, 194 ruah, 19 Rufus, 60 rules of evidence, 57

priest-healer(s), 9, 48, 62, 88, 91, 108, 170, 173, 174, 195 Prithivi, 26 procreation, 25, 98, 113, 125, 169, 170 psd, 97, 100, 102, 104, 114, 118, 119 ¯ 19, 46, 76, 117, 118, 188 Ptah, Ptah-Sokar, 89, 98, 188 Ptolemaic (Period), 5, 7, 62, 112, 147, 148, 152, 153, 159, 166, 175, 185 Ptolemaic Alexandria, 59, 60, 63, 91, 174, 175, 183 Ptolemy I Soter, 159–161 Ptolemy II Philadelphus, 159–161 putrefaction, 174 Pyramid Texts, xxi, 16, 17, 20, 30, 34, 43–47, 76, 78, 84, 88, 95–101, 109, 114, 115, 117, 119, 123, 131– 134, 137, 138, 145–147, 157, 159, 166, 171, 189, 200, 205 Pythagoreans, 162

sa ankh, 102, 107, 170 sacral vertebrae, 121, 123, 124, 128 sacrifice(s), 9, 16, 38, 41, 49, 50, 63, 74, 76, 77, 81, 82, 84, 87, 156. 186, 192, 205 sacrum, 89, 116, 119, 120, 124, 142 Sahara, 40, 77, 171, 200 Sais, 87, 150, 154 Salerno, 61 saliva, 138, 147, 197 same-opposite dichotomies, 58 sames and opposites, 27, 71, 109, 168 Sanskrit, 112 Saqqara, 75, 115, 171 sarcophagi, 15, 48 scorpion, 29, 149 Sebennytus, 34 Second Intermediate Period, 34 secrecy, 2, 121, 154, 187, 189, 193 secret, 106, 166, 187–189, 193 secretiveness, 127 Sed festival, 135, 200 seed, 26, 134–136, 145, 148 Sekhmet, 29, 48, 97, 149, 150, 155– 157, 165, 166 Selket or Serket, 100, 149 semen, xvii, 25, 26, 30, 47, 73, 79, 95, 97–99, 101, 102, 106–114, 117, 124, 125, 127, 129, 133, 135–137, 141, 146–149, 156, 157, 159, 161, 167–173, 175, 188, 198 Senedy, 62 Sennedjem, 111

Qadan culture, 36 Qustul, 39 ram(s), 19, 25–27, 46, 76, 98, 106, 108, 127 Ramesses III, 53, 139 Ramesses IV, 52 Ramesseum Onomasticon, 6, 101 Ramesside Period, 136 ran de Ring, 87 rats, 185 Re, 18, 44–47, 78, 88, 97, 100, 115, 116, 118, 121, 123, 128, 134, 137, 138, 140, 148, 157, 170, 188 reanimation, 18 rebirth, 15, 16, 73, 84, 111, 113, 125, 157, 197, 198 Re-Horachty, 115 Rekhmire, 74, 76 resurrection, 62 revivification, 1, 15, 21, 27, 30, 37, 44, 58, 73, 75-76, 82, 95, 96, 106, 109, 110, 117, 127, 135, 145, 147, 149, 157, 166, 170, 203 rhinoceros, 139

234

General Index taboos, 31 tail(s), 35, 77, 86, 95, 110, 112, 120, 128, 139 Talmud, 176 Tanith, 138 Tarentum, 60 Tassili, 40 Tassili-n-Ajjer, 77 Taurus mountains, 48 Tefnut, 148 Terminus, 131 testes, 113, 114, 124, 125, 169, 175 Thales of Miletus, 90, 160, 170 Thebes, 52, 111, 138 Theodosian Legal Code, 194 Thessaly, 24 Third Intermediate Period, 200 Thompson’s gazelle, 130 thoracic bone, 112 thoracic spine, 114 thoracic vertebra(e), 51, 52, 78, 84, 99, 100-101, 102, 104–107, 113, 116, 121, 125, 142, 188, 190 Thoth, 161 thunder, 35, 47 Tigris, 25 Timaeus, 26 Tlokwa, 32 tomb(s), 15–18, 35, 48, 76, 82, 84, 111, 136, 151, 187 trypanosomiases, 41 tumulus, 34 turf(s), 184, 187 Turkana, 29, 40, 86, 144 Tutankhamen, 139 Tuthmosis IV, 140 twin, 19–21

Serapis, 160 Sesostris I, 45 Seth, 30, 47, 54, 78, 88, 97, 110, 124, 132, 134, 135, 137, 138, 145, 199, 200, 203 shabtis, 15 shanga, 186 sheep, 39, 53, 59, 65, 86, 99, 176 shehitah, 77 Shilluk, 37, 88 Shin, 25 Shiva, 180 Short, 177 Shu, 115, 147, 148 situla(e), 136, 147 Siut, 87 skulls, 33, 34 snake(s), 27–30, 79, 86, 108–110, 115, 125, 130, 137, 145, 147, 158, 159, 166, 198 Snefru, 52 Sokaris, 88, 89, 188, 198 solar-disk, 46 Soranus, 60 sows, 176 spina sacra, 124 spinal column, 97, 98, 108, 118, 119 spinal cord, 97, 98, 100, 105, 106, 109, 110, 113, 114, 133, 141, 147, 188 spine, 8, 30, 50, 78–80, 88, 95–102, 106–114, 117–119, 125, 127–129, 145, 147–149, 163, 170, 188, 198 Spiritual Force, 38, 87, 201, 202 spittle, 89, 124, 148 statues, 15, 82 steer(s), 62, 76, 88, 89, 151 Step Pyramid, 122, 123, 130 sub-Sahara(n), 31, 36, 40, 41 Suetonius Tranquillus, 124 Sumer, 24 Sumeria, 43 sun-disk, 46, 77 surgery, 4, 50, 86, 151, 152, 175, 177 swine, 41, 176 swnw, 5, 48, 62, 150, 152, 157, 165, 175

Udjahorresnet, 154 Ugarit, 186 Ule, 19 Unas, 16, 137, 157, 171 urine, 31, 130, 132 Urlugaledinna, 176, 186 Ursa Major, 47, 78 Uruk, 25 uterus, 24, 42, 51, 133, 154, 169, 176

235

General Index vagina, 84 Valley of the Kings, 17 van Leeuvenhoek, 65 Varro, 26, 53, 64 Venda, 113 venom, 27 Vergil, 124 vertebra(e), 78, 89, 95, 97–101, 104– 109, 112–114, 118–120, 123, 124, 127, 133, 148, 188, 189 vertebral column, 121, 145, 198 Vesalius, 51 veterinarian(s), 5, 50, 64, 65, 69–71, 74, 100, 102, 149, 162, 163, 166, 175–177, 180–184 veterinary priest, 150 Viborg, 65 viceroy, 84 vital force or energy, 18, 19, 20. 21, 83, 86, 115 vivisection(s), 48, 57, 61, 71, 73, 76, 77, 82, 86, 91, 92, 148, 154, 167,

168, 194 vizier, 62, 159 wabw priests, 62 Wadi Halfa, 36 was, xvi, xxi, 75, 117, 121, 128, 130, 137, 138, 140, 144, 145, 147, 158, 188, 189, 199, 200 was-scepter, xvi, xvii, 23, 86, 130, 143, 159 water, 25, 136, 147, 156, 164, 165, 174 Wenennefer, 48, 150, 176 Weshptah, 62 whdw, 117, 174, 175 ˘ womb, 8 work, 84 wound(s), 4, 7, 8, 151 Xois, 34 Zend Avesta, 26 Zeus, 24, 26, 137

236

General Index

EGYPTOLOGICAL MEMOIRS ISSN 1387–2710

Vol. 1. Vol. 2. Vol. 3. Vol. 4.

Van Dijk, J. Essays on Ancient Egypt in Honour of Herman te Velde. 1997. 90 5693 014 1 Harvey, Julia. Wooden Statues of the Old Kingdom. A Typological Study. 2001. 90 04 12357 1 Hill, Marsha. Royal Bronze Statuary from Ancient Egypt. With Special Attention to the Kneeling Pose. 2003. 90 04 12399 7 Gordon, Andrew H. and Calvin W. Schwabe. The Quick and the Dead. Biomedical Theory in Ancient Egypt. 2005. 90 04 12391 1