Deities and medicine in ancient Egypt : from the Old Kingdom to the New Kingdom

Abstract

‘Magic was the child of man’s ideas about his place in the Cosmos. It is generally believed that, at a primitive stage of his evolution, he imagined the world as a huge mechanism of which he was just one cog, moving in strict dependence on all others; while he was influenced by their movements, his actions influenced theirs. Related to this conception were certain ideas according to which his body was the ‘microcosm’, a reduced model of the Universe, or ‘macrocosm’, the respective parts of which were regarded as strictly independent. The idea of strict independence must have been modified later, when man became conscious of his individuality and of his possessing a distinct will and soul. Extending their conception to the surrounding world, he attributed similar souls and wills to each object or phenomenon, and he naturally imagined them as intervening in his daily life. They became gods. As a protection, he elected one of them to be his ancestorguardian, symbol, and god, i.e., to be the ‘totem’ of his clan.’ Human beings are susceptible to some form of ailment at one point or another during their lifetime. During these circumstances human beings often resort to supernatural powers and some form of medical intervention. The various levels of dependency of the use of both supernatural powers and medical intervention depend on multiple possible combinations determined by various attributes. Consequently, deities and medicine were often found in affiliation throughout time. The association of deities and medicine is often found within the artifactual, textual, and iconographic record since, in ancient Egypt, religion and magic were linked to medicine. Academic research within the field of medicine in ancient Egypt has been limited to the identification and comparison of ancient medicine with modern medicine, and to the identification of magical practice within medicine. Ancient texts considered to be strictly “medical” or “magical” texts were translated and interpreted by scholars and non-scholars alike throughout the last hundred and fifty years. Thus, the study of these “medical” and “magical” texts was carried out by two main groups of individuals: • individuals that were interested in identifying and interpreting ancient Egyptian medicine in the textual and iconographic record by means of analogy with modern medicine; • and individuals interested in the identification of magical practice within ancient Egyptian medicine.