Some people seem to have commissioned their own copies of the Book of the Dead, perhaps choosing the spells they thought most vital in their own progression to the afterlife. The surviving papyri contain a varying selection of religious and magical texts and vary considerably in their illustration. There was no single or canonical Book of the Dead. A number of the spells which make up the Book continued to be separately inscribed on tomb walls and sarcophagi, as the spells from which they originated always had been. Other spells were composed later in Egyptian history, dating to the Third Intermediate Period (11th to 7th centuries BC). Some of the spells included in the book were drawn from these older works and date to the 3rd millennium BC. The Book of the Dead, which was placed in the coffin or burial chamber of the deceased, was part of a tradition of funerary texts which includes the earlier Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts, which were painted onto objects, not written on papyrus. Karl Richard Lepsius introduced for these texts the German name Todtenbuch (modern spelling Totenbuch), translated to English as Book of the Dead. "Book" is the closest term to describe the loose collection of texts consisting of a number of magic spells intended to assist a dead person's journey through the Duat, or underworld, and into the afterlife and written by many priests over a period of about 1,000 years. The original Egyptian name for the text, transliterated r(ꜣ)w n(y)w prt m hrw(w), is translated as Book of Coming Forth by Day or Book of Emerging Forth into the Light. Now in the University Library, Leipzig.The Book of the Dead ( Ancient Egyptian: □□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□, r(ꜣ)w n(y)w prt m hrw(w)) is an ancient Egyptian funerary text generally written on papyrus and used from the beginning of the New Kingdom (around 1550 BC) to around 50 BC. It dates to the New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, around 1550 BC. It may be considered a precursor of ancient Greek humeral pathology and the subsequently established theory of the four humors, providing a historical connection between Ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and medieval medicine. The “channel theory” was prevalent at the time of writing of the Ebers papyrus it suggested that unimpeded flow of bodily fluids is a prerequisite for good health. Egyptian medicine occupied a dominant position in the world of the ancients for 2500 years. Specially trained priests observe prescribed magico-religious rites. With sure, sympathetic hands, the physician treats the patient, who is supported by a “brick chair.” Directions for treatment appear on the scroll held by his assistant. 1550-1292 BC), clothed in clean white linen and a wig, as became the dignity of his status, is confronted with a patient having symptoms of lockjaw (described in an ancient scroll now known as the Edwin Smith papyrus). Robert Thom (American, 1915-1979)Īncient Egyptian physician of the 18th Dynasty (ca. Medicine in Ancient Egypt, from “The History of Medicine”, 1952. The papyrus contains chapters on contraception, diagnosis of pregnancy and other gynecological matters, intestinal disease and parasites, eye and skin problems, dentistry and the surgical treatment of abscesses and tumors, bone-setting, and burns. The descriptions of these disorders suggest that Egyptians conceived of mental and physical diseases in much the same way. Disorders such as depression and dementia are covered. Mental disorders are detailed in a chapter of the papyrus called the Book of Hearts. The Egyptians seem to have known little about the kidneys and made the heart the meeting point of a number of vessels which carried all the fluids of the body-blood, tears, urine and semen. It notes that the heart is the centre of the blood supply, with vessels attached for every member of the body. The papyrus contains a “treatise on the heart”. ![]() ![]() It contains many incantations meant to turn away disease-causing demons and there is also evidence of a long tradition of empiricism. The scroll contains some 700 magical formulas and folk remedies.
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