Ebers Papyrus
The Ebers Papyrus is a medical papyrus from ancient Egypt. It belongs alongside the Edwin Smith Papyrus of the oldest surviving texts in general, and is also one of the oldest known texts with medical issues, which he includes among other things, a wide range of descriptions of diseases and their symptoms and diagnoses. Furthermore, the papyrus contains instructions for treatments as well as preparation for remedies, for example against injury, parasites and dental problems, but also gynecological advice, such as for contraception. These spells are given to support the healing success. In addition, the heliacal rising of Sirius in the civil calendar with 9 Epiphi ( 9 IPIP ) was noted in the 9th year of the reign of Amenhotep I..
Traditionally, usually assumed to be drafted in the last quarter of the 16th century BC, and reference is made to the dating of Richard Lepsius. Last representative of this thesis was Kenneth Anderson Kitchen. Both Egyptologists relied on acceptance on the dates appearing Sirius rising. Interim palaeographic studies have shown that medical records are probably a few decades older, were written in the reign of Pharaoh Ahmose and represent possible copies of older templates.
Site and content
The Ebers Papyrus was purchased in Winter 1872/73 by Georg Ebers at Thebes with the funds of the King of Saxony (15,000 pounds) and money from the university travel scholarship fund ( 25,000 pounds), incorporated into the holdings of the University Library of Leipzig and a year later by Ebers published. The manuscript is still located in the University Library of Leipzig.
Medical records
It was written in hieratic script and represents the largest record of ancient Egyptian medicine dar. The Ebers Papyrus is the longest medical papyrus and has a total length of 20 meters. The scroll was originally composed of 108 columns, which are numbered from 1 to 110 ( Nos. 28 and 29 are omitted). During World War II, the papyrus suffered considerable damage. Thus, the columns 54, 56, 94 and 109 are damaged or just lie in fragments before. The columns 48, 49, 55, 80-82, 93/110, 98/106, 99, 100/104, 101, 102/103 and 105 are now lost. The 108 columns are divided into 877 magical formulas and remedies. Although he is disease-causing demons full of incantations to drive, but found evidence of empirical treatment and observation.
The papyrus contains chapters on intestinal diseases and parasites, eye and skin problems, contraception and gynecological diseases, dentistry, the surgical treatment of abscesses and tumors, the straightening of bones and burns. With the mention of pneumoconiosis Stonemason it is with the oldest evidence of occupational medicine.
The report also contains a treatise on the heart and vessels. Although the Egyptians knew little about the existence of the kidneys, and the heart as a meeting point of various vessels of the body - not only blood, but also tears, urine, and even sperm - looked, they saw not only the presence of blood vessels throughout the body, but also the function of the heart as its center. It also contains a short chapter on clinical depression.
History of medicine is complemented by the Ebers Papyrus in 1862 also discovered in Thebes Edwin Smith Papyrus, which at the end of the 12th Dynasty - about 1780 BC - goes back and dealt primarily with surgery.
The Ebers Calendar
The later entry of the heliacal Aufgangs of Sirius can be unequivocally dated to between 1531 BC and 1516 BC and has no link with the medical reports. On the back of the papyrus calendar entries regarding Amenhotep I have noted, inter alia, as the 9th Epiphi as New Year's Day.
The reason for the additional entry of an attentive Egyptian scribe may have been the very rare constellation that the heliacal rising of Sirius on 1 Thoth ( New Year ) of the Sothis lunar calendar [A 1] was carried out in combination with the Thronbesteigungstag of Amenhotep I..