Unpublished Egyptian Texts Reveal New Insights into Ancient Medicine
By Febronia Hanna
These unpublished documents in the University of Copenhagen tell us more of what ancient Egyptians knew of Medicine. They have a unique collection of papyrus that has not been fully translated but so far have increased our knowledge about that interesting culture.
“A large part of the texts are still unpublished. Texts about medicine, botany, astronomy, astrology, and other sciences practised in Ancient Egypt,” says Egyptologist Kim Ryholt, Head of the Carlsberg Papyrus Collection at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
In one of the texts, it says that Egyptians knew about the existence of kidneys. Something that scientists always thought was a mystery to the ancients.
Another thing, the papyri revealed was the importance of astrology to them. Now the alliance of the planets may not seem important, but to a king at the time it may indicate that going to war on that particular day was a bad idea.
On the other hand in Germany, a papyrus gave us info on how pregnancy tests were done in ancient Egypt. A woman would pee on a bag of barley and a bag of wheat and depending on which bag sprouts first the sex of the child is determined. If neither sprouted that meant the woman wasn’t pregnant.
