The University of Copenhagen inward Kingdom of Denmark is dwelling to a unique collection of Ancient Egyptian papyrus manuscripts.
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| Instructions for a 3,500-year-old pregnancy examine [Credit: Carlsberg Papyrus Collection/University of Copenhagen] |
"A large business office of the texts are all the same unpublished. Texts most medicine, botany, astronomy, astrology, too other sciences practiced inward Ancient Egypt," says Egyptologist Kim Ryholt, Head of the Carlsberg Papyrus Collection at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
An international squad of researchers are at ane time translating the previously unexplored texts, which according to ane of the researchers, incorporate novel too exciting insights into Ancient Egypt.
"It's totally unique for me to live on able to travel alongside unpublished material. It doesn't tumble out inward many places some the world," says Ph.D. educatee Amber Jacob from the Institute for the Study of The Ancient World at New York University, USA. She is ane of 4 Ph.D. students working on the unpublished manuscripts held inward Copenhagen.
The Egyptians knew most kidneys
Jacob's enquiry focuses on the medical texts from the Tebtunis temple library, which existed long earlier the famous Library of Alexandria, upward until 200 BCE.
In ane of the texts, she has establish testify that Ancient Egyptians knew most the beingness of kidneys.
"It's the oldest known medical text to beak over the kidneys. Until now, some researchers thought that the Egyptians didn't know most kidneys, merely inward this text nosotros tin give the axe clearly run into that they did," says Jacob.
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| This piffling slice of papyrus is believed to incorporate a type of oracle question. The writer has written two possible outcomes for a province of affairs too asked the gods to betoken which ane was the truth [Credit: The Papyrus Carlsberg Collection/ University of Copenhagen] |
"Today, star divination is seen equally a pseudoscience, merely inward antiquity it was different. It was an of import tool for predicting the hereafter too it was considered a real key science," says Ryholt.
"For example, a Rex needed to banking concern jibe when was a skillful twenty-four hr menstruation to become to war," he says.
Astrology was their agency of avoiding going to state of war on a bad day, such equally when the celestial bodies were aligned inward a special configuration.
Egyptians' contribution to science
The unpublished manuscripts furnish a unique insight to the history of science, says Ryholt.
"When yous take away heed most the history of science, the focus is oft on the Greek too Roman material. But nosotros convey Egyptian fabric that goes much farther back. One of our medical texts was written 3,500 years agone when in that location was no written fabric on the European continent," he says.
Analysing this 3,500-year-old text is the chore of Ph.D. student, Sofie Schiødt from the University of Copenhagen.
One side of the manuscript describes odd treatments for oculus diseases, says Schiødt.
Papyrus text discovered inward Germany
The other side, describes the Ancient Egyptian equivalent of a pregnancy examine too scan.
"The text says that a important adult woman should pee into a handbag of barley too a handbag of wheat. Depending on which handbag sprouts starting fourth dimension reveals the sexual activity of her child. And if neither of the bags sprout hence she wasn't pregnant," says Schiødt.
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| Sofie Schiødt inward forepart of a 3,500-year-old medical papyrus [Credit: Mikkel Andreas Beck] |
"Many of the ideas inward the medical texts from Ancient Arab Republic of Egypt appear ane time again inward afterwards Greek too Roman texts. From here, they spread farther to the medieval medical texts inward the Middle East, too yous tin give the axe discovery traces all the agency upward to premodern medicine," she says.
The same pregnancy examine used past times Egyptians is referred to inward a collection of High German folklore from 1699.
"That actually puts things into perspective, equally it shows that the Egyptian ideas convey left traces thousands of years later," says Schiødt.
"Every unmarried contribution is important"
Translating the unpublished texts is of import work, according to Egyptologist Hans-Werner Fischer-Elfert from the Department of Egyptology, University of Leipzig, Germany.
"We all the same convey a real fragmented noesis of the natural sciences inward Ancient Egypt. Therefore every singly contribution is important," he says.
"Today in that location are all the same a issue of sources that theoretically were known past times scientists merely all the same sat dormant inward diverse collections some the globe without anyone looking at them inward detail. Now the fourth dimension has come upward to recognise them."
Author: Lise Brix | Source: ScienceNordic [August 14, 2018]
This article was originally published on ScienceNordic. Read the original article here.
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