Otto Kaiser's multi-fascicle anthology of ancient Near Eastern texts in German translations, Texte aus der Umwelt des Alten Testaments (TUAT; 1982–97), made little room for medicine. Just a few pages of Vol. 2, fascicles 2–3 (Rituale und Beschwörungen 1–2, 1987), were allocated to medical texts, chiefly from Mesopotamia and Egypt. In the interval since then, ancient Near Eastern medicine has enjoyed a new period of intensive study, exemplified by the founding of the Journal des médecines cunéiformes (St Germain-en-Laye, 2003–) and the publication of Wolfhart Westendorf's monumental Handbuch der altägyptischen Medizin (2 vols. Leiden, 1999). The present addition to the new series of TUAT makes good the original series' shortcoming in spectacular fashion. The editors have marshalled a small group of acknowledged experts to provide new translations of an extraordinary array of texts in Eblaite, Sumerian, Akkadian, Hittite, Ugaritic, ancient Egyptian and Greek.
Hans Neumann (pp. 3–7) presents the oldest extant medical prescriptions, from Ebla in Syria (24th century bc) and Nippur in Sumer (southern Iraq, Ur III period). The two subsequent millennia of Mesopotamian history provide a wide range of texts relating to medicine. Babylonian diagnostic and prognostic omens of both millennia are translated by Nils Heeßel (pp. 8–31). Babylonian therapeutic texts comprise prescriptions and methods of application (often called rituals). Daniel Schwemer (pp. 35–45) translates the most intelligible of the surviving Old Babylonian therapeutic texts, as well as slightly later fragments from Hattusa (Anatolia) and Emar (Syria). Heeßel (pp. 45–61) presents Middle Babylonian and later texts that deal with afflictions of the head, nose, airways, mouth, tongue and teeth, while Mark Geller (pp. 61–8) covers texts devoted to eye disease and problems with the urethra and anus, including diarrhoea. Texts concerned with internal pain, jaundice, fever, skin problems and motor disorders, such as epilepsy, stroke, paralysis and involuntary muscular contractions, are translated by Barbara Böck (pp. 69–106). Böck also provides a selection of gynaecological therapeutic texts, from contraceptive measures to fertility prescriptions, problems in pregnancy and childbirth, postpartum difficulties and the menopause (pp. 107–14). Daniel Schwemer (pp. 115–22) collects treatments for impotence, in which erotic vocal encouragement is deployed alongside mechanical therapies.
Because the Babylonians believed that the origin of many physical and mental disorders lay in the malevolent attentions of ghosts, evil spirits, demons and witches, cures were also sought by a combination of magic rituals and spells, or incantations, whose aim was to drive malign forces away from the patient. Schwemer (pp. 123–35) translates a selection of rituals and incantations against ghosts and witchcraft. Illness could also be identified as a consequence of a broken oath, and texts that seek to release the sufferer from the oath's power are presented by Stefan Maul (pp. 136–46). Böck (pp. 147–56) covers the “massage” incantations, another genre of medical text in which physical therapy is accompanied by elaborate magic spells. Relief from suffering was also sought through the use of prophylactics: texts that list the different uses of amulets and combinations of apotropaic stones are translated by Heeßel (pp. 157–63). Lists of similar function, but of plants and other materials with pharmacological applications, are presented by Böck (pp. 163–8). Other scholia, translated by Heeßel and Eckart Frahm (pp. 168–76) conclude the Mesopotamian corpus.
A short selection of Hittite medical texts, presented by Jörg Klinger (pp. 177–87), comprises therapeutic remedies for eye complaints and rituals for pregnancy and childbirth. From Ugarit, on the Syrian coast, come an oracular protocol previously translated in TUAT II/3 (not II/2): 329–31. Herbert Niehr's new rendering illustrates how understanding of Ugaritic has changed across twenty years, and is accompanied by his translation of a veterinary manual for treating sick horses (pp. 189–94).
The section on Egyptian medical texts begins with a succinct description of ancient Egyptian medicine by Wolfhart Westendorf (pp. 195–216). The chief hieratic sources are medical papyri from the beginning of the second millennium to the Ptolemaic period, the star being the sixteenth-century Ebers papyrus, which, unrolling at some twenty metres, is claimed as the longest manuscript surviving from antiquity. Portions of it, interspersed with sections of other papyri, are translated by Rainer Hannig and Orell Witthuhn (pp. 217–73), and cover physiology and pathophysiology, including therapeutic remedies for pain; ailments of head, eye, nose, ear and other facial parts, neck, shoulder, back, chest, stomach, heart and other internal organs, anus and bladder, leg and foot; skin conditions; treatments for wounds, fractures, burns and other trauma; gynaecology; and pharmacology. The Ptolemaic Brooklyn papyrus is translated separately, by Katharine Stegbauer (pp. 274–98); it is a manual on the recognition of snakes – which poisonous, which not – and the treatment of their bites.
Friedhelm Hoffmann and Joachim Friedrich Quack present a selection of medical and related texts in demotic Egyptian (pp. 298–316); some include magic rituals for well-being alongside therapeutic remedies. The book closes with contemporaneous material from Egypt but in Greek, translated by Andrea Jördens (pp. 317–50); magic spells are also prominent in this corpus, especially amulets with abracadabra-inscriptions.
This is an incomparable sourcebook for ancient Near Eastern human and veterinary medicine across 2,500 years, from the earliest times to the Roman period. It will be a sound first port of call for those who do not command the original languages but want more than a synthetic description of the earliest medical theory and practice.
