The Brooklyn Papyrus (''47.218.48'' and ''47.218.85'', also known as the Brooklyn Medical Papyrus) is a medical papyrus dating from

ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower E ...

and is one of the oldest preserved writings about

medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for patients, managing the Medical diagnosis, diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, ...

and ophiology. The manuscript is dated to around 450 BC and is today kept at the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. The term ''Brooklyn Papyrus'' can also refer to Brooklyn Papyrus 35.1446

The manuscript

The Brooklyn Papyrus consists of a scroll of papyrus divided into two parts with some parts missing, its total length is estimated to 175 × 27 cm. The text is on the recto side. The different numbers refer to the upper part (-48, 66,5 × 27,5 cm) and the lower part (-85, 66,5 × 27,5 cm) of the scroll. The manuscript is a collection, the first part systematically describing a number of different

snakes Snakes are elongated Limbless vertebrate, limbless reptiles of the suborder Serpentes (). Cladistically Squamata, squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping Scale (zoology), scales much like other members of ...

and the second part describing different treatments for

snakebite A snakebite is an injury caused by the bite of a snake, especially a venomous snake. A common sign of a bite from a venomous snake is the presence of two puncture wounds from the animal's fangs. Sometimes venom injection from the bite may ...

s. The manuscript also contains treatments of scorpion bites and spider bites. The papyrus scroll is dated between 660 and 330 BC around the Thirtieth Dynasty of Egypt. The text however is written in a style common during the Middle Kingdom which could suggest its origin might be from the

Thirteenth Dynasty of Egypt The Thirteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (notated Dynasty XIII) was a series of rulers from approximately 1803 BC until approximately 1649 BC, i.e. for 154 years. It is often classified as the final dynasty of the Middle Kingdom (which includes ...

The text proceeds page by page, alternating between the two parts of the papyrus. Thus each complete page starts with 47.218.48 and finishes with 47.218.85 (the accession numbers given by the

). The title and start of the work are missing, and the extant part of the first section commences at line 15 of the lower part (designated page 1) and continues to page 2 of both upper and lower parts, terminating at line 16 of the latter. The first section comprises a systematic description of snakes and their bites. The last line states that there have been descriptions of 38 snakes and their bites, of which the first 13 are lost. The second section starts on line 17, page 2 of the lowers part (47.218.85), and continues almost complete up to the fifth pair of pages. Only the right-hand halves of the sixth pair of pages remain. The second section commences in paragraph 39 with an important introduction:

Beginning of the collection of remedies to... drive out the poison of all...snakes, all
scorpions Scorpions are predatory arachnids of the Order (biology), order Scorpiones. They have eight legs and are easily recognized by a pair of Chela (organ), grasping pincers and a narrow, segmented tail, often carried in a characteristic forward cur ...
, all tarantulas and all ::serpents, in the hand of the ''kherep'' priests of Serqet and to drive away all snakes and to seal their mouths.

The second section then continues with many remedies and a few spells for those bitten by snakes. The format for the remedies is strictly pragmatic, and most are based on the species of snake responsible for the bite, or the symptoms suffered by the victim. The remedies are in the typical format of prescriptions that appear in the

Ebers Papyrus The Ebers Papyrus, also known as Papyrus Ebers, is an Egyptian medical papyrus of herbal knowledge dating to (the late Second Intermediate Period or early New Kingdom). Among the oldest and most important medical papyri of Ancient Egypt, it ...

and other medical papyri which were apparently intended for lay doctors. This papyrus provides the most striking evidence for the closely parallel roles of the physician ''swnw'' and the various priests concerned with healing.

History

The date of the scroll's discovery is not known. It was purchased around 1889 by Charles Edwin Wilbour and donated to the museum by his daughter Theodora Wilbour in the early 1930s. The manuscript might originate from a temple in Heliopolis. In 1989, French

Egyptologist Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , ''-logia''; ) is the scientific study of ancient Egypt. The topics studied include ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end ...

Serge Sauneron published an extensive description of the manuscript in his book ''Un traité égyptien d’ophiologie - Papyrus du Brooklyn Museum nos 47.218.48 et 85'' The ancient Egyptians were well aware of both snake's usefulness in controlling vermin and the dangers posed by its poison. Snake deities were worshipped in hopes of preventing potential attacks by their earthly representatives. At present, the manuscript is not on display at the Brooklyn Museum. The archive numbers are ''47.218.48'' and ''47.218.85''.

Snakes listed in Part One of the papyrus

*¹ Can be saved if the snake is weak *² Female pronoun used throughout the description *Numbers of teeth refer to the bite wound *The word ''fy'' may mean viper, or a snake resembling a viper

Modern interpretation

Herpetologists have proposed identifications for many of the animals it describes, but some remain uncertain partly because the species no longer live in Egypt. Niche modelling has been used to predict paleodistributions of ten species and found to lie within ancient Egypt or in trading areas.Elysha McBride, Isabelle C. Winder & Wolfgang Wüster (2023
What Bit the Ancient Egyptians? Niche Modelling to Identify the Snakes Described in the Brooklyn Medical Papyrus
Environmental Archaeology, DOI: 10.1080/14614103.2023.2266631

Gallery

File:Brooklyn Papyrus, 664 - 332 B.C.E., 47.218.48a.jpg, Brooklyn Papyrus File: Brooklyn Papyrus, 664 - 332 B.C.E., 47.218.48b.jpg, Brooklyn Papyrus

References

Notes

Literature

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External links

* * {{Ancient Egyptian medicine Ancient Egyptian medical works Papyri from ancient Egypt Collection of the Brooklyn Museum Herpetological literature 5th-century BC manuscripts