What Bit the Ancient Egyptians?
October 30, 2023 1:53 PM Subscribe
"How much can the written records of ancient civilisations tell us about the animals they lived alongside? Our latest research, based on the venomous snakes described in an ancient Egyptian papyrus, suggests more than you might think. A much more diverse range of snakes than we’d imagined lived in the land of the pharaohs – which also explains why these Egyptian authors were so preoccupied with treating snakebites!"
From the paper:
From the paper:
The Brooklyn Papyrus is a medical treatise from Ancient Egypt (∼660–330 BCE) focusing on snakebite. Herpetologists have proposed identifications for many of the animals it describes, but some remain uncertain partly because the species no longer live in Egypt. This paper uses niche modelling to predict the palaeodistributions of ten of these snake species, to test some proposed identifications. Occurrence records and environmental variables were used to generate maximum entropy models for each species in the present day and the mid-Holocene (∼4,000 BCE). Our models performed very well, generating AUC scores ≥0.867 and successfully predicting species’ current ranges. Nine species’ predicted palaeodistributions included areas within Ancient Egypt, and four (Bitis arietans, Dolichophis jugularis, Macrovipera lebetina and Daboia mauritanica) were within modern Egypt. Daboia palaestinae was also predicted to occupy a patch of suitable habitat inside modern Egypt, but separate from the species’ core range. The tenth species, Causus rhombeatus, would have been present in kingdoms that were the Ancient Egyptians’ regular trading partners. We therefore conclude that all ten species modelled in this study could have bitten Ancient Egyptian people. Our study demonstrates the usefulness of niche modelling in informing debates about the species ancient cultures may have interacted with.
I love ancient medical texts. Really shows how humans have always been logical thinkers, but that your conclusions will always be bounded by the limits of your societal knowledge.
This smug revelation, however, has never stopped me from suggesting the cure for colic from the Ebers Papyrus, which is comprised of
1) Fly speck
2) Opium
From my haughty, modern perspective, you can probably eliminate the first ingredient and still have good effect!
posted by Panjandrum at 8:51 PM on October 30, 2023 [4 favorites]
This smug revelation, however, has never stopped me from suggesting the cure for colic from the Ebers Papyrus, which is comprised of
1) Fly speck
2) Opium
From my haughty, modern perspective, you can probably eliminate the first ingredient and still have good effect!
posted by Panjandrum at 8:51 PM on October 30, 2023 [4 favorites]
+1 for the Common Descent podcast. It is excellent and highly accessible. Their spooky October theme this year is coming up with (semi-)plausible evolutionary pathways for dragons of various sorts to exist.
posted by bouvin at 7:18 AM on October 31, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by bouvin at 7:18 AM on October 31, 2023 [2 favorites]
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posted by brundlefly at 2:01 PM on October 30, 2023 [1 favorite]