Scientific Traditions in the Ancient Mediterranean and Near East

Comparative insights on astronomy, divination, and medicine from ancient texts

Scientific Traditions in the Ancient Mediterranean and Near East presents a collection of articles by leading scholars on scientific practices in the ancient world, with emphasis on the fields of medicine, astronomy, astrology, and other forms of divination. The essays engage with a wide variety of textual sources in many different languages and scripts from Egypt and the Near East spanning more than a millennium, including some texts that are edited and discussed here for the first time. The contributors to this volume were tasked with approaching their texts not only as specialists, but also from a cross-cultural perspective, and the resulting body of work reveals new and exciting evidence for the transfer of scientific knowledge across cultural borders in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East.

This book will be of interest primarily to specialists in the history of medicine, science, divination, and magic, as well as to papyrologists, Egyptologists, and Assyriologists.

Sofie Schiødt is an Egyptologist specializing in pharaonic medicine, magic, and mummification. She is a postdoctoral researcher at Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen and co-director of the international research project Scientific Papyri from Ancient Egypt in Cross-Cultural Perspective (SciPap) at the University of Copenhagen. She is currently preparing the text edition of the second-longest medical text preserved from ancient Egypt, P.Louvre-Carlsberg.Jacob Amber :

Amber Jacob is a PhD Candidate at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University and co-director of the SciPap project. Her work centers on Egyptian medical practice in Graeco-Roman Egypt and its cross-cultural implications. Her dissertation presents the editio princeps of an unpublished corpus of Demotic medical texts from Tebtunis.Ryholt Kim :

Kim Ryholt is Professor of Egyptology at the University of Copenhagen, director of the Papyrus Carlsberg Collection, and founder and former director of the SciPap project. He specializes in ancient Egyptian history, literature, and historiography.Sofie Schiødt (Author)
Sofie Schiødt is an Egyptologist specializing in pharaonic medicine, magic, and mummification. She is a postdoctoral researcher at Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen and co-director of the international research project Scientific Papyri from Ancient Egypt in Cross-Cultural Perspective (SciPap) at the University of Copenhagen. She is currently preparing the text edition of the second-longest medical text preserved from ancient Egypt, P.Louvre-Carlsberg.

Amber Jacob (Author)
Amber Jacob is a PhD Candidate at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University and co-director of the SciPap project. Her work centers on Egyptian medical practice in Graeco-Roman Egypt and its cross-cultural implications. Her dissertation presents the editio princeps of an unpublished corpus of Demotic medical texts from Tebtunis.

Kim Ryholt (Author)
Kim Ryholt is Professor of Egyptology at the University of Copenhagen, director of the Papyrus Carlsberg Collection, and founder and former director of the SciPap project. He specializes in ancient Egyptian history, literature, and historiography.