Medical Profession in Ancient Egypt

Painted wooden stele depicting the statue of
the god Horus, to whom a sick man is bringing
gifts, Third Intermediate Period.
The Museum of Louvre
N. 3657. Paris

In Egypt, as in most early civilizations, men felt secure when they were at peace with the transcendental world and, because religion and magic dominated all aspects of life (as far as Egyptology today understands), both magico-religious and empirico-rational medicine existed side by side.
According to a Christian writer, Alexandrinus Clemens, living in Alexandria in about 200 AD, the priests of early-dynastic Egypt had written the sum total of their knowledge in 42 sacred books kept in the temples and carried in religious processions. Six of these books were concerned totally with medicine and dealt with anatomy, diseases in general, surgery, remedies, diseases of the eye and diseases of women. No example of these books survive nor of the anatomy books said to have been written by Athothis, second Pharaoh of the First Dynasty.
During the Old Kingdom the medical profession became highly organized, with doctors holding a variety of ranks and specialities. The ordinary doctor or Sinw was outranked by the imy-r sinw (overseer of doctors) the wr sinw (chief of doctors), and smsw sinw (eldest of doctors) and the shd sinw (inspector of doctors). Above all these practitioners was the overseer of doctors of Upper and Lower Egypt. There is evidence that a

Khufu's Great Pyramid by Tammie Richards - Khufu Contest

Khufu