Schistosomiasis - Ancient Egyptian Medicine for Kids!: "
Fishing in the swamps on the edges of the Nile River
from the tomb of the astronomer Nakht
Sixth Dynasty (New Kingdom, ca. 1400 BC)
Because pretty much all Egyptians lived right on the banks of the Nile River, many of them caught a river parasite which causes a disease called schistosomiasis. The astronomer Nakht, whose picture is at the top of this page, had the eggs of this fluke inside his body in his tomb (and a tapeworm, too!). People who have these flukes"
Fishing in the swamps on the edges of the Nile River
from the tomb of the astronomer Nakht
Sixth Dynasty (New Kingdom, ca. 1400 BC)
Thoth was the Egyptian god of the mind - of intelligence, thinking, reason, and logic. Egyptians often thought of Thoth as the heart and tongue of the sun god Ra. (The heart, because in ancient Egypt people thought the heart was where you kept your intelligence.) Thoth was one part of the bigger god Ra, just as the Indian god Krishna was one part ofVishnu, or as Hermes is sometimes one aspect of his brother, the Greek sun god Apollo. Indeed, the Greeks themselves often thought that Hermes and Thoth were the same god. Thoth was in some ways like the "Logos" of Plato and the Christian Gospels, meaning order and knowledge. Or you could relate Thoth to the Greek concept ofnomos.
Thoth usually had the head of an ibis, and his name probably means "like an ibis", because the ibis was a smart bird. Other times, when Thoth was the god of balance, he wore the head of a baboon, or a baboon with a dog face.
Thoth's wife was Ma'at, and the two of them often stood on either side of Ra's boat. Together, Thoth and Ma'at represented truth, order, and justice, rather like the Zoroastrian godMithra.
Because Thoth was so smart, he was responsible for things that needed smart people, especially writing hieroglyphs. In the top picture, you can see him holding a pen and a tablet. Thoth was also the god of science, and of magic (not too different from science in those days). By the New Kingdom, Thoth also decided whether you should go to a good place or a bad place after you died.
Still later, during thePtolemaic period in Egypt, people brought thousands of mummified ibis birds as offerings to Thoth. This is an Egyptian tomb with some of the ibis mummies that were in it.
Fishing in the swamps on the edges of the Nile River
from the tomb of the astronomer Nakht
Sixth Dynasty (New Kingdom, ca. 1400 BC)
Because pretty much all Egyptians lived right on the banks of the Nile River, many of them caught a river parasite which causes a disease called schistosomiasis. The astronomer Nakht, whose picture is at the top of this page, had the eggs of this fluke inside his body in his tomb (and a tapeworm, too!). People who have these flukes"
Fishing in the swamps on the edges of the Nile River
from the tomb of the astronomer Nakht
Sixth Dynasty (New Kingdom, ca. 1400 BC)
Because pretty much allEgyptians lived right on the banks of the Nile River, many of them caught a river parasite which causes a disease called schistosomiasis. The astronomer Nakht, whose picture is at the top of this page, had the eggs of this fluke inside his body in his tomb (and a tapeworm, too!). People who have these flukes
Thoth usually had the head of an ibis, and his name probably means "like an ibis", because the ibis was a smart bird. Other times, when Thoth was the god of balance, he wore the head of a baboon, or a baboon with a dog face.
Thoth's wife was Ma'at, and the two of them often stood on either side of Ra's boat. Together, Thoth and Ma'at represented truth, order, and justice, rather like the Zoroastrian godMithra.
Because Thoth was so smart, he was responsible for things that needed smart people, especially writing hieroglyphs. In the top picture, you can see him holding a pen and a tablet. Thoth was also the god of science, and of magic (not too different from science in those days). By the New Kingdom, Thoth also decided whether you should go to a good place or a bad place after you died.
Still later, during thePtolemaic period in Egypt, people brought thousands of mummified ibis birds as offerings to Thoth. This is an Egyptian tomb with some of the ibis mummies that were in it.
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