Gordon, A.H. & C.W. Schwabe. 2004. The Quick and the Dead: Biomedical Theory in Ancient Egypt. – Leiden, Brill (Egyptological Memoirs 4)

Abstract

Ten years after the 7^th International Congress of Egyptologists in Cambridge in 1995, one of the few papers presented and still burned into my memory was “‘Live Flesh’ and the ‘Opening–of–the mouth’: biomedical, ethnological and Egyptological aspects” by Andrew H. Gordon and Calvin W, Schwabe (1995: 68–69 & 1998: 461–469). This paper presented revolutionary ideas concerning the use of the detached bovine foreleg during ancient Egyptian funerary rituals. I was hardly the only one in the audience that day who had an epiphany of sorts, as when all the pieces of a puzzle come together. Ever since then, I have been awaiting a broader study by the authors and when presented with the opportunity to review their recent monograph ‘The Quick and the Dead: Biomedical Theory in Ancient Egypt’,1 I was immediately intrigued. Read more...