Ur sunu - Grandi dottori dell’Antico Egitto - Piemonte Feel

culture and society

Exhibits

Ur sunu - Grandi dottori dell’Antico Egitto

Casale Monferrato

Palazzo Sannazzaro

from 27.09.2008 to 21.12.2008

“Ur sunu”, in ancient Egyptian means chief of doctors (a non-literal translation). Behind this translation hides a meaning that goes much further that the usual one given to the term of doctor. The exposition unwinds along a precise historical-cultural course upon which numerous finds are on display relating clear signs of illness: traumas, tumours and even dental cavities compared with ancient papyrus texts containing studies of various illnesses and their relative treatments, epigraphic texts attesting to the various and numerous figures the doctor occupies throughout the passage of time.
Among the topics examined at the exhibit: the religious and magical aspect of medicine, the divine protectors such as the goddess Sakhmet for instance, who can heal illnesses as well as distribute them, or the deified doctor Imhotep who dispenses sexuality. A section is dedicated to that which is perhaps medicine’s largest failure: death, in the face of whom the doctor withdraws to give way to the priests of Anubi, in charge of mummification, obliged to halt the deterioration process of the body and guarantee life in the afterworld to the deceased.

www.ursunu.org/info_novita.html

Ur sunu - Grandi dottori dell’Antico Egitto