An ancient medical library
In 1889, British archaeologist William Flinders Petrie was excavating the workers' town near the pyramid of King Senusret II when he uncovered a collection of fragmented papyri. The site, known today as Lahun (a name Petrie likely coined), was a planned settlement built around 1880 BCE to house the people involved in the king's mortuary cult. The discarded documents, now called the Lahun Papyri, date to approximately 1825 BCE, during the reign of Amenemhat III. This collection is not a single book; it is a wide-ranging archive of administrative, legal, mathematical, and medical texts written in a cursive script called hieratic. The entire collection, one of the largest ever found from the Middle Kingdom, records the daily operations and specialized knowledge of the era. The fragments are now primarily housed in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology at University College London.
Gynecology, veterinary science, and mathematics
The Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus is the Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus, the oldest known medical text dedicated to women's health. Its 34 sections detail non-surgical diagnoses and treatments for a range of issues related to fertility, pregnancy, and contraception. One well-known passage describes a method for contraception using crocodile dung pounded with fermented dough and introduced as a pessary. A recipe involves honey and natron (a naturally occurring sodium carbonate salt) applied to the inside of the vagina. The alkaline properties of the dung and the viscosity of the honey may have functioned as a spermicide and a physical barrier. The text also includes a pregnancy test: a woman would urinate on bags of barley and emmer wheat daily. If both grains sprouted, she was pregnant. According to the text, if the barley grew first it would be a boy, and if the emmer grew first, a girl.
The Lahun collection extends beyond human medicine. It includes the world's oldest known veterinary text, which focuses on the diseases of cattle, reflecting their economic and religious importance. It details treatments for bovine ailments, including eye infections and fevers, with remedies involving rubbing the animal with specific plants and even performing bloodletting. Other animals like dogs, birds, and fish are also mentioned. The collection also includes the Lahun Mathematical Papyri. These fragments show arithmetic and geometry, containing problems that calculate the volume of a cylindrical granary and solve equations involving arithmetic progressions.