[A new measurement of pharmaceutical prescriptions of the Ebers papyrus].
Starting point of this article is a problem obvious to anybody who reads the medical papyri of ancient Egypt from the New Kingdom and the Late Period: the prescriptions contain two dyadic systems of notation for measures of capacity without specifying the unit of measurement, firstly the Horus eye fractions 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32 and 1/64 which are unanimously assumed to refer to the single Heqat and secondly the, normal' dyadic fractions from 1/2 to 1/128, which have been interpreted in widely different ways, as fractions of the Henu-, the Ro-, the single Heqat-, the 5-Ro- or the Dja-measure, respectively. Interpretations suggested in translations and commentaries have remained inconclusive and unsatisfactory.
Pommerening
Tanja
T
Institut für Geschichte der Pharmazie der Philipps-Universität Marburg, Roter Graben.
D011307:Drug Prescriptions / Q000266:history*; D004534:Egypt; D000077406:History of Pharmacy; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D049690:History, Ancient; D008374:Manuscripts, Medical as Topic / Q000266:history*; D012107:Research Design; D012586:Science / Q000266:history* / Q000379:methods*