The Arcade Gallery - Show Case A
Prehistory, witchcraft and circumcision
Without proper knowledge and tools, the medicine man had (and sometime still has) to use witchcraft, charms or ask help from deities even offering sacrifices, tokens and reminders such as specific votives. However, there were specific treatments such as bloodletting, draining abscess, trepanation combination of offerings and treatments (e.g. circumcision) and medications, using plants, animal (and even human) parts and minerals.
- Hand tools and knives, >5,000 years old, made of Obsidian (volcanic glass) and flint were used for surgical procedures, including circumcision and skull trepanation. Obsidian tools were very sharp, rare and extremely expensive. Circumcision was practiced in old Egypt, probably the origin of the Jewish custom. Trepanation was used in many ancient cultures for magic, headache and even compressed skull fractures
- Facsimile of an Ashtoreth (cast from the original Dor Ashtoret mold): the principal female fertility divinity of the Phoenicians, “queen of heaven” ( Jeremiah 44:25 ) called Ishtar by the Assyrians and Astarte by the Greeks and Romans
- 4 African virility-fertility effigies-charms (Liberia c.1930)
- 2 African fertility effigies of tweens (Liberia c.1930)
- African good health charm made of human bone (Liberia c. 1930)
- 3 medicinal powder containers (African c. 1940),
- 2 medicinal roots and mineral (lime: feces of a Hyena…)
- Silver votive offerings (Italian c 1920) from Roman times were and are used to ask deities for specific medical help see Show Case K: Folk Medicine
- A Bedouin charm (sandstone)
The Rosenberg Museum of Medicine – All Rights Reserved Ben-Gurion University of the Negev – Faculty of Health Sciences