(Here's a rough draft of a future article I plan to submit at a non-numismatic site dealing with everything about Ancient Roman history. Any opinions would be appreciated.) Alexandria: A unique city in an Ancient World The ancient city of Alexandria, Egypt was remarkable for its diversity of cultures and ideas. Under the enlightened Ptolemaic rulers’ patronage, Alexandria became well known for its museum and the museum’s extensive library. It grew into a center for scientific research and investigation. Alexandria’s support for scientific study and its tolerance for new ideas quickly attracted many mathematicians, scientists, philosophers, artists, and poets from around the Ancient World. Alexandria also allowed great freedom for the research and study of human medicine. Briefly during the third-century BC, it even permitted the dissection of humans. This tolerance for human dissection was unique in the Ancient World. Throughout the Ancient world, the dissection of humans was taboo. This forced physicians to study the dissections of animals, instead. The great physician Galen (AD 129-216), for example, learned about anatomy mostly from autopsies and vivisections of animals, including pigs, dogs, and Barbary apes. Earlier in his career, Galen was able to do limited studies on human anatomy while he was a physician treating wounded gladiators at a gladiatorial school. Later in his career, however, he was unable to more thoroughly study human anatomic material. This possibly led to many of his misunderstandings about human anatomy and physiology. Galen used these cute little guys (a Barbary ape) for dissection and vivisection. Earlier in his career, Galen had wounded gladiators available for anatomical study. For a brief period more than four centuries before Galen, medical researchers were able to do human dissections in the city of Alexandria. The Greek physicians Herophilus of Calcedon and Erasistratus of Ceos were known to have done studies on human cadavers soon after 300 BCE. After their deaths, however, this tolerance for human dissection quickly disappeared in the Greco-Roman world and would not return in the Western World till 1,500 years later. Ancient Romano-Egyptian numismatic evidence, however, sheds some light on the source of this earlier brief but important tolerance for human dissection. Here is a Romano-Egyptian coin from Alexandria, Egypt minted AD 125/126 during the rule of Hadrian, several centuries after the anatomical studies of Herophilus and Erasistratus. On the reverse of the coin, one can see a canopic jar. (L DEKATOV is year 10.) Here's some background information about canopic jars: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canopic_jar These jars reflect the Ancient Egyptians’ familiarity and comfort with the extraction, storage, and preservation of human organs (used for the dead person’s preparation for the afterlife). With this background, it is not surprising that the city of Alexandria became possibly the only site for human anatomical research and dissection in the Ancient World. The Egyptian city of Alexandria was not only a site of research and education, but it was also unique in its tolerance of human dissection for research and training. This coin sheds insight about this important time and place in history. Guy Special thanks to Ardatirion for his help with this coin.
Bart, nice writeup. Is the goal of this article to tie the one coin to the medicine research of Alexandria, the general freedom in Alexandria to research and this coin as a part of that, or medical research in general in Alexandria and numismatic evidence? i am asking since if it is the third, I would look at a few more coins to illustrate what medical research used. There are Roman coins with depictions of medical instruments, and of course the symbol of medicine. Just a tip if it fits in with your article. Btw, there was an interesting article in the Celator a few months ago about Kyrenaica. It was also a medical center before the silphium ran out, and they believe the Apostle Paul may have been from there. Interesting article.
Thanks for reading and commenting on my post. The article I posted is very focused. I might write others in the future, however. I'm sorry I missed the article on Kyrenaica in the Celator. (It's unfortunate that they don't offer a digit version, yet. Then, again, it's only 2011.) More than a year ago, we had a rather heated discussion about the mythology of silphium at the non-numismatic site UNRV.com. http://www.unrv.com/forum/topic/11470-silphium-numismatic-evidence/ (Unfortunately to see the images, however, one has to be logged in. It is easy to do, however.) The reason I have little patience for modern coinage is that the historical background is de-emphasized while "who has the highest graded" becomes the focus of collecting with the moderns. Thanks, again, to everyone who read my post. guy
Good read thanks for shareing.Sure like the coin and even more now that i know some history behind it.
