5.1 Africa: 3000 to 1500 b.c.  (Page 3/3)

About 1,567 B.C. another Thebian king, Kamose, started a war of liberation from upper Egypt and recovered most of the territory from the invader Semites. The job was completed by his brother, Amosis I, a few years later. The Hyksos movement probably presented the final upheaval in the Amorite series of expansions that will be discussed under the section on the NEAR EAST, below. It was probably at the time of this Semitic domination that the Biblical Joseph moved into Egypt (Ref. 231 , 122 , 8 , 136 )

The bow-drill was used in Egypt from 2,500 B.C. on and rules of measurement, the plumb-line, construction of a right angle and the shaping of stones with a mason’s square were all features of this society. Ahmes calculated the area of a circle about 1,600 B.C. and Ptah-Hotep was a great philosopher of the 3rd millennium B.C. The Middle Kingdom was also a period of fine craftsmanship. A beer called haq was commonly drunk and was made from red barley of the Nile valley. Bread was supposedly also first made here in the dynastic period because of the development of a new kind of wheat which could be threshed without the application of heat. The ass, of African origin, was first used for regular trade between Egypt and Iraq sometime after 2,000 B.C.

Our knowledge of Egyptian medicine (except for commentaries from Greek and Roman writers) comes from seven medical papyruses discovered in the last century. The oldest of these, the fragmentary Kahun Papyrus, deals with veterinary medicine and women's diseases. The next, dating to about the 17th century B.C., is concerned with surgical matters beginning at the top of the head and working down to the mid-chest. The longest of the papers, the George Ebers Papyrus, dates to about the 16th century B.C. and is an extensive therapeutic text written a millennium before Hippocrates and containing prescriptions dating back to 3,700 B.C. It was probably a copy of older documents. This papyrus, twelve inches wide, unwinds to a length of sixty-six feet. Egyptians rather routinely removed all internal organs after death, saving them in special containers as the body proper was mummified, but they knew very little about the functions of these organs. Although they paid much attention to cleanliness, having almost a national fetish of keeping the gastro-intestinal tract clean with multiple purges, emetics and enemas of every conceivable kind, disease was still rampant. Mummies show evidence of tuberculosis of the spine with accompanying spinal deformities and cold abscesses, club foot, polio and measles, not to mention the undoubted parasitic infestations they must have obtained, and still do, from the Nile. Eye diseases, particularly trachoma, leading to blindness, were and are still common in Egypt. It responds some to copper preparations and it is interesting that Egyptian women wore green eye make-up, probably made from copper salts. In general, treatment was a mixture of religio-magical gestures and the use of an extensive pharmacopoeia and some limited surgical procedures such as cauterization, circumcision and occasional trepanning of the skull, if indeed, this was actually a medical procedure. Dentistry was advanced with prosthesis construction as early as 2,600 B.C. Egyptian physicians had good reputations throughout the ancient world and at home. There was apparently a definite medical hierarchy, beginning at the top with the Pharaoh's physician. Special training schools for physicians were attached to temples (Ref. 211 , 125 , 15 , 213 ). Additional Notes

North central and northwest africa

The Hamitic Berbers had a well established Neolithic Culture in a large area along the coast of North Africa, but they had no copper. They were probably descendants of the ancient Mediterranean peoples and related to the Iberians and Basques. There were two major subgroups:

• The nomadic Tauregs of the desert who maintained strict hereditary classes, with an ancient alphabet and using artistic trappings on their camels and jewelry on themselves, and
• The Kabyles , particularly of Algeria, living as a settled tribe, long famous for pottery made without the use of the wheel. (Ref. 46 , 19 )

Dessication of the Sahara set in about 3,000 to 2,500 B.C., causing some pastoralists to move into the jungles of the Nile Valley and others to move south with the rains. This shift to arid conditions in the Sahara may have stimulated the emergence of civilization in Egypt. By 2,000 B.C., as reflected in the Sahara rock drawings, rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses and giraffes had already vanished from this area. Southward expansion of cereal-growing occurred during the 2nd millennium B.C. as millet and sorghum were domesticated as tropical crops (Ref. 215 , 176 , 8 )

Subsaharan africa

The southern shift of the cereal-growing belt, due to the change in the Sahara climate, resulted in an increase of the Negro populations. (Ref. 8 )

Forward to Africa: 1500 to 1000 B.C.