Medicines of the Plagues of Ancient Egypt: Plants & Weeds

a reply to: MapMistress

I don't know. Just looking here, Medicinal and Aromatic Plants of the Middle-East (edited by Zohara Yaniv and Nativ Duda), via google books, and they suggest that hyssop was more a means of application. That the dried branches were used "brush-like", and that there was a particular emphasis on the belief that the tiny hairs on the leaves prevented coagulation. It was similarly dipped in water and used for sprinkling of water in a purification ritual.

My best suggestion would be to identify if any plants actually have the properties you are seeking, as stand alones or as activated compunds, or whether what is being described is a general, and more complex form of purification ceremony. I would have thought that fumigation by smoke (dung or incense) would have been a preferred means of dealing with most insect infestations, especially biting fliers. A combination of plants in a distillation may work, and an anticoagulant would make it easier to paint with blood.

There are a variety of option to explore, I think, but that's all I can think of at this point. Sorry that I couldn't be more helpful.

originally posted by: MapMistress

originally posted by: Byrd


No Hebrew slaves in Egypt at that time. There were Hebrew slaves in Ptolemaic times but not much before that.

I thank you for your info on locusts and cannabis.

But Byrd, that's a terribly anti-Semite statement. The idea that there were no slaves in Egypt either comes from hippies out of touch with reality or comes from the present Muslim government of Egypt, who is anti-Jewish.

It comes from the archaeological record.

In brief:
* the only people who could afford slaves were the pharaoh and the nobles (and they were darn few in number)
* there was no need for slaves - the whole population was essentially slaves (not REALLY... but under pharaoh's complete control. They could and did demand that entire villages come work on their royal projects.
* Egypt gets its first real army in the Middle Kingdom and occasionally soldiers are rewarded with slaves.
* there are no Jews until the Iron Age, actually (when Judaism arises)
* the first mention of the Jews is on the Merimptah Stele, around 1200 BC. (and they are minor players and not slaves)
* the first real evidence for them in Egypt is a cache of materials dated to 650 BC and thereabouts - Jewish soldiers with Ashurbanipal.

...I can give you more documentation later if you like.

It's a racist statement to tell all the Jews that they were never slaves.

Actually, the Babylonian Captivity is NOT fiction.

It's not that there are no mass graves for slaves in Egypt, because there are most definitely mass graves in Egypt. The Muslim government will never recognize that they are Jewish graves.

* there aren't many mass human graves (I can't think of any, actually.)
* this isn't the Muslim government... it's the archaeologists and even the Biblical archaeologists. Almost all are Christian, as far as I know.

Besides, most of the copper mines that the slaves worked in had sea-side cities along the Suez gulf.

The copper mines are in the desert -generally in the Western desert.

Those cities lay underwater in the Suez at minus -12 meters to minus -35 meters below present sea level.

You may be thinking of Alexandria, which has subsided. I don't know of any evidence of copper mines in the Suez. The Suez was dredged out by the (Christian) British Army within the past 200 years.

They drill oil now through those sunken slave cities, copper miners for the purpose of making bronze in the bronze age. I would think Egyptian bronze and copper artifacts would be worth more money, but the oil companies drilling there don't care.

Copper mines are well attested with records of what was sent and from where. None seem to match any "sunken city" scenario.

Do you have a source?

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: MapMistress

It's a racist statement to tell all the Jews that they were never slaves.

Is there a Jewish race?

In any case Byrd did not say that there were no Hebrew slaves, did she?

There weren't any much before 650 BC. After that, yes.

(BTW, the mention of the Egyptians having chariots also dates the event to much later. Horses and chariots don't do well on desert sand and weren't in wide usage. Rameses the Great used them at Kadesh but they were more lucky than talented in combat. Tut's chariots were more for show - there's no chariotry army of his. As I recall, he's one of the first pharaohs to use chariots.

a reply to: Byrd
Camels don't take to pulling chariots?

(Can't get rid of the visual, can you?)

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Byrd
Camels don't take to pulling chariots?

(Can't get rid of the visual, can you?)

Luckily for me, I actually DO have aphantasia.

(seriously, I do. I've known other artists who also have this condition.)

originally posted by: Byrd

* there was no need for slaves - the whole population was essentially slaves (not REALLY... but under pharaoh's complete control. They could and did demand that entire villages come work on their royal projects.
* Egypt gets its first real army in the Middle Kingdom and occasionally soldiers are rewarded with slaves.
* there are no Jews until the Iron Age, actually (when Judaism arises)
* the first mention of the Jews is on the Merimptah Stele, around 1200 BC. (and they are minor players and not slaves)
* the first real evidence for them in Egypt is a cache of materials dated to 650 BC and thereabouts - Jewish soldiers with Ashurbanipal.

Is that the hippie idea of Egypt? Claiming there's no slaves. Gimme a break. Egypt was full of slaves of different ethnic backgrounds.

As for Jewish history, they date their Egyptian slavery at c. 1450 B.C.E. And you deny all Jewish history claiming they were slaves in Egypt during the time of their own kings.

The Jews were slaves in Egypt PRIOR to the formation of their own kingdom, which you already noted was mentioned on the Merimptah Steele, 1200 BCE. So that means by your own example, Jews were slaves in Egypt prior to 1200 BCE.

The copper mines are in the desert -generally in the Western desert.

The source you quoted is invalid. It is the EASTERN DESERT , not western.

4 major copper mines are located in the eastern desert bordering the Suez Gulf and there are also copper mines on the other side of the Suez Gulf on the Sinai Peninsula.

Map of Copper Mines in Egypt: Eastern Desert & Suez Gulf

2nd Source: Map of Copper Mines in Egypt, Eastern Desert and Suez Gulf

And during the Bronze Age in the 18th and 19th dynasties, it was slaves who worked the copper mines, including Jewish slaves. The original Suez canal was funded by copper to ship the copper inland by boat from the Suez region inland into Egypt, along side the Heliopolis branch of the Nile. And slaves built those original ancient canals to ship the copper to make bronze.

Those cities lay underwater in the Suez at minus -12 meters to minus -35 meters below present sea level.

You may be thinking of Alexandria, which has subsided. I don't know of any evidence of copper mines in the Suez.

I guess you aren't thinking about what I posted. You acknowledge that Alexandria, the Roman empire section of Alexandria sits at minus -8 to -12 meters below present sea level, right? On that we agree.

So older sunken cities, older than the Roman Empire have to be below minus -12 meters. That includes sunken bronze age cities. They are all below minus -12 meters below present sea level.

Since the copper mines are in the eastern desert and bordering the Suez Gulf, that means all bronze age cities are at a depth below minus -12 meters in the Suez Gulf. Some of which they drill oil through now. And since the oil companies have rights to what's underwater, there is no archeology. Oil companies own it.

Those bronze age cities are there, underwater. But the oil companies won't give up their oil for archeologists. Even though the bronze age artifacts might be worth more money than their oil.

Map of Oil Concession Rights in the Suez Gulf

So compare the map above of oil ownership along the Suez Gulf-eastern desert and compare it with the 2 maps above of copper mines.

They are drilling oil through the sunken bronze age cities.