One leaf of the Syriac Galen Palimpsest remains at St. Catherine's in the Sinai Desert in Egypt, which has the world's oldest continuously operating library. Credit Mark Schrope
Posted on 06/02/2015 10:45:22 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
A Syriac scholar at Philipps University in Marburg, Germany, Dr. Kessel was sitting in the library of the manuscript's owner, a wealthy collector of rare scientific material in Baltimore. At that moment, Dr. Kessel realized that just three weeks earlier, in a library at Harvard University, he had seen a single orphaned page that was too similar to these pages to be coincidence.
The manuscript he held contained a hidden translation of an ancient, influential medical text by Galen of Pergamon, a Greco-Roman physician and philosopher who died in 200 A.D. It was missing pages and Dr. Kessel was suddenly convinced one of them was in Boston...
Scholars are just beginning to pore over the text, the oldest known copy of Galen's "On the Mixtures and Powers of Simple Drugs." It may well provide new insights into medicine's roots and into the spread of this new science across the ancient world...
The manuscript held by Dr. Kessel that day was a palimpsest: older text covered up by newer writing. It was a common practice centuries ago, a medieval form of recycling. In this case, 11th-century Syrian scribes had scraped away Galen's medical text and had overwritten hymns on the parchment...
He found one missing page in a catalog from the Sacred and Imperial Monastery of the God-Trodden Mount of Sinai. It is known more commonly as St. Catherine's in the Sinai Desert in Egypt, which has the world's oldest continuously operating library.
Another leaf turned up at the National Library of France in Paris. And at the Vatican's vast library in Rome, he was able to identify the other three missing leaves, bringing the total to six.
The seventh missing page is believed to have been blank and was probably discarded.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
One leaf of the Syriac Galen Palimpsest remains at St. Catherine's in the Sinai Desert in Egypt, which has the world's oldest continuously operating library. Credit Mark Schrope
The digital Galen Syriac palimpsest
http://digitalgalen.net/
Hours 9:00 AM to 5:PM closed Sundays and holidays.
Very cool.
My local library would have discarded it as being “out of date”.
Has this been translated?
Has this been translated?...Yes. Basically it says “ Eat nine prunes and call me in the morning.”
FTA
“God-trodden Mt Sinai”
“Drink Ovaltine”
WHOA! Awesome news! I love to learn about medicinal herbs. They work and there are seldom side-effects, unlike today’s man-made bullets of dependency.
Much of Galen’s knowledge came from Ancient Egypt. The genius who started their medical college (as well as built the first pyramid and invented mummication was Imhotep—Vizer to Pharoah Dozer. (they were also drinking buddies)). He was a commoner, believed to be the smartest man in Egypt. Over the centuries they emassed a huge number of medicines and cures. We still do not know all they discovered—such as Leprosy—the scourge of the ancient world—was unknown in Egypt? Why?
I just looked this up. The works of Galen and Hippocrates have not been completely translated. Hard to believe.
And if I remember correctly Pharoah Dozer was over 4,000 years ago. Are you sure that there was no Leprosy in Egypt? I was just reading Leviticus the other day and there were a lot of details on how to test for Leprosy and what to do if it was discovered.
Yes, no Leprosy in Egypt—Why? no one knows. Also Egyptians lived longer than others in the ancient world —next to the Nile that flushes all the germs out of Africa. Leprosy hit the Hebrews hard—same as other groups. Much of the medical knowledge can be directly attributed to Imhotep and his medical college that operated for 2 thousand years. After about 1,000 years the Egyptians made Imhotep a God. Even Greeks worshiped him. One genius can have a profound impact on a people.
Leprosy can be prevented by bathing daily. The Egyptians had the Nile River. How convenient.
The Hebrews lived in the desert and water was not as readily available.
Anyway, Leprosy is caused by a bacteria and can be eliminated using an antibiotic.
Is that photo B.I. or A.C. ?
“Before Isis”
or
“Anno Caliphate”
?
He sounds like the Einstein of his age. I wonder if leprosy was one of those diseases that just showed up suddenly like AIDS, SARS, or the Ebola type viruses? Any sign that it existed earlier like in the DNA of ancient remains?
Imhotep was an artist, poet, builder, philosopher, surgeon and doctor. He was also the smartest man around. Pharaoh Dozer was smart enough to put him in charge. They became drinking buddies, good friends, and ruled Egypt together. He was a commoner—this didn’t happen much. The Egyptians used eye shadow make up (they didn’t have sunglasses) but the make up was infused with antibiotics—eye infections were almost unknown to them. This may have help keep leprosy away? They also were paranoid about keeping hospitals and patients clean! All items—were passed through the “Sacred Flame” before being used.
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