Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Text of the Only Possible Illustration of Circumcision in Egypt During the Old Kingdom


Circumcision was not unique to the Israelites, and many cultures before Abraham practised such. The following comes from the only possible illustration of circumcision in Egypt during the Old Kingdom period (ca. 2700-2170 BC) and is from the Tomb of Ankhmahor at Saqqara:

Left scene.
Above the man with the stone: Hold him still; don’t let him faint resist
The man holding the “patient”: I’ll do as you wish.
Right scene.
The “patient”: Cut well.
The man with the knife: I shall do it without pain. (Nigel C. Strudwick, Texts from the Pyramid Age [Writing from the Ancient World; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005], 403)

One hopes that the man with the knife had a steady hand . . . ;-)