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The Substance called Didi by the Ancient Egyptians

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Warren R. Dawson
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Extract

In the Egyptian medical papyri, as well as in certain other texts, there occurs a substance called didi which for many years was understood to mean the fruits of the mandragora or mandrake. This equation didi = mandrake arose out of the opinion stated in his dictionary by Brugsch that the word didi was akin to the Hebrew doudaim “mandrake”. Brugsch, some years after the publication of the supplement to his dictionary (vol. vii, 1882), reaffirmed his opinion in a special article with the title “Die Alraune als altägyptishe Zauberpflanze”, which appeared in 1891. From that time the identification was accepted without question until in 1904 M. Henri Gauthier published an important article in which he showed quite conclusively that didi was not the mandrake, nor even a plant at all, but a mineral. It does not in the least detract from the importance and value of M. Gauthier's paper that it is now necessary to go over the ground once again, because further evidence has become available since its publication. We will first, therefore, enumerate the texts in which the word didi occurs.

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Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 59 , Issue 3 , July 1927 , pp. 497 - 503
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1927

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References

page 497 note 1 Hieroglyphisch-demotisches Wörterbuch, Suppl., Band vii, p. 1379.

page 497 note 2 Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache, Bd. 29 (1891), pp. 31–3.

page 497 note 3 “Le Nom Hiéroglyphique de l' Argile Rouge d' Eléphantine,” in the Revue Egyptologique, t. xi, 1904, pp. 1–15Google Scholar.

page 497 note 4 The numbers in parentheses following the references to Ebers, Hearst, and Berlin medical papyri refer to those of Wreszinski's edition of these texts, Die Medezin der alten Ägypter, Bd. i–iii, 1909–13.

page 498 note 1 The word s, formerly understood to mean stercus, is evidently the brain. In Ebers 97/8 (834) it is spelt is. Cf. Urkunden, iv, p. 84, line 8 (Tombos Stela).

page 498 note 2 Šw.t nt mt. Perhaps something like the “quaking of the sinews” in mediaeval medical works.

page 499 note 1 An unidentified disease. It is treated by means of incantations in the London Medical Papyrus, 3/1 ff. (6) and 4/1 ft. (10) and in Pap. Berlin 3027 (Mutter und Kind), 1/4.

page 499 note 2 In an unpublished papyrus of the Middle Kingdom, didi occurs in four prescriptions for relaxing the muscles, etc., similar to those above noted in the Hearst and Ebers Papyri.

page 500 note 1 See my article on the number seven, in Ægyptus, to appear shortly (1927).

page 501 note 1 Newberry, , in Appendix II of Carter's Tomb of Tutankhamen, vol. ii, p. 193Google Scholar.

page 501 note 2 Thompson, Campbell, Assyrian Herbal, pp. 187–90Google Scholar.

page 501 note 3 E.g.Wreszinski, , Die Medezin der alten Ägypter (1909–1912), Bd. i, p. 68Google Scholar; Bd. ii, pp. 95, 96, 97, 110, 115,127, 128. Newberry, op. cit., p. 194.

page 501 note 4 Gauthier, op. cit., pp. 7–9.

page 503 note 1 Chassinat, , Un Papyrus Médical Copte, pp. 91, 150, 158Google Scholar.

page 503 note 2 Dioscorides, , De Materia Medica, V, 144Google Scholar.

page 503 note 3 Dioscorides, loc. cit.; Oribasius, De Simplicibus, s.v. “Lapis hæmatites”; Pliny, , Natural History, xxxvi, 37Google Scholar; el-Beithar, Ibn (ed. Leclero, ), Traité des Simples, vol. iii, p. 315Google Scholar (No. 1267, Hadjer ed-dem, “pierre de sang”); Budge, , Syrian Anatomy, etc.: the Book of Medicines, vol. ii, pp. 90 ff.Google Scholar In later times it was believed to be good for hæmorrhage, and that it derived its name from this property. See Lemery, , Traité des Drogues Simples, 3rd ed., Paris, 1723, p. 388Google Scholar.