Speaking about ‘‘science’’ in ancient Egypt requires a preliminary discussion of the meaning of this term. If we strictly adhere to the canonical idea of science as a universal and objective truth, then not much would be classified as such prior to the seventeenth century or, according to some scholars, even the early nineteenth century (Cunningham 1988). When dealing with the ancient world and with non-Western cultures, however, it is necessary to adopt a more flexible approach, which is also more respectful of their intrinsic historical development. Every culture legitimately developed its own way of defining, controlling, and predicting natural events which often mixed magic, science, and religion; the separation between rationality and magic, and the subsequent prominence given to the former, is uniquely European (Selin 2000: vi). The criteria for defining and studying science in history tend nowadays to avoid absolute standards and to acknowledge instead the importance of the locally specific nature of knowledge. In this way, the importance of local differences is re-evaluated rather than dismissed because they do not correspond to universal concepts (Turnbull 2000; Rochberg 2004: 14-15).
As far as ancient cultures are concerned, from the time of Aristotle onwards ‘‘natural philosophy’’ may act as an alternative definition for science in several fields relating to the observation and understanding of the physical world. In applying this discussion to ancient Egypt, however, this approach would not have been particularly useful, for two main reasons. First of all, mathematics should have been treated separately, since it is not regarded as part of natural science. Secondly, the concept of natural science is Greek, and is, therefore, as anachronistic for ancient Egypt as the term ‘‘science’’ in its strictest meaning (Grant 2007: chapter 1, see also 160). The choice was, therefore, made to organize this chapter on the basis of our modern terminology. Our aim is to communicate among ourselves, and, therefore, the adoption of a recognizable classification system is fully legitimate, but this is applicable under one strict condition: that we do not forget that the ancient point of view might have been (slightly or significantly) different. This must be true both for technical and methodological issues. For example, our approach, understanding, and appreciation of ancient measuring instruments are often hindered by our modern, extremely high expectations of their accuracy (Symons 2000).
In general, it is important to bear in mind that only in a few cases do we know if and how the ancient Egyptians systematically organized their knowledge, and whether they recognized a certain field as a distinct discipline. The absence of sources should be treated with extreme care: implying that the absence of ‘‘treatises’’ means that no corresponding disciplines existed may be as dangerous as implying that sources, now-lost, could revolutionize our perception of the ancient culture. The preservation of the ancient sources, especially in case of fragile papyri, is very uneven and depended, in many cases, on pure chance. The discovery of new sources would certainly improve our knowledge, but this expectation should not be used as an alibi to dismiss the value of the documents that have already been found (as happened in the past, for instance, with mathematics). This chapter will, therefore, contain a brief survey of what we know of how the ancient Egyptians dealt with various fields. As we shall see, the categories of ‘‘science’’ and ‘‘technology’’ may act as complementary guides: when one cannot stretch any further, the other will lead us to explore the complexity of ancient knowledge.
World History
