#sabine r. huebner

[aboutanancientenquiry]

Did the ancient Egyptians practice not only male, but also female circumcision? A text of historian of Antiquity Pr. Sabine R. Huebner (II: the Egyptian evidence)

Female Circumcision as a Rite de Passage in Egypt Continuity through the Millennia?

Sabine R. Huebner

2009, Journal of Egyptian History, 2

V. Documentary Evidence for Female Circumcision

The only documentary source from Egypt that explicitly mentions female circumcision is a petition from Ptolemaic Memphis dating to the year 163 BCE.67 The papyrus belongs to the archive of Ptolemaios, a katochos of the Serapeum at Memphis.68 Three minor girls, whose father had died and whose mother had abandoned them, had found refuge at the sanctuary serving the goddess Astarte. By begging (and maybe also by prostitution) the girls collected a not inconsiderable amount of money in the temple area. We hear from the youngest of the three sisters that she intended to use this money as a dowry, hoping to find a husband and leave the temple area once she reached marriageable age. The girls found paternal support in three men at the Astartieion, all friends of their late father. One of them was an Egyptian called Harmais, a fellow recluse of the goddess Astarte. He took on the role of protector of his late friend’s daughters; the youngest Tathemis even entrusted her savings, 1300 copper drachmas, to Harmais. When Tathemis was about to reach puberty and wanted to leave the temple area to get married, her estranged mother offered to prepare her daughter for marriage and asked Harmais to hand over to her all the girl’s money in order to cover the expenses. Harmais did so but in the following, the girl’s mother neglected to carry out any of the things she had promised to do, and instead embezzled her daughter’s fortune. Under these circumstances, the girl asked Harmais to assist her in starting legal proceedings against her mother in order to get her money back. Most probably together, they composed a formal Greek petition to the local strategos in order to force Nephoris to pay back her daughter’s money. It was Harmais, not Tathemis herself, who submitted this petition. In this petition Harmais comes to speak of the reason for what his friend’s daughter had collected the money, namely for a wedding dress, a dowry and a circumcision procedure. At this point Harmais apparently saw the need to explain this practice, obviously not assuming that the Greek strategos Dionysius to whom the petition was addressed would naturally know about “circumcision.” So he said: “circumcision as is the custom among the Egyptians.”69 

  Reitzenstein,70 Montserrat,71 and Rowlandson, who are some of the few who have dealt with this highly interesting papyrus more than in passing, did not regard this as evidence that female circumcision was regularly practiced among Egyptians in this period but rather attributed the practice to some religious ritual performed in the temple area of the Serapeum.72 Despite the clear wording of the petition, Montserrat prefers to understand this practice “as an anomalous case of foreign influence,” rather than “an Egyptian practice of long standing.”73 However, this petition, in a lucidity rarely found in these kind of documents, clearly states that Tathemis was about to leave the temple area in order to get married and the ritual had to be performed on her in order to prepare her for her new life. Tathemis clearly was about to get married outside the temple area, probably in Memphis where her mother lived. Circumcision, a dowry and a wedding garment are given as preconditions to attain proper marriage. Circumcision was seemingly  a custom performed on all girls, not a ritual connected with the  cult of Astarte or a medical procedure performed to correct malformations.

We further learn from this document that Harmais handed overt he money to the girl’s mother in Toth (i.e.August/September), and Nephoris, the mother, promised him that if she had not performed the operation by Mecheir (January/February) at the latest, she would pay him back the money plus a penalty for non-performance, amounting to 2400 drachmas in total. We may wonder if these dates somehow tell us something about a preferred period during the year when circumcision was usually practiced. We find a parallel in modern Egypt where girls are usually circumcised during the time of the Nile flood which is apparent from August to October. In a case study one elderly Coptic Orthodox woman from Cairo reported in 1980 about her circumcision more than 50 years earlier:

It was common practice to circumcise girls during the Nile flood, which was also the season for dates and guavas. I used to hear people around me explain that circumcision at this time of the year was good and helped the girl grow fast and develop.74

Another aspect becomes clear by this papyrus: female circumcision was clearly a duty parents were expected to take care of, and moreover, that girls attaining puberty would be willing to undergo this procedure in order to become marriageable. In this papyrus, circumcision is clearly presented as a precondition to marriage in Egyptian society, as was a dowry and a wedding garment. According to this text, circumcision was regarded as a positive, valuable practice and Tathemis had saved her money to get it. Indubitably, Egyptians looked on it as an integral part of their cultural and ethnic identity. The same attitude towards circumcision can be found among modern women in those areas where circumcision is still practiced today. Research surveys show that the majority of women consider female circumcision as a positive, valuable experience, and subject their daughters to it for the good of the girls, since it enhances their marriage prospects.

Source on the net with the entirety of the article with its notes and bibliography: https://href.li/?https://www.academia.edu/en/824401

Sabine Renate Huebner/Hübner (born 1976) is Professor of Ancient History at the University of Basel (Switzerland) and Head of Department.[1][2] She is an expert on the religious and social history of antiquity, particularly of Graeco-Roman Egypt. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabine_R._Huebner

And now some thoughts of mine on this very interesting text of Pr. Huebner that I have presented in two posts:

1/ I don’t agree with Pr. Huebner that Herodotus finds “revolting” the Egyptian custom of circumcision. Herodotus is a of course a Greek and circumcision is an alien custom for the Greeks (which, during the Hellenistic period, has become cause of frictions between Greeks and Jews). I think, however, that he tries to present circumcision to his Greek audience and readers in the best possible light, as an expression of the piousness of the Egyptians and of their effort to be as pure as possible, even at the expense of “comeliness” (I think that Pr. Huebner is totally right that the καθαρειότης of Herodotus’ text, translated to English as “cleanliness”, must be understood as both physical and religious). But the letter of Herodotus’ Greek text speaks about circumcision of the Egyptian males and I think that, if Herodotus wanted to convey that not only the Egyptian men, but also the Egyptian women used to be circumcised, he would have said it explicitly.

2/ The fifth century BCE hIstorian Xanthos was not Greek, but an hellenized Lydian, that’s why what he writes about female circumcision among the Lydians is of particular importance. But why Herodotus, who writes in the same period and describes the customs of the Lydians, does not write anything about the Lydian female circumcision? Would this mean that this subject was too “extreme” and “taboo” for him, that’s why he avoids saying anything about female circumcision in Egypt?

3/ I don’t think that there is any serious doubt that female circumcision was practiced as rite de passage in Egypt during the Ptolemaic period and later (even if this is seen by some Egyptologists as bad for the image of ancient Egypt and of their discipline). The testimonies presented by Pr. Huebner, namely those of several classical authors (among them illustrious doctors like Galen and persons like Philo, the Jewish philosopher of Greek culture, who spent his entire life in Egypt), as confirmed by the petition of an Egyptian person like Tathemis in the Ptolemaios papyrus, offer enough evidence to accept that female circumcision was an Egyptian custom in the same periods. The same is suggested by the fact that female circumcision was practiced till recently by the Coptic Christians in Egypt, as Pr. Huebner says. One could argue of course that perhaps there was not stict uniformity about female circumcision in the whole Egypt and in the Egyptian society in its entirety. But I think that there is no doubt that this practice was enough widespread to be seen by both foreigners and Egyptians (like Tathemis and  Harmais) as the custom of the country. 

However, I think that there is much uncertainty concerning female circumcision in previous periods of the Egyptian history and the time and ways of its adoption. But I think that we can admit for certain that the Ptolemaic period inherited as custom female circumcision from the Late Period (664-332 BCE), because both Agatharchides of Cnidos and the Ptolemaios papyrus present it in the 2nd century BCE as a well established and traditional custom of the country. Moreover, if the main foreign influence in the Egypt of the Ptolemaic period is Greek, one could exclude the hypothesis that this particular custom has been imported to Egypt during that period, as circumcision in general was for the Greeks something alien or even repulsive. Therefore, we must admit that female circumcision was practiced in Egypt already long before the Greek conquest of the country. But it is not at all sure, I think, that the Egyptians for instance of the New Kingdom practiced female circumcision, as we have no evidence from that period backing its existence and it would be wrong to assume that whatever is true for the Late Period Egypt is also ipso facto true for the Egypt of the Middle or the New Kingdom. The introduction of female circumcision during the Third Intermediate Period (under Nubian influence?) into Egypt is something possible. On the other hand, nothing excludes that, given the very fragmentary character of the Egyptian documentation we possess, female circumcision in Egypt is more ancient than the first millenium BCE and that it developped domestically, without foreign influence, having been adopted later under Egyptian influence by peoples living near Egypt.

4/  Many people in the West today believe that female circumcision is some kind of Islamic invention and a practice having its roots in the Islamic religion. But this is not true, because female circumcision is not an obligation imposed by the fundamental texts of the Islamic law (the Quran and the collections of reliable Hadiths), it was practiced already before Islam, and it is practiced even today or was practiced till recently by non Muslim populations (like the Copts). This is not refuted by the reality that female circumcision is today a problem mostly in Muslim countries (but not in all Muslim countries). Now, the question of the possible ancient Egyptian origin of female circumcision in Near East and in Africa is a very interesting one. But I think that neither the antiquity of this custom nor the fact that many women in history accepted it as a part of their lives can redeem it: female circumcision is a form of mutilation of the body of women and an extreme form of control of the female sexuality and, therefore, personality by a male-dominated society, that’s why it must be eliminated from the world.

[magica-pseudoacademica]

Greece - Chapters

Last edited 2019-08-27

* Chaniotis, Angelos. 2012. Constructing the Fear of the Gods: Epigraphic Evidence from Sanctuaries of Greece and Asia Minor. In Unveiling Emotions: Sources and Methods for the Study of Emotions in the Greek World. Angelos Chaniotis, ed. Pp. 205-233. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.

* –. 2003. The Divinity of Hellenistic Rulers. In A Companion to the Hellenistic World. A. Erskine, ed. Pp. 431-45. Oxford: Blackwell.

* –. “From Woman to Woman: Female Voices and Emotions in Dedications to Goddesses.” In Le donateur, l’offrande et la déesse: Systèmes votifs dans les sanctuaires de déesses du monde grec, edited by Clarisse Prêtre, 51-68. Liège, Belgium: Centre International d’Étude de la Religion Grecque Antique, 2009.

* –. “Illness and cures in the Greek propitiatory inscriptions and dedications of Lydia and Phrygia.” In Ancient Medicine in its Socio-Cultural Context: Papers Read at the Congress Held at Leiden University, 13-15 April 1992, vol. 2, edited by H. F. J. Horstmanshoff, Ph. J. van der Eijk, and P. H. Schrijvers, 323-344. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rodopi, 1993.

Griffiths, J. Gwyn. “Hellenistic Religions.” In Religions of Antiquity, edited by Robert M. Seltzer, pp. 237-258. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1989. 

* King, Charles W. “Afterlife, Greek and Roman.” In The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, 1st ed., edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine, and Sabine R. Huebner, 153-156. Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell, 2013.

Kolenkow, Anitra Bingham. “Persons of Power and Their Communities.” In Magic and Divination in the Ancient World, edited by Leda Ciraolo and Jonathan Seidel, 133-144. Leiden: Brill, 2002.

* Marconi, Clemente. “Mirror and Memory: Images of Ritaul Actions in Greek Temple Decoration.” In Heaven on Earth: Temples, Ritual, and Cosmic Symbolism in the Ancient World, edited by Deena Ragavan, 425-446. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2013.

Randolph, Kurt. “Mystery Religions.” In Religions of Antiquity, edited by Robert M. Seltzer, 272-285. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1989. 

* Robinson, Betsey A. “On the Rocks: Greek Mountains and Sacred Conversations.” In Heaven on Earth: Temples, Ritual, and Cosmic Symbolism in the Ancient World, edited by Deena Ragavan, 175-199. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2013.

* Scapini, Marianna. “The Symbolism of the Hornet in the Greek and Roman World” in Animals in Roman Religion and Myth, edited by Patricia A. Johnson, Attilio Mastrocinque, and Sophia Papaioannou, 431-445. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016.

Schwender, Gregg. “Under Homer’s Spell: Bilingualism, Oracular Magic, and the Michigan Excavation at Dimê.” In Magic and Divination in the Ancient World, edited by Leda Ciraolo and Jonathan Seidel, 107-118. Leiden: Brill, 2002.

Shankman, Steven. “Ghosts and Responsibility: The Hebrew Bible, Confucius, Plato.” In Rethinking Ghosts in World Religions, edited by Mu-chou Poo, 77-94. Leiden: Brill, 2009.

Spretnak, Charlene. “The Myth of Demeter and Persephone.” In Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality, edited by Judith Plaskow and Carol P. Christ, 72-76. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1989.

Struck, Peter T. “The Poet as Conjurer: Magic and Literary Theory in Late Antiquity.” In Magic and Divination in the Ancient World, edited by Leda Ciraolo and Jonathan Seidel, 119-131. Leiden: Brill, 2002.

* Tchoekha, Oksana. “Lunar Magic in the Modern Greek Folk Tradition.” In The Ritual Year 10: Magic in Rituals and Rituals in Magic, edited by Tatiana Minniyakhmetova and Kamila Velkoboraská, 323-334. Tartu, Estonia: ELM Scholarly Press, 2015.

* Vaz da Silva, Francisco. 2008. The Space/Time Coordinates of European Cosmology. In Space and TIme in Europe: East and West, Past and Present. Mirjam Mencej, ed. Pp. 23-34. Ljubljana: Univerza v Ljubljani, Filozofska fakulteta.

Vernant, Jean-Pierre. “Greek Religion.” Translated by Anne Marzin. In Religions of Antiquity, edited by Robert M. Seltzer, 163-192. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1989. 

[danieleneandermancini]

CAMBIAMENTI CLIMATICI, SICCITÀ E MIGRAZIONI NELLA TARDA ANTICHITÀ

CAMBIAMENTI CLIMATICI, SICCITÀ E MIGRAZIONI NELLA TARDA ANTICHITÀ

In uno studio dello scorso anno, ricercatori dell’Università di Tel Aviv e dell’Università di Haifa hanno dimostrato quanto i monsoni estivi, provenienti da Asia e da Africa, circa 125.000 anni fa potrebbero aver raggiunto le coste del Medio Oriente fornendo corridoi adeguati per la migrazione umana. Secondo Sabine R. Huebner, docente di storia antica all’Università di Basilea, in un nuovo…

[aboutanancientenquiry]

Did the ancient Egyptians practice not only male, but also female circumcision? A text of historian of Antiquity Pr. Sabine R. Huebner (I: the Classical sources)

As the text of Pr. Huebner is a long one, I will reproduce (in two posts) only its sections on the sources -classical and Egyptian- concerning female circumcision and I will provide a link for the article in its entirety, with its notes and bibliography. I will also add some thoughts of mine on this topic.

Female Circumcision as a Rite de Passage in Egypt Continuity through the Millennia?

Sabine R. Huebner

2009, Journal of Egyptian History, 2

“V. Female Circumcision in Classical Literature 

Our earliest evidence that might refer to female circumcision as an indigenous Egyptian practice can be found in the Histories of Herodotus, in his excursus on Egypt. Herodotus tells us that circumcision was widely practiced among common Egyptians. Scholarship is, however, divided on whether Herodotus can be credited with testifying to this procedure for males AND females. Herodotus says about circumcision and the reason why the Egyptians performed this, for him, revolting ritual:

They [all the Egyptians, not only the priests about which Herodotus speaks in the following] are religious beyond measure, more than any other people; and the following are among their customs. They drink from cups of bronze, which they clean out daily; this is done not by some, but by all. They are especially careful always to wear newly washed linen. They circumcise their privy parts [ αἰδοῖα] for cleanliness’ sake; for they would rather be clean than more becoming.35

  Αἰδοῖα can designate the privy parts of both men and women,36 and so it remains unclear whether Herodotus refers to the circumcision of both sexes or just that of males.37 It becomes clear, however, that at least Herodotus thought that all Egyptians were circumcised, not only the priests.38 Herodotus speaks about Egyptian religiosity, giving cleanliness as a reason for performing circumcision, which is clearly meant here in a physical as well as spiritual way. This concept of circumcision as leading to physical as well as spiritual cleanliness provides striking parallels to tahaara , “purification,” the Arabic designation for circumcision today.

Nonetheless we have to keep in mind that Herodotus wanted to stress the un-Greekness of the Egyptians here.39 Despite his other-wise open attitude towards other nations’ customs, he regarded circumcision as a sign of barbarism. Herodotus reports that also the Colchians, who allegedly took their origin from Egypt,40 practiced circumcision, as well as the Ethiopians, the Phoenicians and the Syrians of Palestine:

Egyptians and Ethiopians alone of all the races of men have practiced cir-cumcision from the first. The Phoenicians and the Syrians who dwell in Palestine confess themselves that they have learnt it from the Egyptians, and the Syrians about the river Thermodon and the river Parthenios, and the Macronians, who are their neighbors, say that they have learnt it lately from the Colchians. These are the only races of men who practice circumcision, and these evidently practice it in the same manner as the Egyptians. Of the Egyptians themselves however and the Ethiopians, I am not able to say which learnt from the other, for undoubtedly it is a most ancient custom; but that the other nations learnt it by intercourse with the Egyptians, this among others is to me a strong proof, namely that those of the Phoenicians who have intercourse with Hellas cease to follow the example of the Egyptians in this matter, and do not circumcise their children.41...

We have a contemporary witness to Herodotus, the Greek historian Xanthus of Lydia (5th cent. BCE), who mentions circumcision and speaks explicitly of the circumcision of women. According to Xanthus, not the Egyptians but the Lydians were the first who practiced female circumcision on women because they were of such wantonness. Adramyttes, the Lydian king, was the first who circumcised women in this way and used female eunuchs instead of male eunuchs. This passage does not tell us only about the alleged origin of this custom, but it also implies that in later times also other peoples practiced it and that it was performed in order to contain female licentiousness.42

Furthermore, Agatharchides of Cnidus, the second century BCE Greek geographer, reports that the so-called Troglodytes, a nomad tribe on the coast of the Read Sea,

circumcise their genital organs in a manner similar to the Egyptians except for the tribe called ‘Colobi’ because of what befalls them. For they, alone of the people living within the straits, cut off in infancy with razors the whole portion that others circumcise.43

We probably should assume, just for anatomical reasons, that Agartharchides is speaking here of female circumcision, which could be practiced in different degrees. If we believe Agatharchides’ report we learn that circumcision was widely practiced by the Troglodytes in the South as well as in other parts of Egypt, however in a way that did not involve full excision of the clitoris and the labia. The more radical form of female circumcision was, according to Agatharchides, only practiced by the Colobi (“the mutilated”), an indigenous tribe who, according to later reports of Strabo 44 and  Ptolemy,45 lived near the Gulf of Adulis (Gulf of Zula), in modern Eritrea.46

The Greek historian Diodorus who visited Egypt around 60–56 BC regarded female circumcision as a common practice in Egypt, performed however in varying degrees depending on local customs. Diodorus had probably read Agatharchides’ description of the Troglodytes when he claims that circumcision was practiced by all tribes of the Troglodytes as it was the custom elsewhere in Egypt, but that the Colobi “cut off everything while others only partly circumcised.”47

Interestingly the territory of the Colobi coincides with the region in which also in modern times the severest form of female circumcision, infibulation, is practiced. Herzog, a German anthropologist doing fieldwork in Egypt in the 1950s, observed that circumcision on females was practiced in different degrees in Egypt. In Lower Egypt, in the Delta up to Edfu, only the clitoris was circumcised, in Middle Egypt south of Edfu up to the region of Wadi Halfa, the clitoris including the labia minora were regularly excised. The severest form of female circumcision, infibulation, was practiced in Upper Egypt, south of Wadi Halfa, as well as in the neighboring regions of Eritrea, Nubia and Sudan.48 If we in fact should be able to draw a line from late Pharaonic times to modern day, this would tell us a tremendous amount about the persistence of deeply embedded indigenous rituals and practices.

It is remarkable that despite the current interest in this issue in Western circles, the historical origins of female circumcision are barely researched.49 Montserrat has in fact considered the possibility that these therapeuteria festivals, mentioned in the four papyri adduced above, could have their explanation in a thanksgiving party for a girl’s recovery from circumcision, but immediately abandoned this theory because he did not believe that female circumcision was commonly practiced in Graeco-Roman Egypt.50 The reason that led Montserrat to repudiate the theory that female circumcision went back to an indigenous Egyptian custom is the fact that so far no traces of circumcision have been found on female mummies.51 Drawing on parallels from male circumcision as a prerequisite to entering the priestly caste, he argues that if not even royal female mummies, who served as high priestesses, exhibited these marks, female circumcision was most probably not practiced at all. Reports on whether or not traces of circumcision have been found on female mummies are inconsistent. The main problem is here that scholars who inspected these mummies did not state which degree of circumcision they were actually looking for. While the severest form, type III, the so-called infibulation, would have been quite obvious,a circumcision of merely the clitoris should be hard to detect. Quack in a forthcoming article provides an excellent overview of the literature.52 Moreover, Montserrat maintains that another strong argument against female circumcision as a regular practice is the lack of any evidence in medical texts of the dynastic and subsequent periods that described treatments of conditions and complications that went hand-in-hand with circumcision.53 He argues that “the medical employment of vaginal contraceptive pessaries,” described in ancient sources, and “the insertion of fairly large objects such as onions and heads of garlic for cures and birth prognoses would be difficult if the women were badly scarred and vulvally contracted from genital operations.”54 However, with this argument he seems to think again only of the severest form of circumcision, infibulation, which often causes severe pain and a risk for hemorrhage, local and systemic infections, ulcers, and as long-term complications repeated urinary infections, obstruction of menstrual flow leading to frequent reproductive tract infections and infertility, and prolonged and obstructed labor. We know from modern accounts that often the woman has to be “cut open” on the wedding night, or to allow birthing to take place. However, as Agatharchides and others report, only a light form of circumcision seems to have been in use, probably comparable to type I described above, the removing of parts of or the whole clitoris, not however the labia minora or maiora. The account of Aëtius of Amida, the fifth-century physician who received his education at the medical school in Alexandria, gives us probably a fairly accurate description of the usual procedure:

The operation is accomplished in this manner. They cause the girl to be seated on a stool, and a strong young man standing behind her places his forearms beneath her thighs and buttocks, holding fast her legs and her whole body. The operator standing in front of her seizes her clitoris with a wide-mouthed forceps, pulling it out with the left hand, whilst with his right hand he cuts it off with the teeth of the forceps.55

Other Greek physicians who visited Egypt also described the same procedure, explaining that its purpose was the reduction of female sexual desire caused by the enlargement of the clitoris from its rubbing on the women’s clothing. Galen, the second-century Greek physician from Pergamum (129– ca.200 CE), Soranus, a Greek from second-century Ephesus, who according to the Suda practiced like Galen first in Alexandria and subsequently in Rome, and finally the Byzantine doctor Aëtius of Amida, quoted above, all describe the removal of the clitoris as an Egyptian custom performed on young girls before marriage.56

As Agatharchides and later Diodorus report, only the Colobi in southern Egypt practiced the more severe form, the cutting out of the clitoris and the labia maiora and minora in their entirety, the most radical form of female circumcision which often is accompanied by the later sewing together of the whole area, the practice that today is called infibulation and practiced in southern Egypt, Eritrea and the Sudan. If normally not the total excision of the clitoris and the labia minora was performed, but rather only the clitoris circumcised, neither problems with intercourse nor giving birth should have been expected once the healing process was completed. So, it should be no surprise that medical handbooks from ancient Egypt are silent about medical complications from female circumcision.57

Further evidence for the widespread custom of circumcising both sexes can be found in Philo (first century BCE) who, commenting on Genesis 17:10, says,

Why does He command that only the males be circumcised? In the firstplace, the Egyptians by the custom of their country circumcise the marriageable young man and marriageable maid in the fourteenth (year) of their age, when the male begins to get seed, and the female to have a men-strualflow.58

Philo spent his whole life in Alexandria, and we should assume that his account rested on autopsy. He tells us that it was an Egyptian practice and according to his words not practiced in the Jewish community in Alexandria. Ambrosius in the fourth centuryclearly depends on Philo when he says:

For this reason, the Egyptians circumcise their males in their fourteenth year, and it is said that also their females are circumcised in that year, because in this year the manly desire begins to burn, and in girls the menstruation has its onset. The law, however, only demands to circumcise the male flesh, since men have a stronger desire to mix with women (than women with men).59

It is well known that Ambrose drew extensively upon Philo, his account thus cannot be regarded as evidence that this practice went on in Egypt in his own time.60

The Greek geographer Strabo who visited Egypt from about 29–26 BCE is another witness for this custom. Strabo, taking Herodotus’ account of Egypt as a point of reference, often doubts Herodotus’ credibility.61 However, he nonetheless agrees with the latter’s report about the Egyptian custom of circumcision:

One of the customs most zealously observed among the Egyptians is this, that they rear every child that is born, and circumcise the males, and excise the females (τὰ θήλεα ἐκτέμνειν ), as is also customary among the Jews, who are also Aegyptians in origin, as I have already stated in my account of them.62

The first statement that the Egyptians raised every child has been often referred to in discussions about child exposure in antiquity;63 his second claim that female circumcision was regularly practiced in Roman Egypt has gone, however, largely uncommented. We know that Strabo spent several years in Alexandria, and as a member of the entourage of the prefect of Egypt, Aelius Gallus travelled extensively throughout the land, so that his reports must be based on autopsy.64 He describes the various religious festivals and particularly the social aspects and the merry making as opposed to the more formal features, and strives for being critical and thorough.65 Strabo further tells us here that female circumcision was not only widespread in Egypt itself but also a custom among the Jews in Jerusalem, who were of Egyptian origin.66 With this account Strabo in fact provides us with evidence that the indigenous Egyptians even under a different religion, i.e. Judaism, continued to practice female circumcision. This process would therefore mirror the process that was to take place a couple of centuries later, when the indigenous Egyptian population converted to Christianity and later Islam. Female circumcision should therefore be seen as a ritual firmly embedded among the indigenous population’s cultural practice, quite independent from religious affiliation.”

Source: https://www.academia.edu/en/824401

[magica-pseudoacademica]

Rome

Last edited 2020-01-25

Articles

* Dzino, Danijel. “The Cult of Silvanus: Rethinking Provincial Identities in Roman Dalmatia.” Vjesnik arheološkog muzeja u Zagrebu 45, no. 1 (2012): 261-279.

* Hekster, Olivier and John Rich. “Octavian and the Thunderbolt: The Temple of Apollo Palatinus and Roman Traditions of Temple Building.” Classical Quarterly 56, no. 1 (2006): 149-168.

* King, Charles W. “The Organization of Roman Religious Beliefs.” Classical Antiquity 22, no. 2 (October 2005): 275-312.

Chapters

Chadwick, Adrian M. “Doorways, ditches, and dead dogs: excavating and recording material manifestations of practical magic amongst later prehistoric Romano-British communities.” In The Materiality of Magic: an artifactual investigation into ritual practices and popular beliefs, edited by Ceri Houlbrook and Natalie Armitage, 37-64. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2015.

* Chaniotis, Angelos. “The Dynamics of Rituals in the Roman Empire.” In Ritual Dynamics and Religious Change in the Roman Empire: Proceedings of the Eighth Workshop of the International Network Impact of Empire (Heidelberg, July 5-7, 2007), edited by O. Hekster, S. Schmidt-Hofner, and C. Witschel, 3-29. Leiden: Brill, 2009.

Gnoli, Gherardo. “Mithraism.” In Religions of Antiquity, edited by Robert M. Seltzer, 301-304. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1989. 

* Hänninen, Marja-Leena. “Domestic Cult and the Construction of an Ideal Roman Peasant Family.” In Religious Participation in Ancient and Medieval Societies: Rituals, Interaction and Identity, edited by Sari Katajala-Peltomaa and Ville Vuolanto, 39-49. Rome, Italy: Suomen Rooman-Instituutti, 2013.

* Hekster, Olivier. “Honouring Ancestors: The Dynamic of Deification.” In Ritual Dynamics and Religious Change in the Roman Empire Proceedings of the Eighth Workshop of the International Network Impact of Empire (Heidelberg, July 5-7, 2007), edited by O. Hekster, Sebastian Schmidt-Hofner, and Christian Witschel, 95-110. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2009.

* King, Charles W. “Afterlife, Greek and Roman.” In The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, 1st ed., edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine, and Sabine R. Huebner, 153-156. Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell, 2013. 

* --. “Funerary cult, Roman.” In The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Broderson, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine, and Sabine R. Huebner, 2791-2794. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2013.

* --. “Mundus.” In The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine, and Sabine R. Huebner, 4622. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2013.

* --. “Proserpina.” In The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine, and Sabine R. Huebner, 5586-5587. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2013.

* --. “The Roman Manes: The Dead as Gods.” In Rethinking Ghosts in World Religions, edited by Mu-chou Poo, 95-114. Leiden: Brill, 2009.

Momigliano, Arnaldo. “Roman Religion of the Imperial Period.” In Religions of Antiquity, edited by Robert M. Seltzer, pp. 218-233. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1989. 

Schilling, Robert. “Roman Religion to 100 BCE.” In Religions of Antiquity, edited by Robert M. Seltzer, pp. 193-217. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1989.

* Wilson, Andrew. “Romanizing Baal: The Art of Saturn Worship in North Africa,” in Proceedings of the 8th International Colloquium on Problems of Roman Provincial Art, edited by Mirjana Sanader, 403-408. Zagreb, Croatia: Tehnicka Knija, 2005.

Journals

* CBA Research Reports

* Dissertationes Archaeologicae

* Fasti Online

Webpages and Websites

* Bowman, A. K. “Curse Tablets of Roman Britain.” Oxford University. http://curses.csad.ox.ac.uk/index.shtml (accessed Feb. 25, 2018).

* Crane, Gregory R. “Perseus Digital Library.” Tufts University. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/ (accessed March 1, 2018).

* The J. Paul Getty Museum

* Kosmos Society

* Lexicity

* Scalfe, Ross. “The Stoa Consortium.” The Stoa Consortium. http://www.stoa.org/about (accessed March 1, 2018).