In the Hands of the God or in the Depths of a Well? Examining the Evolution of Disability in the Ancient Mediterranean Basin

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This study presents a cross-cultural comparison of disability in ancient Greece, Rome, and Egypt from the beginning of the Bronze Age to the 4th century CE. I use archaeological and textual data to examine the temporal evolution of notions of disability in these three cultures. Results suggest that prior to Macedonian and Roman imperial expansion, Egypt’s notions of disability were generated through a model of supernatural significance. As this model developed throughout time, physically impaired individuals were increasingly elevated as functionally specialized, unique, and eventually associated with the divine. In contrast, Greece and Rome developed notions of disability largely through a socio-political model in which physical impairments were only seen as debilitating if they did not contribute appropriately to society. The specific metric for being "disabled" changed in relation to when the socio-political system of Greece and Rome changed. While Egypt’s model of disability may seem to lend itself more towards a "positive" outlook on the physically impaired, both models actually provided room for compliments and derision of the physically impaired. Finally, both models became intermixed as cultural diffusion occurred via Macedonian and Roman imperialism.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25614