Iconographical Sources for the History of Greek Medicine of the Prehistoric and Archaic Periods (before c. 500 BC)
Abstract
There are four categories of sources dealing with the prehistoric and Archaic periods of Greek history of medicine. These are anthropological sources (human skeletal remains - the most important and numerous category with the highest scientific value), literary sources (administrative and economic records of the prehistoric and a few literary works of the archaic period), and archaeological sources (artefacts or other remains gained during the archaeological excavations - mainly medical instruments, organic residues of remedies and remains of architecture).
The fourth category, described by this paper, consists of iconographical sources: artistic representations of ill bodies or their parts, medical interventions, and healing deities or heroes. Chronologically, they all belong to a range from the Neolithic era through the Bronze Age (and Archaic period to 500 BC.
The representation of illness and ill people has had a long tradition in Greece, appearing in the Neolithic for the first time. In the period under study (before 500 BC), it appears mostly in the terracotta statuettes, but the depictions in vase painting, toreutics, sculpture, and fresco art are also important.
Iconographical sources depict a vast range of illnesses and pathologies, including those affecting soft tissue, and also show a good knowledge of anatomy already in the prehistoric period. On their basis it's also possible to assume about the existence and appearance of the deities and heroes associated with healing.
Iconographical sources for the history of medicine of the studied period encompass several aspects: religious, caring, iconographical, and daily preventative ones.