Was the Yellow Emperor a Mesopotamian Priest Physician?

 

The Yellow Emperor as depicted in the album Portraits of Famous Men c.1900 AD.

Housed in the Philadelphia Museum of Art

A member of the Bible and Anthropology Facebook group has asked an excellent question about the origin of Chinese medicine and a possible connection to the Yellow Emperor. He notes that according to the Book of Jubilees knowledge of medicine was given to Noah prior to the flood. This was then passed on the Shem, who has been said to be the grandfather of China's Yellow Emperor.

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

The traders and merchants of the ancient world did business along the great rivers. That is why the oldest settlements are along major rivers in Africa, Mesopotamia, India, and China. The traders carried valuable commodities as well as information and technologies. Some were royal officials who acted as emissaries between rulers. Adventurers and itinerant priests traveled with the traders for safety. In the ancient world healing was the work of priests. 

Noah and his descendants were members of a ruler-priest caste. However, Shem could not be the Yellow Emperor's grandfather because these two men lived at least 1100 years apart.

In the ancient world, only members of the elite strata of society learned and practiced medicine. One of the earliest known medical practitioners was Eanach (Enoch). He served the Pharaoh as his priest-physician, a wab sxmt (wab sekhmet). Eanach lived around 3000 B.C. and is said to have "healed the pharaoh's nostrils." Likely, this means that he performed a healing ritual that involved placing the cross-like Ankh against the Pharaoh's nose and offering prayers for his healing.

The Mesopotamian priest-physician was called azu in Akkadian, the oldest known Semitic language. Their skills probably were learned from the early Nilotic ruler-priests who moved into Mesopotamia as early as 4000 BC in the service of the early kingdom builders like Nimrod, the Kushite (Gen. 10). Genetic studied indicate that some of the Chinese are in mtDNA haplogroup N which has its point of origin in central east Africa (shown on this map).

The priest-physicians specialized in one part of the body: head, stomach, heart, etc, as was noted by Diodorus Siculus, who wrote, "The study of medicine with them was divided between specialists; each physician attending to one kind of illness only. Every place possessed several doctors; some for diseases of the eyes, others for the head, or the teeth, or the stomach, or for internal diseases." 

Priests were often leaders of their people. They were rulers and priests. Some were deified. The legendary Yellow Emperor (Huangdi) seems to fit this pattern. However, long after his time (2697-2598 BC) he became the center of a Chinese cult, and his devotees embellished his achievements. He was credited, for example, with introducing clothing, inventing explosives, and founding Taoism.

The French Sinologist Albert Terrien de Lacouperie (1845–94) wrote about early contact between Mesopotamian peoples and the peoples of China in his 1892 book The Western Origin of the Early Chinese Civilization. He claimed that Chinese civilization was founded around 2300 BC by immigrants from Mesopotamia. According to Lacouperie's hypothesis Huangdi was a Mesopotamian chief who led his people into China around 2300 BC.

Yangshao vessel 3900-3000 BC

Ancient migrating populations settled at major water systems The Pengtoushan culture thrived along the Yangtze River between 7500–6100 B.C., and the Yangshao culture flourished along the central Yellow River between 5000 and 3000 B.C. Yangshao nobles wore silk garments and many motifs found on pottery vessels such as the one above resemble the motifs found on Mesopotamian pottery.

The early priests were also embalmers who prepared the mummies that have been found along the Nile and in the Taklamakan Desert of China. The Tarim Basin population to which the earliest mummies belonged was agropastoral, and they lived c.2000 BC in what was formerly a freshwater environment.

Related reading: Ancient Words for Priests; Physician Priests of Antiquity; Medical Care in the Ancient World

Physician Priests of Antiquity

Alice C. Linsley

The earliest medical texts are found among the ancient Nilotes. These include the Ebers Papyrus, the Hearst Medical Papyrus, and the Edwin Smith papyrus, the world's oldest known surgical document (c. 1600 BC). These texts, most of them based on older texts dating possibly from 3000 B.C., are comparatively free of the magician’s approach to treating illness. Priests were the first to practice medicine at "Houses of Life" or temples along the Nile.

Only members of the elite strata of society learned and practiced medicine. One of the earliest known medical practitioners was Eanach (Enoch). He served the Pharaoh as his priest-physician, a wab sxmt (wab sekhmet). Eanach lived around 3000 B.C. and is said to have "healed the pharaoh's nostrils." Likely, this means that he performed a healing ritual that involved placing the cross-like Ankh against the Pharaoh's nose and offering prayers for his healing.

The wab sekhmet appears to be a distinct role from the non-priest healer called a wabau. It may be that the wabau was a shaman. The priest and the shaman represent different approaches to healing. The priest is forbidden to consult spirits in a drug-induced state. The shaman believes that disease and illness happens when the spirits have been offended. He or she will enter a trace state to discover the cause of the disease and how the spirits are to be appeased.

It is also possible that the wabau was a priest of lesser rank who served the common people, rather than the nobility. More research is required to gain a better understanding of the different types of healers, but it is known that the physicians specialized in one part of the body: head, stomach, heart,etc.

"The study of medicine with them was divided between specialists; each physician attending to one kind of illness only. Every place possessed several doctors; some for diseases of the eyes, others for the head, or the teeth, or the stomach, or for internal diseases." (Diodorus Siculus, i. 91)

The Mesopotamian physicians learned their skills from the priest caste that moved into the Tigris-Euphrates from ancient Kush (Gen. 10). The Akkadian word for a physician priest is azu. Sargon was born in Azu-pir-Anu, a house of divine healing/temple of Anu, the High God. The physician priest sat beside the sick person. This suggests that the Akkadian word wasabu is related to the Egyptian word wabau, a healer-priest. In ancient Egyptian images the harwa, Horite priest, was often shown seated.

Another high ranking wab sekhmet was Imhotep (2600 BC), the High Priest of Heliopolis (biblical On) and royal vizier. He was so famous that after his death he was venerated as a god (deified). His skill as a physician became legendary. The Greeks linked Imhotep to Asclepius around whom a cult of healing grew. The rod of Asclepius is a snake-entwined staff and the symbol of modern medicine. Some consider it to be like the rod Moses held up in the wilderness for the healing of the snake-bitten Israelites. However, the serpent on Moses's rod was a solar image. It had a coiled shape like that on the bishop's crozier below.

Egyptian physician-priests advanced medicine by keeping written records of which treatments worked and which did not. One such record book is the Ebers Papyrus, written about 1500 BC. One of the remedies described in this papyrus is medicinal clay made from red and yellow ochre. The Ebers papyrus has a treatment for asthma. The patient was to sit over a mixture of herbs heated on a brick and inhale the fumes.

Surgical procedures are described in the Edwin Smith papyrus, the world's oldest known surgical document (c. 1600 BC). It is written in the hieratic script and gives detailed descriptions of anatomy, diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of forty-eight types of medical problems. It describes closing wounds with sutures, preventing and curing infection with honey and moldy bread (both known to contain antibiotics), application of raw meat to stop bleeding, and treatment of head and spinal cord injuries.

Ancient Egyptian doctors used copper to sterilize water and wounds around 2,400 BC. They also used herbs and minerals medicinally. They mixed the substances with honey, wine, or beer. Some medicines were worked into dough balls to form pills. They used ointments for wounds and treated chest complaints by getting the patient to inhale steam infused with essential oils.

Water and oil were two substances commonly used by healers. The idea of sacred pools can be traced to the priest-physicians of the Nile Valley. The sick came to them at the Nile shrines and temples. Water was used to cleanse wounds, ease strained muscles, and for ritual healing of the inner being. Oil was used to prevent infection, treat dry skin, and for anointing the sick with prayers for healing.

The tradition of healing by the priest is an ancient one. It is a holistic approach that seeks the health of body and soul. In the English village the "curate" had pastoral responsibility for the welfare of the people in his parish or his "cure". The word "curate" is derived from the Latin words curatus, the past participle of curare which means to take care of." The curator of a museum is responsible for the care of the museum's artifacts and archives. The verb curare can also refer to healing.

The first hospitals in the West were founded when Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire. In Byzantium, there had been monastic centers for healing. Toward the end of the early Middle Ages, Benedictine monks founded hospitals which served the monks and people living in the area of the monastery. Hospitals also were needed to care for those who were sick and wounded due to the hardships of the crusades. The Hospitaller Knights specialized in this.

Related reading: Ancient Words for Priests; Medical Care in the Ancient World; Medical Care in Ancient Egypt; Neolithic Medical Care; Nubians Used Antibiotics; Medicine of the Pharaohs; Brain Surgery in the Ancient World