While the spread of the Corona virus is exacerbating all over the world, and the world is witnessing exceptional preventive measures such as home quarantine, social distancing and isolation for the infected, we can raise some questions regarding the precautionary measures taken by people in the Middle East region in ancient times in cases of epidemics or infectious diseases. .
Cuneiform Documents
Dr. Cecile Michel, an Assyriology researcher and director of research at the Center national de la recherche scientifique and president of the International Association for Assyriology, researched the topic.
In an article published in the scientific journal "Pour la Science" last April entitled "Control of Epidemics in Antiquity in the Middle East", she points out that cuneiform documents have been extracted from archaeological sites in the countries of Iraq. Syria, Iran and Turkey show cases of various diseases that these peoples lived through.
The medical texts suggest different treatments and habits in treating patients, and note many medicines that scholars only know in the Akkadian language (the Akkadian language is a Semitic language that appeared in Iraq since 3000 years BC, and it is one of the Eastern Semitic languages), and some infectious diseases have caused The death of many families.
A memorandum from the nineteenth century BC documents the costs of burying the wife of an Assyrian merchant in the Kanesh region (an important archaeological site in Turkey) in Central Anatolia. That wife had distributed her inheritance to her three children, but her two sons also later died of the same disease.
Hittite kings and plague
Epidemics also had an important political impact, as the ancient Hittite king Sabilioluuma I (fourteenth century BC - the Hittite king during the days of Tutankhamun's rule in Egypt) spent 30 years on the throne.
While the epidemic was dwindling in Egypt, the epidemic was transmitted to central Anatolia through Egyptians who were arrested by groups of Hittites during some battles in northern Syria.
The plague spread in the Hittite community, and wiped out some members of the royal family, including Arwand II, son of King Sabili, and Juma I, less than a year after the death of his father. The younger brother, the King of the Hittite Empire (1321-1295 BC), who believed that the epidemic was a divine anger to punish his father for killing his brothers at the beginning of the rule took over, so he began to pray to confront the plague.
Kingdom of Mary
On the other hand, the royal archive of the Kingdom of Mari (this kingdom dates back 5,000 years, was located on the banks of the Euphrates River in the province of Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria, where it flourished during the third and second millennium BC, and formed the capital of the Middle Euphrates) well documented and remarkable measures taken in Confronting epidemics.
And some correspondence between the king and his wife shows that the prevention of disease infection was taken very seriously, especially after one of the housemaids contracted an infectious disease.
King Zamiri Lim (the last king of the Kingdom of Mary) wrote to his wife, “I knew that Maid Nana had a contagious skin disease, so she should only mean one place in the palace, and strict orders must be given: No one drinks from where you drink, and no one sits where she sits. No one sleeps in the bed where you sleep, in order not to transmit the infection to other women.
The queen also informed the king of another maid case called Istiqati, who stayed alone in a new building, and ate her food and drink separately, without anyone approaching her or her place of residence.
In another message, the king addressed the queen in which he mentions the measures that must be taken in relation to the infection of another woman with the disease, as the king required that the patient to stay in a separate room, without anyone visiting her.
Quarantine 4 thousand years ago
The researcher Cecil Michel explains that the phenomenon of disease infection and its concept were clear and known in ancient societies. The patient was quarantined and isolated to limit the spread of the epidemic, and to protect communities and members of minors. These decisions were bearing fruit.
Researcher Michel expresses her hope that the preventive measures taken by societies today will be as effective and appropriate as those taken in the Kingdom of Mari 4,000 years ago.
On the other hand, the Assyrian scientist Dr. Medhi Al-Rasheed mentions in an article entitled "The king ordered quarantine to flatten the course of the epidemic 4 thousand years ago" published on the website "Narratively" that despite the fact that the Kingdom of Mary approached the mechanism of spreading infectious epidemics differently Of what is happening today, she realized and knew that a disease or epidemic could be contagious.