Old Age in manuscripts for good health

Three Ancient Egyptian manuscripts on papyrus preserve a small number of prescriptions to halt or reverse the effects of ageing, among other cosmetic treatments:

1. Papyrus Ebers (book of prescriptions, copied about 1550 BC)
2. Papyrus Edwin Smith (book predominantly of surgical treatment, copied about 1550 BC)
3. Papyrus Hearst (book of prescriptions, copied about 1450 BC)

The cosmetic prescriptions are grouped together in the original manuscripts. In the standard Egyptological translation for manuscripts for good health, the groups have been amalgamated by subject matter as follows:

A. Hair

• removing grey hairs (Ebers 451, 452, 459 to 461)
• preventing greying (Ebers 453 to 458, 462, 463; Hearst 147 to 149)
• growing hair (Ebers 464 to 467, 468 for women, 469 to 473; Hearst 144 to 146)
• removing unwanted hair (Ebers 476, 774; Hearst 155, 156)

B. Body

• face (Ebers 716 to 721)
• skin (Ebers 714 = Hearst 153 = Smith column 21, lines 3-6; Ebers 715 = Hearst 154 = Smith column 21, lines 6-8; Smith column 21, line 9 to column 22, line 10)
• body odour (Ebers 708 to 711; Hearst 31, 32 and 150, 151)

The headings to these prescriptions include ambitious claims, such as 'Start of the book for making an old man into a young man' (Smith column 21, line 9).

Groupings given above, and German translation: von Deines, Grapow/Westendorf1958, chapter XI)

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