Paper short abstract:

The core question of this paper asks how the indigenous populations of Rome’s three Spanish provinces appropriated Graeco-Roman medical philosophies and practices into their own healing traditions after the area was colonised by the Romans. By examining the design and deposition of medical instruments multi-variant beliefs and customs will be explored to see how the exchange and assimilation of knowledge between societies with different ideologies affected medical systems in Hispania.

Paper long abstract:

Roman medicine can be explored from many critical angles because information survives in the skeletal, archaeological and literary records. Literary examinations have evinced that differing views existed about health amongst ancient medical writers who lived in the same region and period. Surprisingly, studies of the material remains of medical tools, with a rare few exceptions, not only ignore the variations in medical thoughts, but have favoured a cultural historical approach to instrument identification and distribution that are informed by modern understandings of surgical procedures, promoting an unjustified impression that beliefs about health became identical throughout the empire. It is necessary to move beyond this assessment of material to one whose critical, theoretically-informed methodology is sensitive to the context of artefacts to see how cultural beliefs affected such concepts as health, disease and the body.

Archaeological remains are key to understanding past medical practices, particularly in the provinces, where few literary references exist. The core question of this paper asks how the indigenous populations of Rome's Spanish provinces appropriated Graeco-Roman medical philosophies into their own healing traditions after the area was colonised by the Romans. By examining the design and deposition of instruments multi-variant beliefs and customs will be explored to see how the exchange of knowledge between societies with different ideologies affected medicine in Hispania. The project resonates with current post-colonial studies of life in the Roman provinces, gives greater attention to Roman-period medical archaeology and provides a case study for finding beliefs about medical practices in the archaeological record.