Disability, eunuchs and the lived experience in Ptolemaic-Roman Egypt

Within bioarchaeology and palaeopathology, disability is commonly viewed from a modern medical model standpoint, but the field is intrinsically social in nature. People experience impairments differently. Medical papyri provide a view of the emic understanding and treatment of bodily difference in the Egyptian past, but this does not map directly either to etic modern understandings of bodily difference or to palaeopathologically identifiable skeletal impairment or difference. Following a social model, disability is a product of the lived, social environment. This chapter uses the term “disAbility” to place explicit focus on personal agency and the ability to participate of the person affected by impairment. Even when using the disAbility approach, there is still a fluid boundary between disabled and non-disabled, with shading and gradations along the continuum of disAbility depending on the actions and activities of the individuals involved. This chapter uses fictive narrative (so-called “faction”) to explore the lives of two individuals buried at the Ptolemaic and Roman site of Quesna. Located in the central-southern Delta of Egypt, the excavations of the Ptolemaic and Roman-period necropolis have revealed the skeletal remains of 158 individuals including some with above-average stature but unfused epiphyses. Should they be considered disabled?