191 - Johannes Baunack: Aus Epidauros, Eine epigraphische Studie. Leipzig, 1890

Johannes Baunack: Aus Epidauros, Eine epigraphische Studie. Leipzig, 1890 First edition, FOLIO, contemporary cloth over boards, edges of covers slightly trimmed, text clean and bright, complete, ex libris stamp at title of the famous German architect and archaeologist Wilhelm Dorpfeld, his personal copy, Phidias street 1 Athen, overall in very good plus condition, a very nice copy with fine provenance. A highly specialized scientific study that remains a fundamental text for the history of ancient medicine and the miracles of the Greek world.Baunack was writing at the height of the excitement following the systematic excavations of the Sanctuary of Asclepius at Epidaurus by the Greek Archaeological Society,led by Panagiotis Kavvadias, in the 1880s.While others were marveling at the architecture of the great Theatre, Baunack was focused on the steles, the stone slabs found in the Abaton, where patients slept hoping for a divine cure.The core of Baunack’s 1890 study is the analysis of the Iamata, or the Cures of Asclepius. These are long inscriptions detailing the miraculous healings of pilgrims.As a specialist in Greek dialects, Baunack provided a rigorous transcription and linguistic analysis of the Argolic dialect used in the inscriptions. He categorized the various miracles, ranging from the restoration of sight to the healing of paralysis. He was interested in how these texts functioned as both religious propaganda and a form of medical record for the sanctuary. A fundamental publication for the understanding of ancient Greek medicine.The concrete copy belonged to the famous contemporary German Hellenist Dorpfeld.