Everyone's got to have a specialty, I guess

[bunnyjadwiga]

Someone was referred to me because I know a bunch about historical use of herbs. She's doing a paper on the Egyptian herbals, and was splashing about in search of narrowing her topic.
So, I thought I'd post my most useful responses here, in case someone else is doing the same thing.
The text she's working with is
Lise Manniche, An Ancient Egyptian

Comments

[iasmin]

I buy copies of Majno's work and keep them around in case someone needs a gift. It's an excellent book. :) (Agreed on the Dioscorides too, btw. *booklust*)

[ladypeyton]

If I had access to it, which I don't now, I'd also suggest Dioscordies, De Materia Medica. There's a English translation from 1655 reprinted under the title The Greek herbal of Dioscorides.

Hrm. I have access to the 1934 and the 1959 versions of the 1655 translation.

I was planning on ordering it in May after I'm done with the Agnus Castus.

[iasmin]

Agnus Castus too is a great one. Have you gotten a copy of the Macer Floridus from the same press?

[ladypeyton]

Poo. Unfortunately I can only access that in the original Latin or in German. All English translations in the libraries I can draw from only have the 1968 English translation in microfilm.

[iasmin]

Hrm...perhaps look for a copy via JStor? I'm not really sure what to suggest (I'm not a librarian, just a book addict). I got mine through Bookfinder.com online. My copy's translator is Gosta Frisk, and the translation was produced by the Uppsala press that also produced my copy of the Agnus Castus (Gosta Brodin's doctoral dissertation):

Brodin, Gosta. (1950). _Agnus Castus: A Middle English Herbal reconstructed from Various Manuscripts_. Uppsala, Sweden: Almgvist & Wicksells Boktryckeri AB.