Today, a prosthesis is an artificial device that replaces a missing body part, generally designed and assembled according to the individual’s appearance and functional needs with a view to being both as unobtrusive and as useful as possible. In classical antiquity, however, this was not necessarily the case. The ancient literary and documentary evidence for prostheses and prosthesis use is contradictory, and the bioarchaeological and archaeological evidence is enigmatic, but discretion and utility were not necessarily priorities. So, when, howand why did individuals utilise them? This volume, the first to explore prostheses and prosthesis use in classical antiquity, seeks to answer these questions, and will be of interest to academics and students with specialistinterests in classical archaeology, ancient history and history, especially those engaged in studies of healing, medical and surgical practices, or impairment and disability in past societies.

This is the first comprehensive study of prosthetics and assistive technology in classical antiquity, integrating literary, documentary, archaeological, and bioarchaeological evidence to provide as full a picture as possible of their importance for the lived experience of people with disabilities in classical antiquity. The volume is not only a work of disability history, but also one of medical, scientific, and technological history, and so will be of interest to members of multiple academic disciplines across multiple historical periods. The chapters cover extremity prostheses, facial prostheses, prosthetic hair, the design, commission and manufacture of prostheses and assistive technology, and the role of care-givers in the lives of ancient people with impairments and disabilities. Lavishly illustrated, the study further contains informative tables that collate the aforementioned different types of evidence in an easily accessible way.

A collection of papers that introduces the notion of the technosoma (techno body) into discussions on the representations of the body in classical antiquity. By applying the category of the technosoma to the ‘natural’ body, this volume explicitly narrows down the discussion of the technical and the natural to the physiological body. In doing so, the present collection focuses on body technologies in the specific form of beautification and body enhancement techniques, as well as medical and surgical treatments. The volume elucidates two main points. Firstly, ancient techno bodies show that the categories of gender and sexuality are at the core of the intersection of the natural and the technical, and intersect with notions of race, age, speciesism, class and education, and dis/ability. Secondly, the collection argues that new body technologies have in fact a very ancient history that can help to address the challenges of contemporary technological innovation. To this end, the volume showcases the intersection of ‘natural’ bodies with technology, gender, sexuality and reproduction. On the one hand, techno bodies tend to align with normative ideas about gender, and sexuality. On the other hand, body modification and/or enhancement techniques work hand in hand with economic and political power and knowledge, thus they often produce techno bodies that are shaped according to individual needs, i.e. according to a certain lifestyle. Consequently, techno bodies threaten to alter traditional ideas of masculinity, femininity, male and female sexuality and beauty.

By triangulating the Greco-Roman world, classical reception, and disability studies, this book presents a range of approaches that reassess and reimagine traditional themes, from the narrative voice to sensory studies. It argues that disability and disabled people are the ‘forgotten other’ of not just Classics, but also the Humanities more widely. Beyond the moral merits of rectifying this neglect, this book also provides a series of approaches and case studies that demonstrate the intellectual value of engaging with disability studies as classicists and exploring the classical legacy in the medical humanities. The book is presented in four parts: ‘Communicating and controlling impairment, illness and pain’; ‘Using, creating and showcasing disability supports and services’; ‘Real bodies and retrieving senses: disability in the ritual record’; and ‘Classical reception as the gateway between Classics and disability studies’. Chapters by scholars from different academic backgrounds are carefully paired in these sections in order to draw out further contrasts and nuances and produce a sum that is more than the parts. The volume also explores how the ancient world and its reception have influenced medical and disability literature, and how engagements with disabled people might lead to reinterpretations of familiar case studies, such as the Parthenon. This book is primarily intended for classicists interested in disabled people in the Greco-Roman past and in how modern disability studies may offer insights into and reinterpretations of historic case studies. It will also be of interest to those working in medical humanities, sensory studies, and museum studies, and those exploring the wider tension between representation and reality in ancient contexts. As such, it will appeal to people in the wider Humanities who, notwithstanding any interest in how disabled people are represented in literature, art, and cinema, have had less engagement with disability studies and the lived experience of people with impairments. FREE CHAPTER AVAILABLE! Please go to https://bit.ly/3pzpO7n to access the Introduction, which we have made freely available.

This volume explores a broad range of perceptions, receptions and constructions of the soldierly body in the ancient world, putting the notion of embodiment at the forefront of its engagement with ancient warfare. The 10 chapters presented here respond directly to the question of how war was embodied in antiquity by drawing on detailed case studies to examine the sensory and bodily experience of combat across wide-ranging time periods and geographies, from classical Greece and Rome to Roman Britain and Persia. Together they illustrate how the body in war is a vital universal element that unites these vastly different contexts. Although the centrality of the human body in war-making was recognized in antiquity, a body-centric approach to combat has yet to be widely adopted in modern Classical Studies. This collection brings together new research in ancient history, classical literature, material culture, bioarchaeology and art history within a theoretical framework drawn from recent developments in War Studies that places the body front and centre. The new perspectives it offers on brutality in battle, the physical expression of warrior identity, and post-combat remembrance and recovery challenge readers to re-assess and expand their existing ideas as part of a broader ongoing 'call to arms' to revolutionize the study of ancient warfare in the 21st century.

The De Gruyter Handbook of Artificial Intelligence, Identity and Technology Studies examines the relationship of the social sciences to artificial intelligence, surveying the various convergences and divergences between science and technology studies on the one hand and identity transformations on the other. It provides representative coverage of all aspects of the AI revolution, from employment to education to military warfare, impacts on public policy and governance and the future of ethics. How is AI currently transforming social, economic, cultural and psychological processes? This handbook answers these questions by looking at recent developments in supercomputing, deep learning and neural networks, including such topics as AI mobile technology, social robotics, big data and digital research. It focuses especially on mechanisms of identity by defining AI as a new context for self-exploration and social relations and analyzing phenomena such as race, ethnicity and gender politics in human-machine interfaces.

Medicine and Healing Practices in Ancient Egypt provides a new perspective on healthcare and healing treatments in Egypt from the Predynastic to the Roman periods. Rather than concentrating exclusively on diseases and medical conditions as evidenced in ancient sources, it provides a ‘people-focused’ perspective, asking what it was like to be ill or disabled in this society? Who were the healers? To what extent did disease occurrence and treatment reflect individual social status? As well as geographical, environmental and dietary factors, which undoubtedly affected general health, some groups were prone to specific hazards. These are discussed in detail, including soldiers’ experience of trauma, wounds and exposure to epidemics; and conditions - blindness, sand pneumoconiosis, trauma and limb amputations – resulting from working conditions at building and other sites. Methods of diagnosis and treatment were derived from special concepts about disease and medical ethics. These are explored, as well as the individual contributions and professional interactions of various groups of healers and carers. Medical training and practice occurred in various locations, including temples and battlefields; these are described, as well as the treatments and equipment that were available. Ancient writers generally praised the Egyptian healers’ knowledge, expertise, and professional relationship with their patients. A brief comparison is drawn between this approach and those prevailing elsewhere in Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome. Finally, Egypt’s legacy, transmitted through Greek, Roman and Arabic sources, is confirmed as the source of some principles and practices still found in modern ‘Western’ medicine. Combining information from the latest studies on human remains and the authors’ biomedical research, this book brings the subject up to date, enabling a wide readership to access often scattered information in a fascinating synthesis.