Incubation from Epidaurus to Cairo: The Cross-Cultural Continuity of a Ritual

International audienceThis article aims at checking a possible historical continuity in the ritual of medical incubation as it was performed in the Eastern Mediterranean from Greek Antiquity to recent days Egypt. The Christianization of pagan practices combining medicine with popular piety is well attested in Late Antiquity and it goes beyond Hellenism stricto sensu as it plays an important role in Coptic tradition. More surprising is the striking similitude between Coptic practices related to medicinal incubation and a specifically Jewish Egyptian ritual of incubation that Cairene Jews used to perform in Maimonides synagogue till the massive exodus of Egyptian Jewry after 1956. In order to evaluate to which extent we can deal here with a case of cross-cultural influence from an epichoric Egyptian tradition to a local practice of Cairene Jewry, I propose to adopt a taxonomy whereby the role of the dreams as an inherent part of the incubation ritual is analyzed from ancient Greece till modern Egyptian Jewry. As a result of this typological approach that takes into account civilizations that developed in the same area, it appears that the Cairene Jewish practice is certainly closer to similar rituals in use among Copts than with the rituals of pilgrimages to the saints grave as it was practiced by North African Jews