{"title":"Albinism in the Ancient Mediterranean World","authors":"J. Hilton","doi":"10.17159/2413-3027/2021/v34n1a1","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The discovery of DNA in the 20th century and recent biomedical research into the human genome in Southern Africa have shed much light on the diagnostic, epidemiological, and sociological aspects of albinism. Less attention has been given to the historical evidence for the condition and its religious context, especially in the ancient Mediterranean World. This article assembles the meagre evidence for albinism in antiquity and investigates to what extent it was treated as 'sacred'.","PeriodicalId":42808,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal for the Study of Religion","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.17159/2413-3027/2021/v34n1a1","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"RELIGION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The discovery of DNA in the 20th century and recent biomedical research into the human genome in Southern Africa have shed much light on the diagnostic, epidemiological, and sociological aspects of albinism. Less attention has been given to the historical evidence for the condition and its religious context, especially in the ancient Mediterranean World. This article assembles the meagre evidence for albinism in antiquity and investigates to what extent it was treated as 'sacred'.