of circumcision would permanently mark the defeated, yet leave him alive to serve as a slave.

In the study of the history of circumcision, there are two main “streams” that are followed. One stream is located in the lands south and east of the Mediterranean, and starts with Sudan and Ethiopia, extends through the ancient Egyptians into the Semites, Jews and Muslims, and is picked up by the Bantu Africans. The other stream flows through the Australian Aborigines and Polynesians. There is also evidence that circumcision was practiced in the Americas, but little detail is available about its history.

The Middle East, Africa and Europe

Evidence exists that circumcision was in general practice in the Arabian peninsula in the 4th millennium BCE, and moved into the area that is modern-day Iraqwith the Sumerians and the Semites. Our earliest historical record of circumcision comes from Egypt, in the form of an image of the circumcision of an adult carved into the tomb of Ankh-Mahor at Saqqarah, dating to about 2400 to 2300 BCE. No single well-accepted theory has been put forth to explain the significance of circumcision to the Egyptians, but it appears to have been endowed with great honor and importance as a rite of passage into adulthood, done in a public ceremony emphasizing the ideas of the continuation of family generations and fertility. Some theorize it was a mark of distinction for the elite: the sun god Ra was described as having circumcised himself. In addition to possible hygenic reasons, for the purity-obsessed Egyptians circumcision surely concerned