Hospital

The Ancient Cities


The remains of a 9th-century hospital sit a stone's throw from the site museum. The hospital consisted of a number of cells. A bat oruwa (large stone trough) sits near the entrance. The interior of the trough is carved in the shape of a human form, and the patient would climb into this to be immersed in healing oils.

Inscriptions have revealed that the hospital had its specialists – there is reference to a mandova, a bone and muscle specialist, and to a puhunda vedek, a leech doctor. Surgical instruments were unearthed from the site.