Traditional Circumcision Worldwide

Circumcision is very ancient - the oldest recorded operation - and traditional circumcision is found worldwide, in Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas.
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egyptians carried out a complete circumcision, with the foreskin totally removed, as this statue shows.
Statuette of Merire-hashetef, from the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, about 2230 BC. One of three models of Merire-hashetef placed in his tomb at his death. They show him at different stages of his life - this is the middle one and the largest, showing him as a young man. It is made of ebony and quite stunningly realistic. The statue of him as a boy is now in the British Museum, and that of him in the prime of life is in the Glyptothek, Copenhagen.
This was a provincial tomb, cut into a cliff face at Sedment, so Merire-hashetef was not a king or a member of the royal court. But he must have been a person of some importance . . . . . .

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