related to what I mentioned to Hasheput in the Tumbleweed suite (the café) and her comments on "trepanation" I had put a link of the BBC in my archive:
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160826-why-our-ancestors-drilled-holes-in-each-others-skulls
Was it for ritual reasons? With the knowledge of the modern medicine, if was for health reasons, it was extremely dangerous not to say nearly a death penalty.

My knowledge about brain surgery comes from the film and later reading the book on which the film was based: The Egyptian from the Finnish author: Mika Waltari. I saw the film I think not too long after the release in 1954 in the US.


But as it happened  in a Hollywood film one can't always trust the historical authenticity...
So after some research I found this:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/014107689608900813
By Richard Sullivan BSe MBBS
Summary:
"That a well-developed and hierarchical medical profession existed in Pharaonic Egypt is without doubt. What is a matter of contention is the existence of a recognizable surgical profession, or even of the practice of surgery by medically qualified personnel. Palaeoarchaeological specimens that demonstrate some form of surgical procedure are rare. Medical papyri and the treatises of the historians of antiquity provide a far more reliable source of information on surgical practice. They have indicated possible titles for surgeons, and the types of instruments used"

And from the article about "trepanation":
"Lancets and Trephination The Ebers papyrus 23 (pp 109, 876) discusses the use of the swt to treat 'oozing in any limb', probably a description of a haematoma. It would seem that the swr-reed was akin to the modern surgical lancet for the relief of subcutaneous pressure points. There is some difficulty with assuming that this instrument was a natural reed. By describing it as swt there is an obvious suggestion of the specialized nature of this instrument. Perhaps it was composed of metal or ivory, and the reference to the reed simply implied its shape. Alternatively, the word may be the ancient Egyptian equivalent of the lancet. If an instrument existed for trephination then it may have been based on a lancet/borer. The evidence for trepanning goes back at least to the Neolithic period, and its geographic distribution was extensive, being found in Europe and South America 35,36. However this was not the case for Dynastic Egypt. Even during the Greek Period when contact with mainland Greece may have exposed the Egyptian surgeon to this practice, there was virtually no evidence of trephination 37. Although Marc Ruffer38 and El-Batrawyl? both presented cases of possible trephinations, this is nothing in comparison with the thousand plus cases found in South America. Cases of parietal thinning, congenital deformity and neoplasia have often been mistakenly identified as trephinationt", The lack of this procedure in ancient Egypt may indeed reflect the high medical skill of the surgeons. In a profession reasonably free of magico-ritualistic practices, the surgeon would have recognized the exceptionally high morbidity and mortality associated with trephination (Figure 7)."

Kind regards, Paul.

That article linked to in the JRSM is a good read. I’m particularly taken with the chart showing the hierarchy of physicians in ancient Egypt as suggested by Paul Ghalioungui. Dentists and ophthalmologists are at the top followed by gastrologists and proctologists below them and finally practitioners of the 'secret art' and surgery at the bottom. As with today, general practitioners are listed as a breed apart but who will refer to dentists etc when the need arises. One wonders if Ghalioungui was also having a little joke about his own specialty (endocrinology) by listing specialists in liquids as coming between those of secret art and surgery. 

With regard to Mika Waltari’s novel The Egyptian, then the book’s hero Sinuhe not only practices in Egypt but also in Egypt’s imperial territory Syria. He works briefly as a military medic on the Hittite frontier and also travels to Babylon where he cures the sick boy-king Burraburiash. In other words, if surgery was known to the Egyptians, then Egypt’s neighbours were also likely to have been aware of it.

When The Egyptian was published many people at the time (including archaeologists and other academics) thought that Waltari was an Egyptologist who had written a novel. He was, however, a novelist who had written an excellent, historically-based fiction. Away from surgery and medicine, the advent of iron smelting also features in the book which corresponds with Mika Waltari’s theme of setting his novels at significant turning points in history. In a dramatic scene (enacted in the 1954 Holywood film) Sinuhe demonstrates the power of a new Hittite sword (made from iron) by getting someone to strike it with a bronze sword which dents and breaks thus rendering all of Egypt’s bronze weapons obsolete. Metallurgists, blacksmiths and swordsmiths, however, are divided on this. Some point out that bronze is essentially stronger than iron but that iron was cheaper to make and so won out in terms of economy of scale. Others counter again saying that the strength (or brittleness) of a sword (of either metal) is dependent upon several factors ranging from whether it has been cast or forged, quenched, tempered or work-hardened etc. It highlights, however, that the toing and froing of scientific knowledge and technical advances in the era must have been a multilateral phenomenon.