Short people were valued highly in ancient Egyptian culture, according to a current article by Chahira Kozma, a pediatrician at Georgetown University, published in the American Journal of Medical Genetics.

Articles about the study appear on BBC News, and at Live Science, which more vividly details the wisdom teachings of the culture. The article features a prayer of dwarve god worship and cites examples demonstrating a general sense of respect in ancient Egyptian culture towards “the sick and the malformed”—

In fact, a respect for the disabled was ingrained into the “wisdom teachings” of the culture. Amenemope, a wise man who lived during the New Kingdom, wrote that care for the old, the sick and the malformed was a moral duty.

“Man is clay and straw, the God is his builder,” Amenemope wrote in a book of moral teachings. “The Wise Man should respect people affected by reversal of fortune.”

Photo credit: Hajor, December 2002. Released under GNU Free Documentation License. Found in the ‘Bes’ entry at what-means.com.