IMHOTEP, a famous physician and sage of ancient Egypt, who afterwards became the god of medicine.
Egyptian texts speak of Imhotep as a minister who lived in the reign of the Pharaoh Zoser of the third dynasty (c. 298o B.C.). He acquired a great reputation for his wisdom and learning and be came, first a demigod, and, under the Ptolemies, the Egyptian god of medicine. By the Greeks Imhotep was called Imouthes, and by them was identified with Asklepios, the god of healing. Although certain Egyptologists have regarded Imhotep as legend ary, and have doubted that he lived as an actual man in the reign of Zoser, recent discoveries have converted into certainty what was ever a probability. There can no longer be the slightest doubt that Imhotep is a historical personage, and that in com mon with other Egyptian nobles, he held civil as well as religious offices. He was vizier, architect, chief ritualist, sage and scribe under the powerful king who built the celebrated "step pyramid" of Sakkara. There is no contemporary evidence that Imhotep was a physician, but his priestly duties were intimately concerned with magic, and in Egypt magic and medicine were inseparably related. Imhotep is referred to in certain literary texts as a sage of great renown, and he was born in the neighbourhood of Memphis, his parents being Kanufer and Khreduonkh. Under the Ptolemaic dynasties he was invested with all the attributes of deity and was regarded as the son of the Memphite god Ptah, whose name is substituted for that of his earthly father Kanufer. Imhotep had shrines as well as temples of his own in various parts of Egypt and of Nubia. It was believed that miraculous cures could be effected by his divine intervention, and his temples were thronged with sufferers many of whom have left records of their gratitude. Statues and figurines of Imhotep as god of medicine have been found in considerable numbers, and these attest his widespread popularity. The evidence afforded by Egyptian and Greek texts supports the view that Imhotep's reputation was re spected in very early times, and that he became at least a demi god not long after his death. His prestige increased with the lapse of centuries, and his temples in Greek times were the centres of medical teaching. His posthumous deification is paral leled by that of another Egyptian sage, Amenophis the son of Hapu, who lived in the eighteenth dynasty and held civil and religious offices in the reign of Amenophis III., and was deified under the Ptolemies and closely associated with Imhotep and with medicine. (See W. R. Dawson, "Amenophis the son of Hapu," Aegyptus, vol. vii., pp. 113-138, 1926.) Imhotep and Ameno phis as deified mortals stand almost alone in Egyptian history, and both, during their lives, must have been men of outstanding merit to have earned such signal posthumous recognition.