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| It must have seemed to early generations that Imhotep dropped from the sky |
It's not surprising perhaps that people, amazed by the achievements of ancient Egypt, reach out for ancient aliens as an explanation.
I’ve always thought there was something a little alien about the little figure of Imhotep with his elongated skull inside a skullcap.
Let me say from the beginning, I have not defected to the “Ancient Aliens” camp, although I will probably be unable to resist the television show.
It’s just that I am in awe of this polymath whose fame preceded and overshadowed Leonardo da Vinci’s.
Imhotep must have seemed like a being who dropped out of the sky to early generations, too.
Imhotep’s luminous intelligence would have appeared utterly alien – history’s first recorded genius who was the father of medicine, the first great architect, who invented buildings in stone, including the archetypal step pyramid. Imhotep was deified and also revered by the Greeks and Romans.
All this and Imhotep governed as a Vizier and held high priestly office.
Imhotep, not surprisingly was strongly linked with Thoth, Egypt’s ibis-headed god of wisdom and magical power.
The mysterious figure of Imhotep plays a part in my novel “The Ibis Apocalypse”… an adventure thriller about the quest for the forbidden Stela of Thoth.
Here’s an excerpt.
They followed Melinda down into a large side chamber. It drew a gasp from Zara.
Had they stepped into a charnel house?
Body parts littered the floor and lay piled up against the walls, human legs, arms, the top halves of faces, a child’s head, calves and shins, hands, ears and eyes.
“Don’t worry. There hasn’t been a mass slaughter in here.”
Anson bent and picked up the face of a child.
“Anatomical donaria. Made of clay and plaster. Body parts and organs. See, this one’s a child’s head – it has a prominent ear in relief.”
Zara frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“The child was suffering from an ear malady.”
Melinda explained.
“These models of body parts are medical votive offerings left by sick pilgrims either as tokens of gratitude for healing or to induce Thoth to grant cures.”
“Wow. We’ve got to shoot this place,” Ben, the director-cameraman said.
The archaeologist went on.
“This site, and all catacombs filled with ibis and baboons, exist to seek cures,” she said. “Each bird was an offering by a pilgrim, given in thanks or in the hope of securing a cure. It shows that this was an important place of healing. Thoth, as the god of wisdom was also revered as the inventor of medicine and it was he who gave physicians their power to heal. You may recall Thoth’s iconography, a staff around which a serpent coils. It still represents the medical profession to this day and is the medical symbol world wide.”
HE FELT the pieces of anatomical donaria trying to fit together in his mind, combining into the form of one person and that person was Imhotep, the formal seated figure seen in countless museums.
Portrayed as a priest with a skull-cap, like the god Ptah, and holding a papyrus scroll across his knees, Imhotep was venerated as the patron of scribes who would traditionally spill a couple of drops of water on the floor in libation to him before beginning their writing.
History now recognised Imhotep as the true father of medicine who lived two thousand, two hundred years before the birth of Hippocrates. Today modern medicine acknowledged Imhotep as ‘the first figure of a physician to stand out clearly from the mists of antiquity’. Imhotep diagnosed and treated over two hundred diseases of the abdomen, bladder, rectum, the eyes, the skin, hair, nails and tongue. The great man treated tuberculosis, gallstones, appendicitis, gout and arthritis. He also performed surgery and practiced dentistry. He knew the position and function of the vital organs and about the circulation of the blood system. He was also something of a pharmacist, extracting medicine from plants…
The Anson Hunter Egypt fiction adventure series
