Imhotep: Architect of Djoser and Later God of Medicine

Imhotep was a high official of King Djoser of Egypt around 2650 BC, traditionally credited with designing the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, the first Egyptian pyramid. Over the following two thousand years his reputation grew from that of a gifted royal servant to a famous sage, and finally to a god of healing whom the Greeks identified with Asclepius. He is one of the very few non-royal Egyptians known to have been deified, and one of the earliest individuals in history known by name for a creative achievement.

The historical Imhotep

Very little is known about Imhotep’s life from his own time. The key evidence is a limestone statue base of King Djoser, catalogued in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo as JE 49889, found in the Step Pyramid complex at Saqqara in the 1920s. Beside the king’s name it carries the name and titles of Imhotep, an exceptional honour for a commoner.

The titles are usually translated as “chancellor of the king of Lower Egypt”, “first after the king”, “administrator of the great palace”, “hereditary noble” and “greatest of seers”, the title of the high priest of the sun god at Heliopolis. The inscription also seems to describe him as a builder or sculptor. Together they show a man at the very top of the royal administration, combining political, religious and practical responsibilities.

Imhotep’s name also appears in an inscription on the enclosure wall of the unfinished pyramid of Sekhemkhet, Djoser’s successor. This suggests that he outlived Djoser and continued to direct royal building work. Nothing reliable is known about his birth, family or death. Later traditions name his father as Kanofer, an architect, and his mother as Khereduankh, but these come from much later sources.

Imhotep and the Step Pyramid

The Step Pyramid began as a stone mastaba tomb and was enlarged in several phases into a six-step pyramid about 62 metres high, set in a vast walled complex. It is often described as the earliest large-scale building made entirely of cut stone.

No contemporary text states that Imhotep designed it. The attribution rests on his presence on the statue base inside the complex, his high titles and a strong later tradition. In the 3rd century BC the Egyptian priest Manetho credited the reign of Djoser with the invention of building in hewn stone and recorded that a figure named Imouthes, the Greek form of Imhotep, was honoured for his medical skill. Most historians accept that Imhotep directed or oversaw the project, while recognising that it was the work of many skilled craftsmen and built on earlier experiments with stone.

From official to sage

Within a few centuries Imhotep was remembered as a man of wisdom. A Middle Kingdom poem known as the Harper’s Song, preserved in a later copy, laments that even the famous sages Imhotep and Hardjedef are gone and their tombs have vanished. It refers to their sayings as words people still quoted, implying that a book of teachings under Imhotep’s name once existed. No such text has survived.

By the New Kingdom (about 1550 to 1070 BC) Imhotep was regarded as the patron of scribes. Some scribes poured a few drops of water from their water pot as a libation to him before they began writing. His name appears in lists of famous writers of the past, alongside other revered authors of wisdom literature.

The god of healing

In the Late Period, especially from the 26th Dynasty (664-525 BC), Imhotep was worshipped as a full god. He was described as the son of Ptah, the creator god of Memphis, and of a mortal woman, Khereduankh. Numerous bronze statuettes show him seated, wearing a skullcap and holding an open papyrus scroll on his knees, a symbol of his learning.

People prayed to Imhotep for healing and for children. Sick visitors came to his sanctuary at Saqqara, probably to sleep in the temple in the hope of receiving a cure or advice in a dream, a practice also known from Greek healing shrines. Greek speakers identified Imhotep with their own god of medicine, Asclepius, and called his Saqqara temple the Asklepieion.

Under the Ptolemies and the Romans his cult spread across Egypt. A small temple to Imhotep stands on the island of Philae, beside the Temple of Isis. At Deir el-Bahari in Thebes, a sanctuary in the temple of Hatshepsut was rebuilt under Ptolemy VIII for the joint worship of Imhotep and Amenhotep son of Hapu, another deified official. Imhotep also features in the Famine Stela on Sehel Island, a Ptolemaic inscription that sets its story in Djoser’s reign and presents Imhotep as the adviser who helps the king end seven years of famine.

The search for his tomb

Imhotep’s tomb has never been identified. Ancient sources and the location of his cult point to North Saqqara, near Djoser’s pyramid. Between 1964 and 1971 the British archaeologist Walter Bryan Emery excavated there in search of it.

Emery did not find the tomb, but he uncovered large Old Kingdom mastabas and an immense network of catacombs holding mummified ibises, baboons, falcons and cows from the Late Period. The ibis was sacred to Thoth, god of wisdom, with whom Imhotep was closely linked, and the burials were offerings brought by pilgrims. Many archaeologists suspect that Imhotep’s tomb lies somewhere in this area, perhaps among the large mastabas of the Third Dynasty.

Myths and facts

Myth: Imhotep was a famous physician in his lifetime. Nothing from the Old Kingdom shows him practising medicine. The idea of Imhotep the healer grew in later centuries alongside his cult.

Myth: Imhotep wrote the Edwin Smith Papyrus. This ancient surgical treatise, written around 1600 BC and probably copied from older material, has sometimes been linked to him in popular accounts. The papyrus names no author, and there is no evidence connecting it to Imhotep. The Edwin Smith Papyrus is important in its own right as an early medical text.

Myth: Imhotep was an evil priest. This image comes from Hollywood. The Mummy films of 1932 and 1999 borrowed his name for a fictional villain; the historical Imhotep was revered by Egyptians for wisdom and kindness.

Fact: he was a real, named individual. Unlike many legendary founders, Imhotep is attested by inscriptions from his own lifetime, which makes him one of the earliest non-royal people in history known by name and office.

Deified commoners in Egypt

Egyptian kings were treated as divine, but it was rare for an ordinary official to become a god. Imhotep and Amenhotep son of Hapu, the architect of Amenhotep III in the 14th century BC, are the best-known examples. Both were remembered for wisdom and building, and both were worshipped as healers in the Ptolemaic period.

The German Egyptologist Dietrich Wildung traced this process in detail, showing how local veneration at a tomb could grow over centuries into a regional and then national cult. Imhotep’s case is the longest and best documented, stretching from about 2650 BC to Roman times.

Imhotep in modern memory

Interest in Imhotep revived with modern Egyptology and the history of medicine. In the early 20th century the Canadian physician William Osler and the British doctor Jamieson B. Hurry presented him as the first physician known by name, and Hurry’s 1926 book helped make him famous among doctors. Modern historians are more cautious, separating the Old Kingdom official from the later healing god.

Imhotep’s name is now widely used. The Imhotep Museum, opened at Saqqara in 2006, displays finds from the necropolis near the Step Pyramid, and honours the work of the French architect Jean-Philippe Lauer at the site. A crater on the planet Mercury is named after him, following the convention of naming Mercury’s craters after famous figures of art and culture. Medical schools, hospitals and prizes in Egypt and elsewhere also bear his name.

Popular culture has been less faithful. Besides the Mummy films, Imhotep appears in novels, comics and video games, often as a magician or schemer. These portrayals owe more to the 19th- and 20th-century fascination with mummies and curses than to anything known about the man who served Djoser.

Timeline

• c. 2670-2650 BC: Imhotep serves King Djoser; the Step Pyramid is built at Saqqara.
• c. 2650-2640 BC: His name is inscribed at Sekhemkhet’s unfinished pyramid.
• c. 2000-1700 BC: The Harper’s Song names Imhotep as a famous sage of the past.
• c. 1550-1070 BC: New Kingdom scribes honour Imhotep as their patron.
• 664-525 BC: Under the 26th Dynasty Imhotep is widely worshipped as a god and son of Ptah.
• 3rd century BC: Manetho records Imouthes and the invention of stone building.
• 2nd century BC: A small temple of Imhotep is built at Philae under Ptolemy V.
• 1920s: The Djoser statue base naming Imhotep is found at Saqqara.
• 1964-1971: Walter Bryan Emery searches for his tomb at North Saqqara.

Why it matters

Imhotep is a rare figure whose name links one of humanity’s first great buildings with a real person. His later transformation into a god shows how deeply Egyptians valued learning, writing and healing, and how memory of a gifted servant of the state could grow, over two thousand years, into worship across Egypt and the Greek world.