Imhotep · Science

From Man to God: A Two-Thousand-Year Afterlife

Imhotep is one of very few non-royal Egyptians ever to become a full god. But the transformation was slow and late: only around the Late and Ptolemaic periods, some two thousand years after he lived, was he worshipped as a healing deity, son of Ptah, whom the Greeks identified with Asclepius. This lesson teaches the deification as a datable historical phenomenon, honestly separated from the historical man.

What you'll be able to recall

You learned that Imhotep’s deification was late (chiefly Late Period and Ptolemaic, about two millennia after his life), that he became a god of healing and wisdom and ‘son of Ptah,’ with cult centres at Saqqara and Philae, and that the Greeks equated him with Asclepius (Greek Imouthes). Explain the…

Leads to Hippocrates.

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