Centuries after Imhotep's death, when Zoser had become a mere footnote to history,
Imhotep would be worshiped, and those closest to him—including his parents and his wife,
Ronpe-nofret (perhaps “RAWN-pay-NAW-fret”)—were depicted as the close relatives of a god. Those who deified Imhotep believed that he was the offspring of the god Ptah (TAH) as well as his mortal father.
The worship of Imhotep would later spread to Greece and Rome, where he was associated with the god of medicine, Asclepias (ah-SLEE-pee-uhs). The symbol of Asclepias was the caduceus (kuh-DOO-see-uhs), a staff with a serpent or serpents coiled around it. The caduceus remains the symbol of medicine to this day.
Because of the myths that later came to surround him, it is difficult to find reliable information about Imhotep. Many people who write about him in modern times are interested in proving points about him that cannot be supported by historical evidence. For instance, there are those who assert that Imhotep was ethnically the same as sub-Saharan Africans, when in fact there is no reason to believe he was racially different from other Egyptians, who were and are more closely related to the peoples of southwest Asia. Others have tried to make various claims about the “mystery religion” associated with him and its relation to Christianity.
Such controversy is a measure of the long shadow cast by Imhotep, but it hardly adds to the already great stature of the man himself. It is enough to recognize him as the model for an extremely rare type of genius, one with achievements in a wide array of areas. As such, Imhotep was first in a very short list that includes figures such as Greek mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras [see sidebar], Italian artist and scientist Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519), and American founding fathers Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) and Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826).
World History
