Imhotep was the royal advisor to King Zoser during the Third Dynasty
of Egypt. Regarded as the world's first recorded multi-genius,
Imhotep was an architect, astronomer, philosopher, poet and
physician. As an architect he was responsible for designing the Step
Pyramid and the Saqqara Complex. During his lifetime he was given a
host of titles, among them: Chancellor of the King of Lower Egypt,
the First after the King of Upper Egypt, High Priest of Heliopolis
and Administrator of the Great Palace. As a physcian, Imhotep is
believed to have been the author of the Edwin Smith Papyrus in
which more than 90 anatomical terms and 48 injuries are described.
This is well over 2,200 years before the Western Father of Medicine
Hippocrates is born. Some 2,000 years after his death, Imhotep was
still worshipped in early Rome. His very name, Im-Hotep, translates
as the Prince of Peace. In Greece he was identified as Asclepius,
God of Medicine. As a philosopher and poet, Imhotep's most
remembered phrase is: "Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we
shall die."
