K75RTF

Terracotta neck-amphora, Dionysus between satyr and maenad & two mounted hunters

Painted limestone funerary slab with a man controlling a rearing horse

PEOPLE OF THE ANCIENT WORLD: Imhotep (Egyptian Polymath) 

IMHOTEP (Greek name, Imouthes, c. 2667-2600 BCE) was an Egyptian polymath (a person expert in many areas of learning) best known as the architect of King Djoser’s Step Pyramid at Saqqara. His name means “He Who Comes in Peace” and he is the only Egyptian besides Amenhotep to be fully deified, becoming the god of wisdom and medicine (or, according to some sources, god of science, medicine, and architecture). Imhotep was a priest, vizier to King Djoser (and possibly to the succeeding three kings of the Third Dynasty), a poet, physician, mathematician, astronomer, and architect.

Although his Step Pyramid is considered his greatest achievement, he was also remembered for his medical treatises which regarded disease and injury as naturally occuring instead of punishments sent by gods or inflicted by spirits or curses. He was deified by the Egyptians in c. 525 BCE and was equated with the demi-god of healing Asclepius by the Greeks. His works were still extremely popular and influential during the Roman Empire and the emperors Tiberius and Claudius both had their temples inscribed with praise of the benevolent god Imhotep.

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Sleep and Death Cista Handle (large jewelry box): the two winged figures (Sleep and Death) carry Zeus’s son Sarpedon who died on the battlefield at Troy.