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By Root 580 0

that. The tomb is—or isn’t—at Sakkara, one of a group of large Third Dynasty mastabas—those of important people, to judge by their size. Not only were all these tombs thoroughly plundered in antiquity, but they were also virtually destroyed by later builders. Walter Emery, who first excavated in the area, believed that Imhotep’s tomb was there somewhere, and that it served as the cult center for a Ptolemaic temple dedicated to the deified vizier. Ensuing excavations uncovered a fantastic labyrinth of underground galleries containing the mummies of hundreds of thousands of ibises and baboons. These animals were sacred to Thoth, god of learning, who was regarded as the divine father of Imhotep. Perhaps one of the desecrated tombs was his. Perhaps it is yet to be found. People are still looking.

A statue base in the Step Pyramid area bearing his name confirms Imhotep’s connection with that structure, which is in itself a sizeable substantiation of one of Imhotep’s reputed talents; and we are entitled to wonder whether tradition may not have been equally accurate about his other abilities. Imhotep’s age, the Third Dynasty, was a formative period. An efflorescence of creativity took place, paving the way for the massive accomplishments of Egyptian culture that we will see fully developed during the next dynasty. Djoser’s statue shows that the fumbling attempts of earlier sculptors had been replaced by a technique that was to become the traditional method of carving stone. In the realm of abstract ideas, equally significant discoveries were being made. I want to talk about one of these discoveries now.

Those of us who have reached the years of wisdom and dignity are perhaps fortunate enough to remember the farm kitchen of a grandparent or an uncle: the black wood-burning stove; the basin and ewer where the men washed up when they came in from the fields; the long table covered with oilcloth; the heavy sideboard, which held souvenir cups from the World’s Fair and the family library—a Bible, the Sears Roebuck catalog, an almanac, and a leech book.

The leech book I own is not my grandmother’s; I bought it for fifty cents at a secondhand bookstore, in a fit of nostalgia. When I hold it in my hands I can tell myself, if I am feeling sentimental, that I am holding the direct descendant of an ancient Egyptian book of medical science. We can trace the lineage of these works, through the Greeks to the Romans to medieval Europe, and then across the seas to America. They are not what we would call scientific books. Mixed in with practical remedies for rheumatism and spavins and “fits” are many incantations of a purely magical character. The distinction between science and magic is a relatively modern one. The Egyptians, like many of their descendants all over the world, saw only the effect. When the effect was an obvious one—a hole in the head following a blow with a mace—no people were more pragmatic about explaining the cause and dealing with the results. But when the cause of the trouble was less clear they did not hesitate to ascribe it to demons.

There are half a dozen major papyri from pharaonic Egypt that are basically medical in purpose. One contains diagnoses of diseases of the stomach, another deals with gynecology, and a third with ailments of the anus and rectum. Perhaps the most famous of the medical books is the Edwin Smith Papyrus, which was found in 1862. Its subject is the surgical treatment of wounds and fractures. Most of our copies of the medical papyri were written during the New Kingdom. But it is in cases like this that the painstaking, plodding labors of the philologist contribute to historical study. So thorough is modern knowledge of the Egyptian language that scholars can tell the probable date of a manuscript by internal evidence alone—by stylistic, grammatical, and epigraphical details—just as a student of English literature can distinguish a work of the fourteenth century from one of the seventeenth. The Edwin Smith Papyrus is very old; it was probably composed during the Fourth Dynasty, or even earlier.