Who is Imhotep?



For those who do not know, I am a very ardent artist and one of the core themes of this blog is art. This year during my study of Art History, I have come across a myriad of interesting figures who shattered the every now and then adamant art world , but one historical figure in particular became the most impressionable: Imhotep.

He lived during Old Kingdom Egypt, which some of you may know is pretty much the beginning of art and written history ( with the exception of a few cave paintings and our beautiful chubby Venus of Willendorf). Not only did he live in the beginning of history, he created it. Imhotep was an artist, engineer, scientist, and much more.

You can think of him as the first "Renaissance man", but with a lot more grandeur because without him history would not have started where it has.

He created the scribes, a means to which people could record and depict ideas and historical events. He made great contributions to the advancement of medicine, to the extent that later civilizations such as the Greeks and Romans would exalt him as a god of health.


His most famous creation as an architect and vizier was the Stepped Pyramid of King Djoser in Saqqara, Egypt. Not only was this a revolutionary architectural feat, but it would also be the predecessor to the three Great Pyramids that continue to strike awe in present day eyes as part of the 8 wonders of the world.

This man was truly an avant-garde in his day.

Imhotep deserves the title of this blog because all of us should be like Imhotep. Well that sounds a little contradictory doesn't it? While I am goading my readers to lead the edge in the world I suggest that we should be like someone else, like Imhotep? Hmmm... Maybe a little better worded, we should search for our original idea that form ourselves into pioneers hopefully reaching greater heights than Imhotep.