The Story of That Famous Female Physician From Ancient Egypt Is Actually Wrong
Merit Ptah. ...
She is credited as being the "first woman known by name in the history of science". But there's a bit of a problem - Merit Ptah probably didn't exist. Not as described, at any rate.
New historical research has traced the legend of Merit Ptah to its origins, and discovered that a lot of the details got mixed up in the 80 years since her name first surfaced in 1938.
In fact, according to medical historian Jakub Kwiecinski of the University of Colorado Anschutz, the entire legend of this ancient Egyptian doctor is almost completely wrong. ...
"The first woman doctor of 'the old kingdom' in the fifth dynasty, or about 2730 BC, practiced during the reign of a queen Neferirika-ra. Her son was a high priest at whose tomb is a tablet describing his mother as the 'Chief Physician' " ...
And, "in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings is the picture of a woman named Merit Ptah, the mother of a high priest, who is calling her 'the Chief Physician,' although neither her costume nor her bearing indicate her medical profession or her importance."
In addition to the fact that the Valley of the Kings wasn't in use until over 1,000 years later - from 1539 BCE to 1075 BCE - there are currently no records of any physician named Merit Ptah in the Old Kingdom of ancient Egypt, female or otherwise, Kwiecinski found.
"Merit Ptah as a name existed in the Old Kingdom, but does not appear in any of the collated lists of ancient Egyptian healers - not even as one of the 'legendary' or 'controversial' cases," he said.
"She is also absent from the list of Old Kingdom women administrators. No Old Kingdom tombs are present in the Valley of the Kings, where the story places Merit Ptah's son, and only a handful of such tombs exist in the larger area, the Theban Necropolis."
That does not mean there were no female doctors recorded in ancient Egypt, however. In fact, that's where it seems the mix-up occurred. ...
