The Young Ancient Egypt
Volume I
THE CREATION OF EGYPT
TOLD BY IMHOTEP
text passed down to
Tarek Ben Blaze
1
Imhotep, the son of Ptah
May I present myself? I am Imhotep. I was born
about 4670 years ago in Egypt. That is a very long
time. I am afraid that so many years is hardly to
imagine for you. To give you some idea, let us
represent time as a long snake, with a head of 1
cm. Let we suppose that your age is 10 now, and
that your age matches the head of the snake. To go
back in time 4670 years, we must give the snake a
body of almost 4 meters and 70 cm.! Incredible,
isn’t it? The name of the city where I was born was
Memphis, close to the present Cairo, the capital of
Egypt. I did many good and wonderful things for
Egypt, because I was gifted by God with great
knowledge and wisdom. I was a skilful architect, a
well-known writer and a great healer. Moreover I
have been the most important counsellor of one of
the first famous kings who ruled over Egypt. His
name was Djoser. But I was also a reliable helper
who assisted ordinary people. I helped them in their
daily problems, when they were anxious, or in
distress. God gave me the power to heal them, if
they were ill. I protected the pregnant. I got the
woman who could not fall pregnant with a baby. I
gave a son to everyone who implored it. I
comforted them all and made them happy. For that
reason I was venerated as a god. In ancient times
Egyptian people made many small statues of me.
They often depicted me on their monuments. Truly,
I am proud to be the son of the mighty god Ptah.
Therefore I wear the same blue cap as he does. As
you can see below (Fig. 1), I am portrayed sitting on
a chair, with a papyrus scroll on my knees.
2
Fig 1. Imhotep
Imhotep, the Mediator.
Because they trusted me so much, people came to
me at the entrance of the temples. I heard their
prayers and spoke on their behalf to the great god,
who dwelled hidden in the inner part of the temple.
Once, I even rescued the Egyptians from death,
after the