This seated man with a papyrus spread over his lap represents a saint, the deified architect Imhotep. The little statuette has a tremendous amount of detail. Imhotep’s face is shown with a sharp brow line and eyes with raised pupils. He has a slight smile, with depressions at each side of his mouth. His head is shaved in the manner of a priest. His chest is bare, exposing his defined pectoral muscles.1

Imhotep is shown wearing a two-part garment consisting of a pleated, wrapped, knee-length kilt with a belt, over which is a longer, more narrowly pleated front panel that reaches his ankles.^[1] The panel, or apron, is a separate piece of thin metal that attaches to the figure under the papyrus on his lap.^[2] The statuette is solid cast and has a 1 cm long tang underneath the trapezoidal base for attachment to another base that, on more fully preserved examples of this type, is in the shape of a chair on a rectangular platform.^[3] 2

Additional Views of Cat. 34

The papyrus bears a partially legible, three-line inscription, written upside down from the viewer’s perspective, but oriented upright from Imhotep’s so that he could “read” it (fig. 1). The text reads (in part): “Imhotep [son] of Ptah.”^[4] Imhotep’s pose—holding a papyrus in both hands across his lap—is a reference to his literacy and wisdom. The statuette was not inscribed with the name of the individual who dedicated it to a temple. For statuettes with such inscriptions, see cats. 26, 29, 30.^[5]3

Imhotep in History and Religion

Imhotep was a priest and the architect of King Djoser (Dynasty 3), and the designer of the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, one of the earliest and most innovative monumental stone buildings of Egypt. He was famous for being a sage, a patron of scribes, and an advisor to the king; he also was credited with the composition of what would become the “classics” of Egyptian instructional literature.^[6] Imhotep was one of the few Egyptian saints—individuals who were deified. Veneration of Imhotep began in the New Kingdom, nearly a thousand years after his death, but it was only later, when he was regarded as the son of the god Ptah, that his cult really flourished. In Dynasty 26, priests were assigned to his cult at Memphis and Saqqara. At that time, the archetypal portrayal of Imhotep with the shaved head of a priest seated on a chair with a papyrus in his lap was established. Imhotep was often paired with another important saint, Amenhotep, Son of Hapu, who was the chief architect of Amenhotep III (Dynasty 18). That both men were architects is an indication of the esteem Egyptians had for that profession.4

Although he was deified, artists stressed Imhotep’s human, nonroyal origins by showing him without a uraeus or a divine false beard, features that were both associated with images of gods and pharaohs.^[7] When his chair is preserved, it is an ordinary, four-legged type rather than the royal or divine block throne.^[8]5

As the son of the god Ptah, Imhotep was famous as an intercessor to the gods, especially for medical cures. His accessibility ensured that his cult became very popular in the Ptolemaic Period, spreading from its center at Memphis in the north to southern Egypt. In the Roman Period, Imhotep was associated with Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine. Inscriptions on statues dedicated to him addressed him as “Imhotep, Son-of-Ptah, who comes to everybody imploring him, who heals illness, who cures the members.”^[9] He was also credited with the ability to increase fertility. An inscription on a stela from the first century BCE says that a woman “prayed … to the god, great in wonders, effective in deeds, who gives a son to him who has none: Imhotep, Son of Ptah.”^[10] The cult was so popular in the Ptolemaic Period that the sanctuary of the temple of Queen Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahri in Western Thebes that was sacred to Hathor and Amun was modified and rededicated to the joint cult of Imhotep and Amenhotep, Son of Hapu. The shrine became a place where pilgrims spent the night to be healed by the two saints. Chapels and shrines to Imhotep were added to existing temples at Karnak, Deir el-Medina, Dendera, Edfu, Esna, and Philae in southern Egypt.^[11] Hundreds, if not more, of these small statuettes of Imhotep were created. Most examples with a provenance are from Memphis and Saqqara.6

The popularity of the cult of Imhotep (and of Amenhotep, Son of Hapu) has been related to the rise of nationalism or nostalgia in the Late Period, when the Nile Valley was under the political control of the Persians, Greeks, and Romans, successively, and the Egyptians looked to the past for authentic aspects of their culture.7

It is thought that Imhotep was buried at Saqqara, and archaeologists continue to search for his tomb. Imhotep has been featured in many of the classic “mummy” movies, as well as in more serious documentaries.8

For more on copper alloy statuettes, see About Copper Alloy Statuettes.9

Provenance

Émile Brugsch (1842–1930), Bulaq Museum and Egyptian Antiquities Service, Cairo; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1892.10

Publication History

Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 106.11

Roberta Casagrande-Kim, ed., When the Greeks Ruled Egypt: From Alexander the Great to Cleopatra, with contributions by Mary C. Greuel et al., exh. cat. (New York: Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, 2014), 92, no. 33.
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