The oldest memorial mentioning him is a statue of one of his priests,
Amasis (No. 14765 in the British Museum). Ptolemy V dedicated to him a
temple on the island of Philae. His cult increased much in later days,
and a special temple was dedicated to him near Memphis Sethe suggests
that the cult of Imhotep gave the inspiration to the Hermetic
literature. The association of Imhotep with the famous temple at Edfu is
of special interest.

(3) Breasted: A History of the Ancient Egyptians, Scribner,
New York, 1908, p. 104.

(4) K. Sethe: Imhotep, der Asklepios der Aegypter, Leipzig,
1909 (Untersuchungen, etc., ed. Sethe, Vol. II, No. 4).

Egypt became a centre from which civilization spread to the other
peoples of the Mediterranean. For long centuries, to be learned in all
the wisdom of the Egyptians meant the possession of all knowledge. We
must come to the land of the Nile for the origin of many of man's
most distinctive and highly cherished beliefs. Not only is there a
magnificent material civilization, but in records so marvellously
preserved in stone we may see, as in a glass, here clearly, there
darkly, the picture of man's search after righteousness, the earliest
impressions of his moral awakening, the beginnings of the strife
in which he has always been engaged for social justice and for the
recognition of the rights of the individual. But above all, earlier and
more strongly than in any other people, was developed the faith that
looked through death, to which, to this day, the noblest of their
monuments bear an enduring testimony. With all this, it is not
surprising to find a growth in the knowledge of practical medicine; but
Egyptian civilization illustrates how crude and primitive may remain a