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Merit-Ptah
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Merit-Ptah

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Merit-Ptah ("Beloved of Ptah") was thought to be a female chief physician of the king's court during the Second Dynasty of Egypt, . She was purportedly referred as such on an inscription left on her grave at Saqqara by her son.

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Type
Person
Gender
Male
Origin
Germany

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Wikidata facts

Instance of
human
Gender
female
Place of birth
Old Kingdom of Egypt
Place of death
Old Kingdom of Egypt
Occupation
physician
Field of work
medicine
Show 4 more facts
date of birth
2700-00-00
date of death
2659-00-00
Commons category
Merit Ptah
Sources (3)

via Wikidata · CC0

~2 min read

Encyclopedic overview

4 sections
Contents
  • History
  • References
  • Works cited
  • Further reading

Merit-Ptah ("Beloved of Ptah") was thought to be a female chief physician of the king's court during the Second Dynasty of Egypt, . She was purportedly referred as such on an inscription left on her grave at Saqqara by her son.

However, in recent times it has been argued that she most likely never existed, being a modern 1938 invention of Canadian feminist Kate Hurd-Mead. Jakub Kwiecinski, a historian at the University of Colorado, was cited by secondary source Newsweek arguing that the made-up story of Merit-Ptah exemplifies how "seemingly well-sourced Wikipedia articles" can mislead, and he cautioned against over-reliance on secondary sources.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Merit-Ptah” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.