Merit-Ptah ("Beloved ofPtah") was thought to be a femalechief physician[1] of the pharaoh's court during theSecond Dynasty of Egypt,c. 2700 BCE; she is purportedly referred as such on an inscription left on her grave atSaqqara by her son.[2][3][4][5]
However, in recent times it has been argued that she most likely never existed,[6][7] being a modern 1938 invention of a Canadian feminist calledKate Campbell Hurd-Mead.[8] Jakub Kwiecinski, a historian at the University of Colorado, was cited by secondary sourceNewsweek 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.[9]
Merit-Ptah first appears in literature in a 1937 book by Kate Campbell Hurd-Mead on female doctors.[10] Campbell Hurd-Mead presents two ancient Egyptian female doctors, an unnamed one dating to theFifth Dynasty and Merit-Ptah, dating evidently to theNew Kingdom as Hurd-Mead states that she is shown in theValley of the Kings (the burial ground of Egyptian kings from about 1500 BCE to 1080 BCE). The unnamedOld Kingdom female doctor is most likelyPeseshet who is known from a tomb of the period.
Later authors did not notice that Kate Campbell Hurd-Mead presented two doctors and mixed the data of the two women; Merit-Ptah was thus back-dated to the Old Kingdom.[11]
Campbell Hurd-Mead in her book describes a tomb in theValley of the Kings where there was apicture of a woman doctor named Merit Ptah, the mother of a high priest, who is calling her 'the Chief Physician.'
A female doctor Merit-Ptah is not known from any other Ancient Egyptian source, and no research publication listing doctors mentions her.[12] A namesake, yet completely unrelated woman was the wife ofRamose, the Governor of Thebes and Vizier underAkhenaten, and she is depicted along with her husband inTT55 inSheikh Abd el-Qurna.[13]
TheInternational Astronomical Union named the impact craterMerit Ptah onVenus after her.[4]
A historical feminist icon, one of the first women of science, a famed physician from ancient Egypt, didn't actually exist, says new research, and the belief that she did can be traced back to a 1938 account from a Canadian feminist
"Merit Ptah's story is a warning about over-reliance on secondary sources, and about misleading character of historical information in the Internet—including even seemingly well-sourced Wikipedia articles," wrote Kwiecinski.
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