Episode Details

Imhotep designed the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, the first monumental stone building in human history. He served as vizier, priest, and physician to Pharaoh Djoser. Two thousand years after his death, the Egyptians deified him as a god of healing, and the Greeks identified him with Asclepius.

This episode tells the story of the only commoner in Egyptian history to be elevated to full godhood, and examines what we actually know versus what legend has added.

• The Step Pyramid and why it was a revolutionary leap in architecture
• His roles as vizier, architect, and physician in one career
• How he was deified two millennia after his death
• The thin line between the historical Imhotep and the mythological figure