Merit ptah biography of michael

Merit-Ptah ("Beloved of Ptah") was thought to be a female chief physician^[1] of the pharaoh's court during the Second Dynasty of Egypt, c. 2700 BCE; she is purportedly referred as such on an inscription left on her grave at Saqqara by her son.^[5]

However, in recent times it has been argued that she most likely never existed, being a modern 1938 invention of a Canadian feminist called Kate Campbell 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.

History

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 the Fifth Dynasty and Merit-Ptah, dating evid