Peseshet psš.t[1] in hieroglyphs |
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Peseshet, who lived under the Fourth Dynasty, is often credited with being the earliest known female physician in ancient Egypt, though another, Merit Ptah lived earlier. Her title was "lady overseer of the female physicians,"[2][3] but whether she was a physician herself is uncertain.[4] She had a son, Akhethetep, in whose mastaba at Giza her personal stela was found.[5][6]
She may have graduated midwives[7] at an ancient Egyptian medical school in Sais; midwifery must have existed, even though no ancient Egyptian term for it is known. The Hebrew Bible – while not a proven source for historical events prior to the 7th century BCE – refers to midwives in Exodus 1,16:
Peseshet's history plays a key role in the 2009 novel Storm Cycle by Roy and Iris Johansen, which tells the story of an archaeologist seeking to obtain and sell cures and treatments that the novel's Peseshet is said to have discovered, and of a researcher whose only hope of saving her sister may lie in one of those cures.