Merit-Ptah, 'the first woman doctor in history', most likely never existed.
She arose from a mix-up of two Egyptian women in a 1937 book — yet a crater on Venus has been named after her.
27th century BC · 20th century
More amazing facts
- 2800 BC · 2670 BC Soap is older than the Egyptian pyramids.
- 2670 BC The first dentist known by name served the king who built the first pyramid.
- 2670 BC · 1250 BC Ancient Egypt had its own Egyptologist.
- 2600 BC · 2560 BC The Peruvian city of Caral, with its stepped pyramids, flourished in the same age as Egypt's pyramids — more than 4,000 years before the Incas.
- 2600 BC One of Stonehenge's stones seems to have come from Scotland, nearly 700 km away.
- 2600 BC · 1950 A board game invented in Mesopotamia 4,500 years ago was still played in the mid-20th century.