Thoth – God of Wisdom
Other Names: Tehuty, Djehuty
Patron of: knowledge, secrets, writing, and
scribes
Appearance: A man with the head of an ibis
holding a scribe's palette and stylus. He was also shown as a full ibis, or
sometimes as baboon.
Description: Thoth is an unusual god. Though some stories place him as a son
of Ra, others say that Thoth created himself through the power
of language. He is the creator of magic, the inventor of writing, teacher of
man, the messenger of the gods (and thus identified by the Greeks with Hermes)
and the divine record-keeper and mediator.
Thoth's role as mediator is
well-documented. It is he who questions the souls of the dead about their deeds
in life before their heart is weighed against the feather of Maat.
Thoth is considered a lunar deity and
is often depicted wearing the lunar crescent on his head. As a lunar deity his
totem animal is the baboon, a nocturnal animal that goes to sleep only after
greeting the new day.
Thoth, ancient Egyptian god of wisdom
and writing was the scribe to the gods and also their messenger. The Greeks
identified him with Hermes. He was often represented as a man with the head of
an ibis, or entirely in the form of this bird, but he could also be depicted as
a baboon.
Thoth was the god who overcame the
curse of Ra,
allowing Nut
to give birth to her
five children, with his skill at games. It was he who helped Isis work the ritual to
bring Osiris back from the dead, and who drove
the magical poison of Set from her son, Horus with the power of his magic.
Worship: Worshipped widely throughout all
of
Hermopolis
Hermopolis, located by a small
village called El Ashmunein (derived from Shmun), was the capital of the Fifteenth (Hare) Nome of
Upper Egypt, but in ancient times was it was one of the great Egyptian cities
known as Khmunu (Shmun). The name Shmun,
which is ancient Egyptian for the word 'eight', is interesting and reflects one
of the creation myths of the ancient Egyptians. This refers to the eight
ancestors of creation who created the first child and thus it was believed that
the first sun rise was over this city, which in turn created the world.
Here, Thoth was worshipped in the form of the ibis and baboon. He was
Hermes (hence, the modern name of the city) to the Greeks and Trismegistus in the hermetic test, who was the scribe who
presided over all forms of knowledge.
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Osiris | Thoth | Atum-Ra
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