Creator
Thoth
ḏḥwtyHow it changed
Steadily gained scope: from a moon god to the inventor of writing, arbiter of disputes among gods, and recorder at the judgement of the dead. Identified by the Greeks with Hermes, and the resulting Hermes Trismegistus becomes a foundational figure for Western esotericism.
Cult centre
Hermopolis
Best attested
Old Kingdom onward
Family
Self-created in the Hermopolitan account.
Epithets
- “Lord of divine words”
- “Reckoner of time”
How to recognise the figure
An ibis, an ibis-headed man, or a baboon. Usually holding a scribe's palette.
Appears in
c. 1160 BCE, Twentieth Dynasty
The Contendings of Horus and Set
Eighty years of divine litigation, with bribery, shapeshifting and open comedy at the gods' expense.
c. 1300 BCE, though the text claims to be older
The Destruction of Mankind
Ra sends a goddess to punish humanity, then has to get her drunk to stop her finishing the job.
Inscribed c. 700 BCE, claiming a much older original
Creation by speech at Memphis
Ptah conceives the world in his heart and speaks it into existence, and the text arguing this is a piece of political propaganda.
Middle Kingdom onward, elaborated in the Graeco-Roman period
The eight of Hermopolis
Four frog-headed gods and four snake-headed goddesses, standing for the qualities of the water before there was anything.
c. 1550 BCE onward, Spell 125 of the Book of the Dead
The weighing of the heart
A heart on one pan, a feather on the other, and forty-two judges who each have to be addressed by name.
Alluded to from the New Kingdom; a long demotic version survives from the Roman period
The distant goddess
The Eye of Ra storms off to Nubia in a rage, and the world dries up until she can be talked into coming home.
Ptolemaic, on the walls of the temple of Edfu
Horus of Edfu and the winged disc
A campaign narrative, carved on a temple wall, in which the sun god's son puts down a rebellion province by province.
Carries
Worshipped at
Others in this group