Thoth, Ancient Egyptian God

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Anubis (jnpw)

Bastet (b3stt)

Hathor (ht-hrw)

Horus (hrw)

Khnum (khnwm)

Sekhmet (skhmt)

Set (sth)

Sobek (sbk)

Thoth (djhwty)

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djehuti, tehutiOther Egyptian Gods

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Thoth is the god of wisdom, of letters, of the recording of time, of science, and of magic; he is the scribe at the divine court. Thoth is depicted as an ibis-headed man, often carrying a scribe's palette or a papyrus to represent his significance as the inventor of writing and the recorder of knowledge. Association of Thoth with the ibis probably comes from the migratory pattern of the ibis, which would arrive in Egypt every year about the time the Nile floods would begin, demonstrating knowledge and wisdom in the timing of their arrival. Djehuti is also associated with the baboon and can be shown as a baboon. The ancient Egyptians had a higher opinion of baboons than we do now, considering them wise because they worshipped the sun like people. In the morning, baboons sun themselves to warm up, facing the rising sun and even raising their arms toward the sun to get as much exposure as possible.

Thoth was self-created at the beginning of time, the One who gave Ptah the Word that caused everything to come into being (thus keeping himself out of the unseemly family squabbles of the Osirian pantheon). As measurer of time, he created the calendar with 12 months of 30 days each, but then had to dice with Khonsu the moon god (or with Re the sun god) to get the five sacred days of the year. These extra days brought his calendar year approximately in line with the solar year, and allowed Nut to have children (but that's another story). Seeing the God of Wisdom in a game of chance does not seem totally Wise, but perhaps he was cheating.

That 365-day calendar was one of the reasons people had trouble predicting when the innundation would arrive. The Egyptian calendar did not include a leap year, so every 4 years the calendar gained a day on the seasons of Innundation, Planting, Growing and Harvest. Each 120 years, seasonal events would occur a full month later than the calendar would predict, so eventually the flood actually occurred in Growing season. The ibis arriving for the floods on time regardless of the calendar must have had some superior knowledge.

In the temple at Abydos there is a charming relief of Thoth using a scribe's brush to write the words into a border along the right-hand side of a doorway. On the other side of the door a similar relief shows Seshet likewise employed. Seshet was the goddess of writing and knowledge, a female counterpart of Thoth and sometimes his consort. This sort of playing with the medium, where the drawn figure reaches out and modifies his painted environment, seems very modern. But here the Egyptian artists played visual games with the images of the gods in a temple, more than 3000 years ago.

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Bibliography of Egyptology references used in these Stuffe & Nonsense Lore Pages.

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Thoth Figurines and Artefacts from Stuffe & Nonsense

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