deity
Thoth
An Egyptian god of writing, calculation, and the moon, often shown as an ibis-headed man or a baboon.
Also known as Djehuty
Egyptian religion
Thoth belongs to Egyptian religion.
Funerary texts name Thoth as scribe and reckoner among the gods of the Egyptian dead.
from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972
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Thoth is associated with Knowledge.
In the Book of the Dead Thoth records and calculates. The knowledge is literacy and judgment in a funerary court, not Greek rhetoric.
from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972
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Thoth is associated with Moon.
Egyptian tradition associates Thoth with the moon and with measuring time. The moon here is a reckoner’s light, not a Hellenistic natal planet.
from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972
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Thoth is associated with Underworld.
Thoth is present at the weighing of the dead. The underworld is the Egyptian Duat of the spells, not Hades or Xibalba.
from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972
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Thoth is used in Writing.
Thoth’s office is literacy. Visiting Thoth should reach writing as an Egyptian craft, not only “knowledge” as a blur.
from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972
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Thoth is associated with Duat.
The weighing in the spells is a Duat scene. Keep the geography named, not only “underworld.”
from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972
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Time is associated with Thoth.
Egyptian tradition treats Thoth as a measurer of times. The measure is a scribal-lunar office, not Saturn’s delay.
from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972
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Writing is sacred to Thoth.
Egyptian tradition treats Thoth as the scribe of the gods. Writing here is a funerary and temple literacy, not the Hermetic treatise’s boast.
from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972
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Duat is associated with Thoth.
Thoth records and calculates in the weighing of the dead. The Duat is his working court in those spells.
from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972
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Hermeticism
Thoth appears in Hermeticism.
Hermetic literature claims Egyptian Thoth as an ancestor of its Hermes. The appearance is the treatises’ genealogy, not an Old Kingdom fact.
from Brian P. Copenhaver (translation) · Corpus Hermeticum, c. 2nd–3rd century CE (Greek treatises)
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Hermes is a counterpart of Thoth.
The Corpus Hermeticum speaks under the name of Hermes in a voice that claims Egyptian wisdom. That is a late antique identification of two figures, not proof they were always one being.
from Brian P. Copenhaver (translation) · Corpus Hermeticum, c. 2nd–3rd century CE (Greek treatises)
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Egyptian religion · Nile valley
Thoth is associated with Ibis.
The same pairing. Plutarch discusses Egyptian animal-signs as a Greek interpreter.
from Plutarch · On Isis and Osiris, c. 100 CE
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Ibis is sacred to Thoth.
Thoth can be shown as an ibis. A Nile bird in a temple grammar, not a later scribal mascot.
from Plutarch · On Isis and Osiris, c. 100 CE; Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972
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sources
- Book of the Dead · Raymond O. Faulkner (translation)
Raymond O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead.
- Corpus Hermeticum · Brian P. Copenhaver (translation)
Brian P. Copenhaver, Hermetica (Corpus Hermeticum).
- On Isis and Osiris · Plutarch
Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris (Moralia).