2023

Ancient Egyptian Mythology

Thoth: The Deity of Wisdom in Ancient Egypt

Thoth, known in the dialect of ancient Egyptians as Djehuty, was the god of wisdom, writing, and knowledge. He had an incredibly important part in Egyptian mythology, as he was the god who acted as a mediator between the gods and a divine scribe who included all events in writing.

Clients and Representations

Thoth was usually portrayed as being one of the following:

A human male, having the head of an ibis, and holding a writing palette and a reed pen.

A baboon, an animal, connected with the moon and intelligence: the Egyptians.

Roles of Herself as well as Their Importance

Scribe of the Gods: He recorded the deeds of both gods and mortals and controlled the weighing of the heart in the afterlife.

Patron of Writing & Knowledge: He was said to have invented hieroglyphs and instructed mankind in writing.

God of the Moon: Connected with lunar cycles, it was supposed that Thoth would have authority regarding time and the upkeep of cosmic balance.

Arbiter Among the Gods: It played a role in settling disputes.

Worship and Legacy

Thoth was worshipped as the final source of wisdom in Hermopolis (Khemenu), where he had his main cult center. His influence reached boundaries beyond Egypt, for to Greeks, he was Hermes Trismegistus, the legendary figure of Hermetic traditions.

Thoth remains perhaps the most revered deity in Egyptian mythology: intellect, learning, and divine ordination are those that he symbolizes.

God Thoth was among the most important gods of ancient Egypt and in particular, was the authority in the struggle between Horus and Seth for the successorship of Osiris. God Thoth, better known in ancient times as Theut, was the subject of a particular cult in the locality of Khomonou (in Greek Hermopolis ) in middle Egypt.

Thoth's name means 'He of Djehut', which was a province in Lower Egypt. He was the God of the moon, drawing, writing, geometry, wisdom, medicine, music, astronomy, and magic. Thoth was the patron of scribes as the creator of writing. According to a theory, he had made the creation of the world through word effectiveness.

By his own hands, the god Thoth noted in 42 books (the number of Egyptian nomes) all the wisdom of the world. He was also very attached to the goddess Maat as a representative of truth and justice. Thoth was also a god of laws. As a lawyer, legal supervisor, and defender of the dead, he participated in the weighing of the soul during the judgment, the judgment to which the deceased was subjected to know if he was worthy or not to enter the heaven of the afterlife, a traditional scene and drawing in many papyri rolls at the authorized bazaars that we usually visit during our tour to Giza Pyramids and the Egyptian Museum tour.

Thoth was considered a great inventor, having discovered numbers, mathematics, geometry, astronomy, various games (checkers and dice rolls), and especially writing. The priests of Thoth said of him that he created everything from sound and that through hieroglyphics, he also had control of magic and wizards. In fact, it is said that Thoth wrote books that contained the fabulous knowledge of magic and enchantment, books then sealed in a crypt. Another characteristic of Thoth was that of being a lunar deity. Since the moon was one of the foundations of the Egyptian calendar, he was the "gatherer of years" and the "lord of time". Egypt is still a great tourist destination because its history was at the origin of what the world is today.