A Study Of The Demotic Book Of Thoth

The god Thoth ("Djehuty" in ancient Egyptian) was one of the oldest and most highly developed figures in the Egyptian pantheon. The worship of Thoth seems to have ever had a broad base among ancient Egyptians. His cult can be traced back to the early times of Egyptian history, for one of his manifestations, the ibis, already appeares on the stone palette in the Pre-dynastic age. Beginning as a lunar deity, Thoth frequently appears in the ancient Egyptian mythology, for instance the myth of Osiris and the contending of Horus and Seth, in which he acts as a loyal friend and essential protector or mediator of Horus and Osiris against the god Seth, who represents the power of darkness. From his roles in these stories, Thoth began to be associated with the afterlife, presiding over the mortuary ritual of embalming, and judging or advocating the dead at the court of the underworld. Furthermore, the most widely spread fame of Thoth was to be the "All-knowing" god, whom was said to having invented language, literature and scrpt, thus also becoming the patron of the sciences. Due to these features, Thoth was worshiped by the scribes as well as priests in the temples, especially those who worked in the "House of Life". While believed to possess every kind of knowledge, from the common sense of men to the secrets of other gods, for instance, the name of every god, many ancient Egyptian texts claimed to be Thoth's work, including medical manuals, mathematical problems and instructional documents on social etiquette, etc. His selected followers, in most of cases the priests or scribes, were thought to possess his special knowledge by learning from these books. Eventually, during the Greco-Roman period, Thoth and his worship has survived from the impact of foreign culture, by syncretizing him with Greek god Hermes, who was also connected to the myth of moon, the realm of the dead and infinite wisdom, into Hermes Trismegistus.From the earliest day of modern Egyptology, much effort has been put to the study of this deity. Scholars like Karl Richard Lepsius, Heinrich Karl Brugsch, Gaston Maspero, Richard Pietschmann, Partick Boylan, Claas J. Bleeker, Maria-Theresia Derchain-Urtel, Martin Stadler, have devoted their time and endless endeavor to this matter. Unfortunately, due to the few and scattered texts or archaeology evidence that can be linked to Thoth nowadays, many problems regarding this god still cannot be properly answered. However, this situation is going to be changed substantionlly in consequence of the new work of Richard Jasnow and Karl-T. Zauzich. Given the name of The Book of Thoth, this study mainly focused on a collection of papyri forming an extensive compilation attested in several Demotic manuscripts from the Greco-Roman Egypt. These texts consist of a series of dialogues between a deity who has been identified as Thoth by Jasnow and Zauzich, and a disciple or reader. They illustrate a lot of valuable information on Egyptian culture, such as the skills and implements of scribes. Furthermore, the religious aspects in that book also show close relationship with traditional Egyptian literature, for many conversations has given details about duty of the gods, rituals and festivals, the details like toponym, minerals and denizens and sacred animals of underworld, or even some abstract figures like the "arm of Shu". Certain contents, for instance, the epithet of Thoth and Seshat and the depiction of Horus defeating in turn the turtle, the oryx and the hippopotamus can be connected with the rituals and cults held in Edfu during Greco-Roman period. The possibility of the potential connection between these texts and Hermetic Corpus can provide new insight into that period, and most important, how the two different cultures finally tolerated and emerged with each other.