Chapter 10 (part 1)

THE GODS OF THE BOOK OF THE DEAD. The following are the principal gods and goddesses mentioned in the pyramid texts and in the later versions of the Book of the Dead:-- Nu represents the primeval watery mass from which all the gods were evolved, and upon which floats the bark of "millions of years" containing the sun. This god's chief titles are " Father of the gods," and begetter of the great company of the gods,". He is depicted in the form of a seated deity having upon his head disk and plumes. Nut the female principle of Nu; she is depicted with the head of a snake surmounted by a disk, or with the head of a cat. Ptah was associated with the god Khnemu in carrying out at the Creation the mandates of Thoth the divine intelligence; his name means the "opener," and he was identified by the Greeks with {Greek H!'faistos }, and by the Latins with Vulcan. He was worshipped at a very early date in Memphis, which is called in Egyptian texts "The House of the Ka of Ptah,", and according to Herodotus his temple there was founded by Mena or Menes. He is called the "exceedingly great god, the beginning of being," "the father of fathers and power of powers," and "he created his form, [1. Lanzone, Dizionario , tav. 166, No. 2. For fuller descriptions of the gods and their titles and attributes see Brugsch, Religion und Mythologie , Leipzig, 1884-88; Pierret, Le Panthéon Égyptien , Paris, 1881; Wiedemann, Die Religion der alten Aegypter , Münster, 1890; Strauss and Corney, Der altaegyptische Götterglaube , Heidelberg, 1889. For illustrations of the various forms in which the gods are depicted, see the Dizionario di Mitologia Egizia , Turin, 1881 (not yet complete). 2. Lanzone, op. cit., tavv. 168-71. 3. {Greek Tou^to de` tou^ H!fai'stou to` i!drusasðai e`n au?th^ } (ii., 99).] and gave birth to his body, and established unending and unvarying right and truth upon the earth." As a solar god he is called "Ptah, the Disk of heaven, who illumineth the world by the fire of his eyes,"; and in the Book of the Dead he is said to have "opened" the mouth of the deceased with the tool with which he opened the mouths of the gods. He is depicted in the form of a mummy standing upon maat and in his hands he holds a sceptre on the top of which are the emblems of power, life, and stability; from the back of his neck hangs the menat (see p. 1, note 2). Ptah formed at Memphis the chief member of the triad Ptah-Sekhet and Nefer-Tmu . In many texts the god Ptah is often joined to the god Seker whose individual attributes it is not easy to describe; Seker is the Egyptian name of the incarnation of the Apis bull at Memphis. That Seker was a solar god is quite clear, but whether he "closed" the day or the night is not certain.