Miut
07-25-2004, 11:24 PM
I was asked by someone here to write something about Ptah, so now I have access to all my Egyptian books again, (Yeah!) here is what I have.. :) I hope others will also add their bits of knowledge too. Be nice to have a few threads about specific deities we can look up.
To understand Egyptian religion at all, we have to approach it from the outside because we can't now share their religion, any more than we can their language. If we want to establish an empathy with these people and their beliefs, we have to step outside what we consider religion today. We need to see what religion was then, a means to bind people together, a philosophy that concerns creation and usually a creator or creators: it is a way to express ideas about the great imponderables of our existence, principally why we exist. When such a way of understanding the world around them is accepted and promoted by a community, it ceases to be a philosophy and becomes part of the fabric of their lives - their social customs - and thus becomes a religion.
It's also not really accurate to think of the gods and goddesses in terms of "Who was the God/ess of craftsmen" because all dieties have many functions and aspects, not least those of the Egyptians. To that end, I am including some relevant historical info on their temples as well.
Ptah was a creator god, the third highest god in Egypt. He was the god presiding over the Second Egyptian month, known as Paopi by Greek times. From a local god of craftsmen to the deity who crafted the universe and the other deities, Ptah was only overshadowed by the sun god Ra, and the hidden god Amen. He fashioned the universe through words of power and by thought, as well as creating different parts by hand. He helped the dead on their travels through the afterlife, allowing them to transform into his divine figure, or by building the boats on which they could travel. He was the one who allowed the dead to be like the living after death with the Opening of the Mouth ceremony. The Apis bull was his sacred animal, more of a representation of his soul on earth who gave fertility and rebirth to the people. He was an ancient god whom the Egyptians worshiped through their long history.
While the principal identity, and that of the most powerful force, was acknowledged as the sun, aka Ra, the Egyptians did acknowledge other creative forces and impulses. Here Ptah was considered the patron of craftsmen, probably first by the stoneworkers. and later by metal workers. This creativity formed from the earth was shared with a falcon headed diety called Sokar, perhaps the original god of metalworkers. Both dieties had their main cult centers at Memphis where the royal Residence was patron to the greatest concentration of artistic production in the Old Kingdom. (The Apis bull also represented Ptah) He's also identified with anyone who creates with his or her hands. His high priest was given the title wr khrp hmw, "Great Leader of Craftsmen". It was believed that Ptah invented masonry and that it was he who crafted the boats that the dead used to travel to the Duat. The Book of the Dead describes him as "a master architect, and framer of everything in the universe..."
Not only was Ptah a god of creation, but he was involved with the soul's rebirth in the afterlife. He was related to the dead since Old Kingdom times, where he was believed to have invented the Opening of the Mouth ritual to allow the spirit to be able to see, hear, speak and eat as a living being.
He is shown as man with a punt beard, wrapped like a mummy but with his hands free. They grip a great staff made up of the symbols for life, stability, and power. Sometimes he wears a skullcap crown and stands on the hieroglyph for Maat.
In the Memphite theology, Ptah is the primal creator, the first of all the gods, creator of the world and all that is in it. He is not created, but simply is. In some stories he is the personification of the primal matter, Ta-Tenen, which rose out of Nun, the fundamental seas. His wife is said to be Bast (or Sakhmet) and their children are Nefertem, Mahes, and Imhotep.
Not only was Ptah a god of creation, but he was involved with the soul's rebirth in the afterlife. He was related to the dead since Old Kingdom times, where he was believed to have invented the Opening of the Mouth ritual to allow the spirit to be able to see, hear, speak and eat as a living being.
Ptah's importance may be discerned when one learns that "Egypt" is a Greek corruption of the phrase "Het-Ka-Ptah," or "House of the Spirit of Ptah."
Ptah-Seker-Osiris is a composite funerary god worshipped during the Middle Kingdom period. In this form he represents the three aspects of the universe: creation, stability, and death.
Ptah is described as the tongue of Ra "Ptah the great, being the tongue and heart of Ra....The form as tongue and th form as heart are as the image of Atum; the great and mighty is Ptah who vivifies..." This text was salvaged by the Ku****e king Shabako from a wormeaten papyrus onto a basalt slab, which in turn surbvived being used as a grinding stone, and credits Ptah as creating the creator-god Atum.
The full text's message is that creation depends on a creative impulse within a framework similar to that of the human body and actions - just as human deeds require a human mind to formulate them, and a tongue to annunciate them, so do the creator and his creation need a tool to ennunciate their project. Ptah is cast in this text as the creative impulse of heart and tongue - in terms strikingly close to the ancient Greek evocation of a divine mind and the divine word at the beginning of the Gospel of St John. As the god that embodies those creative impulses, Ptah becomes perhaps even closer to our concept of creator than Atum the Lord of the Universe.
Ptah was also a national diety with shries to him scattered throughout the country. His role as a local diety was made explicit by titles such as "Lord of such-and-such a province/town" or in specific forms like "Horus-of-Nekhen" who appeared as a mummified falcon on a shrine in contrast to his usual representation as a falcon or falcon headed man.
The Apis bull was regarded as the Ba of Ptah while it was living. The bull's main sanctuary was near the temple of Ptah in Mennefer, near the bull's embalming house where he became linked to Osiris after death. Herodotus wrote that the Apis bull was conceived from a bolt of lightning, it was black with a while diamond on his forehead, the image of a vulture on his back, double hairs on his tail and a scarab mark under his tongue. The lightning was thought by the Egyptians to be Ptah in the form of a celestial fire, who mated with a heifer. With a creation god as his father, the bull was believed to be a fertility symbol. The heifer that produced the bull was venerated as a form of the goddess Isis. There was only one Apis bull at a time, and the cult of the Apis bull started at the beginning of Egyptian history. While alive, the bull was known as the 'Spokesman' of Ptah and his 'Glorious Soul'.
In each place where the god/dess was worshipped, the deity took on a tangible form in its cult image, only as a vessel in which the deity could rest and through which it could receive worship. Thus the sacred bull of Ptah (the Apis bull) provided a living variant of that idea. It was not the god, merely a vessel in which the god could take residence to enjoy the services provided by his priesthood.
This created something of a dilemma - the image or resident creature was on earth and could be touched, but it held divinity that ought not to be touched except under the most rigorous control. Serving that image also included aspects of worship which we recognise today - prayers, and singing hymns - but for the ancient Egyptians it also involved more material services such as providing nourishment and cleanliness. Even the statues were thought to be in need of verbal and physical sustenance and were thus provided with food and clothing as well as prayers etc.
Every morning, the image was taken from a closed and sealed shrine (naos to use the common Greek term attributed to it) washed, given fresh clothes and ornaments, offered food and drink to the accompanyment of incense burning and chanting. Every evening the reverse service was provided and the image returned to its sealded shrine fir the night.
This daily cult involved many items like the naos itself, the altar for the food and drink offerings and libation vessels, and the arm-shaped censer in which the incense (usually of turnpentine, I have discovered) was burned.
These sancturies were notable by their hiddeness inside the depths of the temple, and smallness - the Egyptians didn't go in for large images of their deities so that the shrine was small enough to be portable. It was made of rare woods set in precious metals. They could, however be enclosed in larger shrines or even in exceptional circumstances be placed inside great monoliths.
This is part one. ;)
http://www.sff.net/people/lisanne/Viking/images/Miut.gif
To understand Egyptian religion at all, we have to approach it from the outside because we can't now share their religion, any more than we can their language. If we want to establish an empathy with these people and their beliefs, we have to step outside what we consider religion today. We need to see what religion was then, a means to bind people together, a philosophy that concerns creation and usually a creator or creators: it is a way to express ideas about the great imponderables of our existence, principally why we exist. When such a way of understanding the world around them is accepted and promoted by a community, it ceases to be a philosophy and becomes part of the fabric of their lives - their social customs - and thus becomes a religion.
It's also not really accurate to think of the gods and goddesses in terms of "Who was the God/ess of craftsmen" because all dieties have many functions and aspects, not least those of the Egyptians. To that end, I am including some relevant historical info on their temples as well.
Ptah was a creator god, the third highest god in Egypt. He was the god presiding over the Second Egyptian month, known as Paopi by Greek times. From a local god of craftsmen to the deity who crafted the universe and the other deities, Ptah was only overshadowed by the sun god Ra, and the hidden god Amen. He fashioned the universe through words of power and by thought, as well as creating different parts by hand. He helped the dead on their travels through the afterlife, allowing them to transform into his divine figure, or by building the boats on which they could travel. He was the one who allowed the dead to be like the living after death with the Opening of the Mouth ceremony. The Apis bull was his sacred animal, more of a representation of his soul on earth who gave fertility and rebirth to the people. He was an ancient god whom the Egyptians worshiped through their long history.
While the principal identity, and that of the most powerful force, was acknowledged as the sun, aka Ra, the Egyptians did acknowledge other creative forces and impulses. Here Ptah was considered the patron of craftsmen, probably first by the stoneworkers. and later by metal workers. This creativity formed from the earth was shared with a falcon headed diety called Sokar, perhaps the original god of metalworkers. Both dieties had their main cult centers at Memphis where the royal Residence was patron to the greatest concentration of artistic production in the Old Kingdom. (The Apis bull also represented Ptah) He's also identified with anyone who creates with his or her hands. His high priest was given the title wr khrp hmw, "Great Leader of Craftsmen". It was believed that Ptah invented masonry and that it was he who crafted the boats that the dead used to travel to the Duat. The Book of the Dead describes him as "a master architect, and framer of everything in the universe..."
Not only was Ptah a god of creation, but he was involved with the soul's rebirth in the afterlife. He was related to the dead since Old Kingdom times, where he was believed to have invented the Opening of the Mouth ritual to allow the spirit to be able to see, hear, speak and eat as a living being.
He is shown as man with a punt beard, wrapped like a mummy but with his hands free. They grip a great staff made up of the symbols for life, stability, and power. Sometimes he wears a skullcap crown and stands on the hieroglyph for Maat.
In the Memphite theology, Ptah is the primal creator, the first of all the gods, creator of the world and all that is in it. He is not created, but simply is. In some stories he is the personification of the primal matter, Ta-Tenen, which rose out of Nun, the fundamental seas. His wife is said to be Bast (or Sakhmet) and their children are Nefertem, Mahes, and Imhotep.
Not only was Ptah a god of creation, but he was involved with the soul's rebirth in the afterlife. He was related to the dead since Old Kingdom times, where he was believed to have invented the Opening of the Mouth ritual to allow the spirit to be able to see, hear, speak and eat as a living being.
Ptah's importance may be discerned when one learns that "Egypt" is a Greek corruption of the phrase "Het-Ka-Ptah," or "House of the Spirit of Ptah."
Ptah-Seker-Osiris is a composite funerary god worshipped during the Middle Kingdom period. In this form he represents the three aspects of the universe: creation, stability, and death.
Ptah is described as the tongue of Ra "Ptah the great, being the tongue and heart of Ra....The form as tongue and th form as heart are as the image of Atum; the great and mighty is Ptah who vivifies..." This text was salvaged by the Ku****e king Shabako from a wormeaten papyrus onto a basalt slab, which in turn surbvived being used as a grinding stone, and credits Ptah as creating the creator-god Atum.
The full text's message is that creation depends on a creative impulse within a framework similar to that of the human body and actions - just as human deeds require a human mind to formulate them, and a tongue to annunciate them, so do the creator and his creation need a tool to ennunciate their project. Ptah is cast in this text as the creative impulse of heart and tongue - in terms strikingly close to the ancient Greek evocation of a divine mind and the divine word at the beginning of the Gospel of St John. As the god that embodies those creative impulses, Ptah becomes perhaps even closer to our concept of creator than Atum the Lord of the Universe.
Ptah was also a national diety with shries to him scattered throughout the country. His role as a local diety was made explicit by titles such as "Lord of such-and-such a province/town" or in specific forms like "Horus-of-Nekhen" who appeared as a mummified falcon on a shrine in contrast to his usual representation as a falcon or falcon headed man.
The Apis bull was regarded as the Ba of Ptah while it was living. The bull's main sanctuary was near the temple of Ptah in Mennefer, near the bull's embalming house where he became linked to Osiris after death. Herodotus wrote that the Apis bull was conceived from a bolt of lightning, it was black with a while diamond on his forehead, the image of a vulture on his back, double hairs on his tail and a scarab mark under his tongue. The lightning was thought by the Egyptians to be Ptah in the form of a celestial fire, who mated with a heifer. With a creation god as his father, the bull was believed to be a fertility symbol. The heifer that produced the bull was venerated as a form of the goddess Isis. There was only one Apis bull at a time, and the cult of the Apis bull started at the beginning of Egyptian history. While alive, the bull was known as the 'Spokesman' of Ptah and his 'Glorious Soul'.
In each place where the god/dess was worshipped, the deity took on a tangible form in its cult image, only as a vessel in which the deity could rest and through which it could receive worship. Thus the sacred bull of Ptah (the Apis bull) provided a living variant of that idea. It was not the god, merely a vessel in which the god could take residence to enjoy the services provided by his priesthood.
This created something of a dilemma - the image or resident creature was on earth and could be touched, but it held divinity that ought not to be touched except under the most rigorous control. Serving that image also included aspects of worship which we recognise today - prayers, and singing hymns - but for the ancient Egyptians it also involved more material services such as providing nourishment and cleanliness. Even the statues were thought to be in need of verbal and physical sustenance and were thus provided with food and clothing as well as prayers etc.
Every morning, the image was taken from a closed and sealed shrine (naos to use the common Greek term attributed to it) washed, given fresh clothes and ornaments, offered food and drink to the accompanyment of incense burning and chanting. Every evening the reverse service was provided and the image returned to its sealded shrine fir the night.
This daily cult involved many items like the naos itself, the altar for the food and drink offerings and libation vessels, and the arm-shaped censer in which the incense (usually of turnpentine, I have discovered) was burned.
These sancturies were notable by their hiddeness inside the depths of the temple, and smallness - the Egyptians didn't go in for large images of their deities so that the shrine was small enough to be portable. It was made of rare woods set in precious metals. They could, however be enclosed in larger shrines or even in exceptional circumstances be placed inside great monoliths.
This is part one. ;)
http://www.sff.net/people/lisanne/Viking/images/Miut.gif