Ptah

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Ptah

In Egyptian mythology

Egyptian mythology

Ancient Egyptian religion encompasses the various religious beliefs and rituals practiced in ancient Egypt over at least 3,000 years, from the Predynastic Egypt until the adoption of Coptic Christianity in the early centuries Common Era....
, Ptah (also spelt Peteh) was the deification of the primordial mound in the Ennead

Ennead

Ennead , an ancient Greek translation of the Egyptian word, Pesedjet, consists of a grouping of nine deity, most often appearing in the context of Egyptian mythology....
cosmogony

Cosmogony

Cosmogony, or cosmogeny, is any theory concerning the coming into existence or origin of the universe, or about how reality came to be. The word comes from the Greek ??s??????a , from ??s??? "cosmos, the world", and the root of ?????a? / ?????a "to be born, come about"....
, which was more literally referred to as Ta-tenen (also spelled Tathenen), meaning risen land, or as Tanen, meaning submerged land.

It was said (in the Shabaka Stone

Shabaka Stone

The Shabaka Stone is a relic from the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt. It is a stone slab measuring 66 cm in height and 137 cm in width and was incised with the remaining Egyptian hieroglyphs of a worm-ridden, decaying papyrus....
) that it was Ptah who called the world into being, having dreamt creation in his heart, and speaking it, his name meaning opener, in the sense of opener of the mouth.

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Encyclopedia

In Egyptian mythology

Egyptian mythology

Ennead

Ennead , an ancient Greek translation of the Egyptian word, Pesedjet, consists of a grouping of nine deity, most often appearing in the context of Egyptian mythology....
cosmogony

Cosmogony

Shabaka Stone

Atum

Atum is an important deity in Egyptian mythology, whose cult centred on the city of Heliopolis . His name is thought to be derived from the word 'tem' which means to complete or finish....
was said to have been created by Ptah to rule over the creation, sitting upon the primordial mound.

In art

Art

Art is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions. It encompasses a diverse range of human activities, creations, and modes of expression, including music and literature....
, he is portrayed as a bearded mummified

Mummy

A mummy is a corpse whose skin and organs have been preserved by either intentional or incidental exposure to chemicals, extreme coldness, very high humidity, or lack of air when bodies are submerged in bogs....
man, often wearing a skull cap, with his hands holding an ankh

Ankh

The ankh was the Egyptian hieroglyphic character that read "eternal life", a triliteral sign for the consonants Ayin-Nun -?a'. Egyptian gods are often portrayed carrying it by its loop, or bearing one in each hand, arms crossed over their chest....
, was

Was

Was scepters represent the typhonic or Set-animal . Was scepters were depicted as being carried by gods, pharaohs, and priests, as a symbol of power, and in later use, as a symbol of control over the force of chaos that Set represented....
, and djed

Djed

The Djed symbol is a pillar-like ancient Egyptian symbol representing stability. It has been interpreted as the backbone of the Ancient Egypt god Osiris, especially in the form Banebdjedet ....
, the symbols of life

Life

Life is a characteristic of organisms that exhibit certain biological processes such as chemical reactions or other events that results in a transformation....
, power

Power (sociology)

Power is a measure of a person's ability to control the environment around them, including the behavior of other people. The term authority is often used for power, perceived as legitimate by the social structure....
and stability

Stability

Stability may refer to:...
, respectively. It was also considered that Ptah manifested himself in the Apis

Apis (Egyptian mythology)

In Egyptian mythology, Apis or Hapis , was a bull-deity worshipped in the Memphis, Egypt region.According to Manetho, his worship was instituted by Kaiechos of the Second dynasty of Egypt....
bull.

In Memphis

Memphis, Egypt

Memphis was the ancient capital of the first Nome of Lower Egypt, and of the Old Kingdom of Egypt from its foundation until around 2200 BC and later for shorter periods during the New Kingdom, and an administrative centre throughout ancient history....
, Ptah was worshipped in his own right, and was seen as Atum's father, or rather, the father of Nefertum, the younger form of Atum. When the beliefs about the Ennead and Ogdoad

Ogdoad

In Egyptian mythology, the Ogdoad were eight deities worshipped in Hermopolis during what is called the Old Kingdom, the third through sixth dynasties, dated between 2686 to 2134 B.C....
were later merged, and Atum was identified as Ra

Ra is an ancient Egyptian Solar deity . By the Fifth dynasty of Egypt he became a major deity in ancient Egyptian religion, identified primarily with the noon, with other deities representing other positions of the sun....
(Atum-Ra), himself seen as Horus

Horus

Horus is a god of the Ancient Egyptian religion, most commonly known by the Greek language version Horus, of the Egyptian language Heru/Har....
(Ra-Herakhty), this led to Ptah being said to be married to Sekhmet

Sekhmet

In Egyptian mythology, Sekhmet , was originally the warrior goddess of Upper Egypt. She is depicted as a lion, the fiercest hunter known to the Egyptians....
, at the time considered the earlier form of Hathor

Hathor

In Egyptian mythology, Hathor was originally a personification of the Milky Way, which was seen as the milk that flowed from the udders of a heavenly cow....
, Horus', thus Atum's, mother

Mother

A mother is a biological and/or Maternal bond female parent of an offspring. Because of the complexity and differences of the social, cultural, and religious definitions and roles, it is challenging to define a mother in a universally accepted definition....
. Since Ptah was the primordial mound, and had called creation into being, he was considered the god of craftsmen, and in particular stone

Rock (geology)

In geology, rock is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids.The Earth's outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock....
-based craft

Craft

A craft is a skill, especially involving practical The Arts. It may refer to a trade or particular art.The terms is often used as part of a longer word ....
s. Eventually, due to the connection of these things to tomb

Tomb

For the New York prison see The Tombs.A tomb is a repository for the remains of the death. The term generally refers to any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes....
s, and that at Thebes

Thebes, Egypt

Thebes was a city in Ancient Egypt located about 800 km south of the Mediterranean, on the east bank of the river Nile . It was the capital of Waset, the fourth Upper Egyptian Nome ....
, the craftsmen regarded him so highly as to say that he controlled their destiny. Consequently, first amongst the craftsmen, then the population as a whole, Ptah also became a god of reincarnation

Reincarnation

Reincarnation, literally "to be made flesh again", is a doctrine or Metaphysics belief that some essential part of a living being survives death to be reborn in a new body....
. Since Seker

Seker

In Egyptian mythology, Seker was originally, during the Old Kingdom, the deification of the act of separating the Ba from the Ka, roughly the separation of soul from the body, after death....
was also god of craftsmen, and of reincarnation

Reincarnation

Reincarnation, literally "to be made flesh again", is a doctrine or Metaphysics belief that some essential part of a living being survives death to be reborn in a new body....
, Seker was later assimilated with Ptah becoming Ptah-Seker.

Ptah-Seker gradually became seen as the personification of the sun during the night, since the sun appears to be reincarnated at this time, and Ptah was the primordial mound, which lay beneath the earth. Consequently, Ptah-Seker became considered an underworld

Duat

In Egyptian mythology, Duat is the underworld.This was the region through which the sun god Ra traveled from west to east during the night, and where he battled Apep....
deity, and eventually, by the Middle Kingdom

Middle Kingdom of Egypt

The middle kingdom is the period in the history of ancient Egypt stretching from the establishment of the Eleventh dynasty of Egypt to the end of the Fourteenth dynasty of Egypt, roughly between 2040 BC and 1640 BC....
, become assimilated by Osiris

Osiris

Osiris was an Egyptian mythology, usually called the god of the Afterlife.Osiris is one of the oldest gods for whom records have been found; one of the oldest known attestations of his name is on the Palermo Stone of around 2500 BC....
, the lord of the underworld, occasionally being known as Ptah-Seker-Osiris.

Literature

Benedikt Rothöhler, Neue Gedanken zum Denkmal memphitischer Theologie. Heidelberg, 2006