Everything about Ptah totally explained
Ptah also refers to the asteroid 5011 Ptah
In
Egyptian mythology,
Ptah (also spelt
Peteh) was the deification of the primordial mound in the
Ennead cosmogony, 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) 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. Indeed the
opening of the mouth ceremony, performed by priests at funerals to release souls from their corpses, was said to have been created by Ptah.
Atum was said to have been created by Ptah to rule over the creation, sitting upon the primordial mound.
In
art, he's portrayed as a bearded
mummified man, often wearing a
skull cap, with his hands holding an
ankh,
was, and
djed, the symbols of
life,
power and
stability, respectively. It was also considered that Ptah manifested himself in the
Apis bull.
In
Memphis, 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 were later merged, and Atum was identified as
Ra (
Atum-Ra), himself seen as
Horus (
Ra-Herakhty), this led to Ptah being said to be married to
Sekhmet, at the time considered the earlier form of
Hathor, Horus', thus Atum's,
mother.
Since Ptah was the primordial mound, and had called creation into being, he was considered the god of craftsmen, and in particular
stone-based
crafts. Eventually, due to the connection of these things to
tombs, and that at
Thebes, 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. Since
Seker was also god of craftsmen, and of
reincarnation, 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 deity, and eventually, by the
Middle Kingdom, become assimilated by
Osiris, the lord of the underworld, occasionally being known as
Ptah-Seker-Osiris.
Origin of name
Ptah's original name in
Ancient Egyptian is reconstructed to have been pronounced as *Pitáḥ based on the occurrence of his name in hieroglyphics,
ptḥ, surviving into
Coptic as
Ptah, just as it's now written in
English. The name was also borrowed early on into
Greek as Φθα
Ptah.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Ptah'.
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