Thoth, A Compendium of the Ancient Gods

Thoth was the ibis-headed god, the patron of writing, of mathematics, of measurement, of magic, of medicine, and of all the arts of the educated mind. His city was Khmunu in Middle Egypt, which the Greeks called Hermopolis (for they identified him with their own Hermes, in his most learned and mediating aspect); and his cult-animals were the ibis, whose long curved beak resembled the writing-stylus, and the baboon, whose attentive bearing suggested the contemplative scholar. He was depicted in either of two principal forms: as an ibis-headed man holding a scribal palette and a reed-pen, or as a baboon seated in adoration of the moon. For Thoth was also a moon-god, and the lunar cycles — the months, the divisions of the year, the calculations of the calendar — were under his keeping.

His role across Egyptian mythology was that of the wise mediator, the scribe of the gods, the keeper of the records, the recorder of judgments, and the universal advisor when difficult problems arose. It was Thoth who reassembled the eye of Horus after Set had torn it apart; Thoth who taught Isis the spells by which the venom in Horus was reversed; Thoth who recorded the verdict of the divine council in the case of Horus and Set; Thoth who stood at the scale of judgment in the Hall of Two Truths and recorded the verdict upon the heart of the dead. Where there was a problem of intellect, Thoth was sent for; where there was a record to keep, Thoth made it; where there was a calculation to perform, Thoth performed it.

He was credited, in the late tradition, with the authorship of forty-two sacred books — a number derived from the forty-two nomes (administrative districts) of Egypt, and from the forty-two judges of Osiris in the Hall of Two Truths — which the Greeks under the Ptolemaic and Roman empires came to call the Hermetic Corpus, attributing them to "Hermes Trismegistus," the Thrice-Great Hermes, who was Thoth under his Greek interpretation. The actual surviving Hermetic literature, composed in Greek in the early centuries of the common era, owes more to Platonist philosophy than to genuine Egyptian tradition; but it preserves a real ancient Egyptian intuition that wisdom is a god's gift, that writing is sacred, and that the scribe is, in his small way, a participant in the work of the divine recorder.

Curator’s note

What the sources say, and what later tradition added. The sources for this bay

Thoth's cult is attested from the earliest dynasties; his great temple at Hermopolis Magna (modern El-Ashmunein) was the center of the Hermopolitan cosmogony and one of the most important religious establishments of Middle Egypt. The ibis cemetery at Tuna el-Gebel, the necropolis of Hermopolis, contained an estimated four million mummified ibises, deposited as votive offerings to Thoth over a period of centuries. The identification of Thoth with Greek Hermes is attested from the Late Period onward; the further identification with the legendary sage Hermes Trismegistus produced the considerable corpus of Greek Hermetic writings (the Corpus Hermeticum, the Asclepius, the Stobaean fragments) that influenced late Platonist philosophy, the Renaissance Neoplatonism of Marsilio Ficino, and the Western occult tradition into modern times. The genuine Egyptian Thoth was, however, more modest: a working scribe-god, the patron of clerks and clerks' aspirations.

Kin in the sources

Each tie is quoted from the entry that states it.

Named as the same god asHermesfor they identified him with their own Hermes, in his most learned and mediating aspect
Named as the same god asHermes Trismegistusthe Thrice-Great Hermes, who was Thoth under his Greek interpretation
Companion ofHorusIt was Thoth who reassembled the eye of Horus after Set had torn it apart
Companion ofIsisThoth who taught Isis the spells by which the venom in Horus was reversed

The same god in other rooms

The ancient sources themselves name these as one god under different names. See Thoth, Hermes and Hermes Trismegistus hung together

When the sources speak

Dated witnesses for The Osirian Cycle. A date marks when the evidence was written down, not when the belief began. The whole timeline

c. 4000–3100 BCE: Predynastic regional symbols, burials, standards, and animal cults provide the deep background to later divine iconography.
c. 3100–2686 BCE: Early Dynastic kingship joins royal ideology to local cult centers and establishes many durable divine emblems.
c. 2686–2181 BCE: Old Kingdom pyramid complexes and the Pyramid Texts preserve the earliest large religious corpus.
c. 2181–1650 BCE: First Intermediate and Middle Kingdom traditions broaden mortuary access; Coffin Texts develop older royal materials.
c. 1550–1070 BCE: New Kingdom temple wealth, royal hymns, underworld books, and the Book of Going Forth by Day greatly expand the record.
c. 1353–1336 BCE: Akhenaten’s Aten program reorganizes royal cult but does not permanently erase the older divine plurality.
c. 1070–664 BCE: Third Intermediate Period priestly and regional powers reshape cult administration and divine kingship.
664–332 BCE: Late Period archaism, animal cults, and temple scholarship preserve and reinterpret older forms.