LIFE AS MYTH
JOURNAL
JOURNAL 2006
Scheherazade Project
Telling untold stories
AUTUMN 2006
Moths and moons and metamorphosis
Moths and moons and metamorphosis
LIFEWORKS
ATLAS
AUTUMN 2006
WRITING ON THE MOON
Thoth is an Egyptian lunar deity who can manifest in several forms. The most common is a man with the head of an ibis, holding a palette and stylus. Another is in the shape of a baboon.
One of the most powerful gods in the Egyptian pantheon, Thoth is a mediator, messenger for the gods, judge of the dead, developer of science and magic, as well as the inventor of writing and the alphabet and patron of scribes. Egyptian myth states that he is self-created, arising from the power of his own language.
Thoth as a baboon. Ptolemaic Period. 332-30 BC. Louvre, Paris; Thoth as an ibis with a maat feather, Late Period–Ptolemaic Period, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Thoth as a baboon. Late Period, Dynasty XXVI, 664-525 BCE. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
