Ptah, the Universal Architect God
The Memphis triad "consisted of the universal architect god, Ptah, patron of masons, his consort Sekhmet, the lion-headed one (sometimes Bast the cat goddess), and Nefertum/Imhotep, their son, who was also a healer god."
- Murray Hope, Practical Egyptian Magic
Sekhmet was "a lioness-goddess, worshiped in Memphis as the wife of Ptah; created by Ra from the fire of his eyes as a creature of vengeance to punish mankind for his sins; later, became a peaceful protectress of the righteous. She was worshiped with Bast and Ra as a compound deity, Sekhmet-bast-ra, and was considered the consort of Ptah-seker-ausar."
"Worshiped in Memphis from the earliest dynastic times (c.3000 BC), Ptah was seen as the creator of the universe in the Memphite cosmology. He fashioned the bodies in which dwelt the souls of men in the afterlife. Other versions of the myths state that he worked under Thoth's orders, creating the heavens and the earth according to Thoth's specifications.
"Ptah, 'south of is wall', was the god of Memphis, the ancient political capital of Egypt. In fact, in the New Kingdom (1550-1070 BC) his temple there, Hewet-ka-Ptah (Mansion of the spirit of Ptah), gave the name for the whole region and is ultimately the origin, via Greek, of the word Egypt itself."
"Ptah gave life to the other gods (including Atum of Heliopolis) by means of his heart and his tongue. the conception of thought in the hear and the speech of the tongue determine the action of every limb. Ptah's presence is universal in the heart and mounts of 'all gods, all people, all cattle, all creeping things that live'. Ptah is superior to Atum, who brought his Ennead into being 'by his semen and his fingers'. The Ennead of Ptah is the teeth and lips in his mouth, so that by pronouncing the identity of everything the authority of his utterance was such that all creation came into being. Whatever the eyes see, the ears hear and the nose breathes goes straight to the heart and the conclusion reached by the heart is then spoken by the tongue. This is how Ptah commanded all the gods into existence and how he became Ta-tenen, 'from whom all life emerged'. Having managed the birth of the gods, Ptah created for them cities, sanctuaries, shrines and perpetual offerings."
"From this myth Ptah is seen to be an intellectual principle of creation amalgamated with the physical image of Ta-tenen as the primeval mound. It is a complete synthesis of mind and the material world. Known as the 'logos doctrine', there is a resounding echo of this impressive philosophical approach to the cosmos formulated by the priests of Memphis in the...New Testament."
"Although Ptah later became identified also as god of the death, his earlier role as creator continued to be the strongest aspect of his divinity. As the high god of Memphis, he was declared the master of destiny. It is he who imparts to the phenomenal world the character of an established order, valid for all time. In Abydos, in the temple of Seti I, he is called 'he who has created maat' - that is, divine order. Herein lies his special identity with the king, who, in the Egyptian view, embodied that divine order. Just as the creator god rules as king in a cosmic sense, is son, the pharaoh, is established on earth to rule mankind. Their kinship serves to connect the two realms and to sanctify the land of Egypt over which the pharaoh rules."
Ptah, as a solar god, "died and rose again, and this became the resurrection, and the way into a future life as the founder of Egyptian eschatology. Atum, son of Ptah likewise became a voluntary sacrifice as the source of life. The father who was blended with the mother in Atum, is portrayed as the creator of mankind by the shedding of his own blood [in cutting his member]....Later, this was ritually done to Attis, Adonis, Tammuz, Bacchus, Dionysus, all facsimiles of Osiris, all castrated on the tree of life, their testicles still glittering on today's Yuletide trees."
- Shawn C. Knight (
"Ptah is depicted as a bearded man wearing a skullcap, shrouded much like a mummy, with his hands emerging from the wrappings in front and holding the Uas (phoenix-headed) scepter, an Ankh, and a Djed (sign of stability). He was often worshiped in conjunction with the gods Seker and Osiris, and worshiped under the name Ptah-seker-ausar."
"In the Coffin Texts and documents of the Ramesside era there are references to Ptah as being responsible for fashioning gods and the sun and for the ripening of vegetation. But even earlier in the Old Kingdom, Ptah's nature as a supreme artisan was fully developed and his High Priest at Memphis was called 'Greatest of the controllers of craftsmen'. From the reign of Ramesses II (1290-1224 BC) we find that the god Ptah coalesces with the deity Ta-tenen. The name Ta-tenen means 'the land which has become distinguishable', in other words, indistinguishable from the primeval waters. Thus Ta-tenen risen from Nu can be equated with the primeval mound imagery..."
- George Hart, Egyptian Myths
- An Encyclopedia of Archetypal Symbolism
- Peter Tompkins, The Magic of Obelisks
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