THOTH was the god of wisdom from Hermopolis in Middle Egypt. According to the Hermopolitan cosmology (which is best known from texts found at other sites), the eight primordial gods representing "hiddenness," "darkness," "formlessness" (?), and the "watery abyss" produced an egg that appeared at Hermopolis when the inundation subsided and from which the creator god appeared and brought everything else into being. When mentioned in the Heliopolitan Pyramid Texts, this creator god was Atum, but in the local Hermopolitan tradition he could have been Thoth.

Thoth was the moon god and as such was the companion of Re, the sun god, but he also had his own following among the stars in the night sky. One mortuary tradition, probably originating at Hermopolis, permitted the dead who knew the correct spells to accompany Thoth in the sky. Thoth was the son of Re, but he also represented the injured...