| Title | The God of Wisdom |
|---|---|---|
| Cult Center | Memphis | |
| Gender | Male | |
| Consort | The lioness goddess Sekhmet | |
| Sons and Daughters | Imhotep, the architect of the Saqqara step Pyramid of the Old Kingdom | |
| Patron - Dominion | - Since he was the primordial mound, and had called creation into being, he was considered the god of arts, architects and craftsmen, and in particular stone-based crafts and reincarnation
- As a craftsman, he was said to have carved the divine bodies of the royalty with his own hands. | |
| Dedicated temples | Abu Simbel Great temple Temples in Memphis - no remaining | |
| Appearance | - Ptah is depicted with his hands emerging from wrappings in front of his body and holding a sceptre, an ankh and a Djed, the symbols of life, power and stability
A bearded man wearing a skullcap and shrouded as a mummy | |
| Historical Developments | - Ptah is among the gods of the creation of the world. In Memphis he was a creator god who brought all things to being by thinking of them with his mind and saying their names with his tongue.
Since Ka is also the word for bull, Apis was said to manifest itself as a real living bull, thus Apis was the Ka of Ptah - He was unique amongst Egyptian gods in that his methods were intellectual, rather than physical. - During the Early Dynastic Period, Ptah was a local deity of Memphis, making up a triad with the gods Sekhmet and Nefertem. But thanks to the importance of this city as capital of Egypt during the old Kingdom, Ptah's cult spread all over Egypt. - Since another god Seker was also god of craftsmen, and of reincarnation, Seker was assimilated with Ptah becoming Ptah-Seker during the Middle Kingdom - During the New Kingdom, Ptah also served in the position as mortuary god, and was combined into Osiris to form a powerful alliance, Ptah-Osiris-Seker That alliance was powerful enough to revert any attempts of assimilation with Amun-Ra, the mortuary cult being one of the few survivals of the New Kingdom religious reforms, were many cults vanished and melted in the attributes of Amun - However during the Late Kingdom, eventualy Osiris absorbed the identity of Ptah, the Apis bull became considered an aspect of Osiris rather than Ptah. - During the Ptolemaic Period, the cult of Osiris also survived all intrusions, Ptolemy Soter integrated Osiris into a new cult through the introduction of god Serapis, the name of this Ptolemaic god was Aser-hapi (i.e. Osiris-Apis), Apis - Osiris was finally assimilated with Jesus during the introduction of Christianity, and joined the monotheistic One God (Amun) | |
| Greek equivalent | Hephaestus |