Thursday, December 16, 2010

The Ancient Egyptian Book of Thoth

Although my main interest in Seshat are the representations from Pre-Dynastic Egypt and the Old Kingdom, I can not keep my hands off the Book of Thoth. I have literally had this book checked out of Vanderbilt's Divinity Library for a year now. Each time I open the book I gain new insights.

The text I have been reading, "The Ancient Egyptian Book of Thoth: A Demotic Discourse on Knowledge and Pendant to the Classical Hermetica," was written by Richard Jasnow and Karl-Theodor Zauzich in 2005. It provides the locations of transliterations and provides translations with commentary of the ancient text. It provides one of the most comprehensive discussions of the papyri I have found.

The papyri it primarily draws from is located in the Berlin Museum. There are also important papyri of the Book of Thoth in Yale, Florence, Vienna, Paris, and Copenhagen it references. This text includes, among other things, papyri fragments B01, B02+, C01+, F01+, L01, V01, and Y01. I will discuss more details about this text and its importance to the recorded history of Seshat so follow me for updates.

**This book should not be confused with the Book of Thoth published in recent years about tarot and the paranormal. The copyright of the early Egyptian text has apparently run out :> and others have published books of the same name, but they are completely different and should not be mistaken as related or the same.

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