![]() I have also a printable and colorable version ©Joan Ann Lansberry, October 22, 2011
Having created the linear version, I wanted to color it. But my two printer prints came out faded. I just put a new cartridge in, did I use up all the ink for this print of a dark and stormy Set? My bad results encouraged a digital version. Ptah is "one of the oldest of Egypt's gods and is attested representionally from the 1st dynasty onward. Nevertheless the great god of Memphis was perhaps originally only a locally important deity whose influence developed and spread slowly over time." "If Ptah was not originally a god of craftsmanship, this aspect of his identity was certainly an ancient one as it can be seen at an early date and then remains constant throughout the god's history." "During the Old Kingdom the high priest of Ptah bore the title we-kherep-hemu 'great leader of the craftsmen': and while the god's name gives no firm clue to his origin, it is perhaps based on a root of later words meaning 'to sculpt' and thus related to his identity as a craftsman god. In this role Ptah was both the sculptor or smith of mankind and creator of the arts and crafts..." "As a result of his identification with craftsmanship, or concurrent with it, Ptah became a god of creation and was known as the 'sculptor of the earth' who, like the ram god Khnum was believed to form everything on his potter's wheel. More fundamentally, Ptah came to be known as the 'ancient one' who united in his person both the masculine primeval deity Nun and his feminine counterpart, Naunet, so that he was seen as the primordial deity whose creative power was manifest in every aspect of the cosmos."
Honourific titles: All info from _The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt_, by Richard Wilkinson, pages 123-126
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