This was altered August 2020, to give Ptah dark golden eyes and slightly darker skin.
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 of its ink? 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
A reversed version, just because I could... (October 2015)
The title above is a classic title of Ptah, “Lord of Ma'at”. It means he exemplies as a creator god what is true, what is just, what is balanced.
This is a simplified version of the round, designed to be 1.5 to 2 inches big.
As a creator god, Ptah gives life to all the gods: |