![]() ![]() In reality, this Hermes is the Egyptian god Thoth. The name Hermes suggests a connection with the Greek god of the same name, the Mercury of the Romans, but it is secondary. His teachings were expounded in numerous writings, either by himself or his direct students. In the first centuries of our era, Hermes Trismegistus was regarded in the Greco-Roman world as an important teacher of ancient wisdom. They inscribed the fate of a person on stones on which their mother gave birth and the length of a reign on the leaves of the sacred Persea/Ished tree (Tree of life). Thoth and Seshat knew both the future and the past. As record keeper of the gods, he was paired with the librarian Seshat. Thoth observed and wrote down everything that happened and reported it to Ra every morning. The features mentioned here are cited to conclude that in the form of the sign of the goddess Seshat, the geometrical principle of symmetry can be recognised.Ĭould the bow, a primitive representation of a caliper (compass) to make measurements? The principles of symmetry seen in nature and in art can also be observed in architecture. All these features are in fact properties of symmetry, one of the most fundamental principles observed in nature. This creates regularity, repetition, uniformity and beauty. ![]() One of the most striking features of this flower is undoubtedly the radial distribution of the petals around the centre. The lotus flower was extremely important in ancient Egyptian symbolism, cosmology and especially cosmogony, because it opened its chalice in the morning and closed it in the evening with the rising and setting sun respectively. One interpretation is that it is a symbolic representation of the lotus flower. The exact meaning of the headdress is not known. Seshat is derived from Sefhet, which means ‘7’ in ancient Egypt. Cutting notches or making marks on a stick is the earliest of all forms of keeping a tally, and in itself would suggest an origin of time even before writing was invented. These notches represent the king’s reign. She carries a long staff, made from the central rib of a palm frond leaf, with sixty-four notches and with a sacred shen symbol (of infinity) underneath. Seshat is depicted in a leopard skin, with a headdress of a seven-pointed star/leaf encircled by a crescent moon in the form of a bow. Seshat exhorts us to recognise the realm of the gods and give the Invisible Realm its due, and to align ourselves with that Invisible Realm, to bring about a harmonious integration between the material and spiritual aspects of our own nature and of the material-spiritual universe in which we find ourselves in this incarnated life. ![]() Her role in actively assisting the king in the ‘stretching of the cord’ ritual in laying the foundations of important buildings, clearly dramatises the fact that the pattern for human society stems from, and has to be aligned in appropriate harmony with, the realm of the spirit: the unseen realm, the realm of the gods. Her role, therefore, can be seen very clearly as helping society to establish a proper relationship with the divine realm, bringing it into harmony with the order of the universe. The fixing of measure and time, and the aligning of temples and monuments is a role of enormous importance, associated with a proper alignment with the heavenly realm, the realm of the gods. The ‘cord’ in question is the mason’s line that was used to measure the dimensions of the building and align the building with the stars or points of the compass. Guardian of the temple library, Heavenly Librarian, Mistress of Builders.Īs goddess of measurements, she assists the king in the ritual known as ‘stretching the cord or pedj-shes’ that precedes the construction of a building, usually a temple. She was also identified as the goddess of architecture, astronomy, astrology, building, mathematics and geometry. Whether she was his companion, wife or daughter is not known. The partner most often associated with Thoth was Seshat, goddess of writing, keeper of books, and patron goddess of libraries. The worship of Thoth probably began in Lower Egypt in the pre-dynastic period (6000 – 3150 BC) and continued until the Ptolemaic period (323 – 30 BC). Images on ancient papyri often depict him as the scribe who meticulously records everything. He was the ‘Know it all’, who invented writing, language, the arts and sciences. He created through the divine Word, the Logos. He was the ‘Lord of the Divine Words’, in the sense that he spoke for the gods. ![]() He was also the protector and healer of the moon: the invisibility at new moon was associated with the stolen eye of Horus, which was restored by Thoth at full moon. He was the god of writing and arithmetic. Thoth was represented as a man with the head of an ibis or a baboon. ![]()
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