Thoth Tattoo Meaning
Writing, wisdom, magic, and the inventor of everything the mind does.
Thoth is the ibis-headed god of writing, wisdom, and magic — the divine scribe who invented the hieroglyphs, mathematics, and the calendar, who records the verdict at the weighing of the soul, the moon god and reckoner of time, the inventor of nearly everything the mind can do. To carry Thoth is to carry writing, wisdom, magic, and the inventor of everything the mind does — the god who makes the record, who gave humankind the technologies of thought, the divine mediator who speaks for the gods.
Thoth — known in ancient Egyptian as Djehuty — is the god of writing, wisdom, the moon, magic, and the measurement of time. The Egyptians credited him with nothing less than the invention of the foundations of civilization: he created the hieroglyphic script, the sacred writing itself; he invented mathematics, medicine, and the calendar. Thoth was the divine mind from which the tools of knowledge and order flowed — the god who gave humankind the means to write, count, heal, and reckon the passage of days.
In the afterlife, Thoth holds a role of supreme importance. He serves as the scribe in the Hall of Two Truths, where the souls of the dead are judged: at the Weighing of the Heart, where the heart of the deceased is balanced against the feather of Maat (truth), it is Thoth who stands by with his palette and records the verdict, writing down the judgment so that it is fixed and official. He is also the divine mediator — the one who speaks for the gods, interprets their will, and arbitrates their disputes. Thoth is the voice and the pen of the divine order: the god who knows, who writes, and who makes the truth a matter of record. The Egyptian Thoth is the ibis-headed scribe of the gods, inventor of writing and recorder of the soul's judgment. The Egyptian Thoth is the scribe of the gods — Thoth (Egyptian: Djehuty), god of writing, wisdom, the moon, magic, and the measurement of time, credited with inventing the hieroglyphic script, mathematics, medicine, and the calendar; he serves as scribe in the Hall of Two Truths, recording the verdict of the Weighing of the Heart, and he is the divine mediator who speaks for the gods and interprets their will — the voice and the pen of the divine order, the god who knows, writes, and makes the truth a matter of record.
Thoth appears in the Pyramid Texts (c. 2400–2300 BCE) — among the oldest Egyptian deities. The city of Hermopolis (ancient Egyptian: Khemenu, modern el-Ashmunein) was his cult center and was understood as the site of creation — the Hermopolitan Ogdoad (eight primordial deities) presided over by Thoth. The Hermes Trismegistus tradition produced the Corpus Hermeticum (c. 100–300 CE) — these Greek texts were believed in the Renaissance to be ancient Egyptian wisdom; Marsilio Ficino translated them for Cosimo de' Medici in 1463 CE; Isaac Casaubon demonstrated their Greco-Roman date in 1614 CE but their influence on Renaissance thought was already permanent. The Rosetta Stone (196 BCE, British Museum) is inscribed with a decree in three scripts — the hieroglyphic portion was Thoth's domain literally: the sacred writing of the god who invented writing. The ibis-headed Thoth versus the baboon-headed Thoth: both forms appear throughout Egyptian art — the ibis form is more common in later periods, the baboon form (Thoth as Aani) appears in judgment scenes.
Thoth across cultures
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