Texts That Are Known or Claimed To Exist
The Egyptians stored many texts, on a wide range of subjects, in "Houses of Life", the libraries contained within temple complexes. As Thoth was the god of knowledge, many of these texts were claimed to be his work. The Egyptian historian Manetho claimed that Thoth wrote 36,525 books.
The church father Clement of Alexandria, in the sixth book of his work Stromata, mentions forty-two books used by Egyptian priests that he says contain "the whole philosophy of the Egyptians". All these books, according to Clement, were written by Hermes (the Greek name for Thoth). Among the subjects they cover are hymns, rituals, temple construction, astrology, geography, and medicine.
The Egyptologists Richard Lewis Jasnow and Karl-Theodor Zauzich have dubbed a long Egyptian text from the Ptolemaic period "the Book of Thoth". This Demotic text, known from more than forty fragmentary copies, consists of a dialogue between a person called "The-one-who-loves-knowledge" and a figure that Jasnow and Zauzich identify as Thoth. The topics of their conversation include the work of scribes, various aspects of the gods and their sacred animals, and the Duat, the realm of the dead.
Read more about this topic: Book Of Thoth
Famous quotes containing the words texts, claimed and/or exist:
“The bases for historical knowledge are not empirical facts but written texts, even if these texts masquerade in the guise of wars or revolutions.”
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“To be claimed as good, though in an improper style, is at least better than being rejected as no good at all.”
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“Better not to exist than live basely.”
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