Book of Thoth

Book of Thoth is a name given to many ancient Egyptian texts supposed to have been written by Thoth, the Egyptian god of writing and knowledge. They include many texts that were claimed to exist by ancient authors, and a magical book that appears in an Egyptian work of fiction.

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 said 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 (a pre-existing Greek god that the Greeks likened to Thoth, claiming they were one and the same god, having similar qualities, e.g. both invented writing). Translation from Egyptian language and concepts to Greek language and concepts was not entirely accurate and some of the Egyptian authenticity was lost. 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.

The fictional Book of Thoth appears in an ancient Egyptian story from the Ptolemaic period. The book, written by Thoth, is said to contain two spells, one of which allows the reader to understand the speech of animals, and one of which allows the reader to perceive the gods themselves.

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