Thunder Storms & Sacrifice Ceremony Thunder Storms The god Thoth, lord of the storm, is depicted as a human-headed ibis, whose body is an elegant white sail. The ibis, which was sacred to Thoth, is the bird that makes the roaring noise that precedes a storm and the god was said to come in a flash of lightning. During the rituals of the cult of Thoth, the king stood on a special platform in the temple while lightning struck him, an apparent sign of his approval and recognition by the gods. The people believed that this contact with the gods would lead them to a bountiful harvest and good health. And after the king's ascent of the platform, the priest would shout "Boom!" This was meant to recreate the thunder. Sacrifices All priests considered their temples to be extensions of their bodies. For a god, the priest represented the part of himself that was sacrificed in death, to be resurrected to life. Therefore, the king was the ritual butcher. The god Thoth is depicted with his head in the form of an ibis. The ibis was sacred to Thoth, who was himself depicted as a ram, or occasionally as an ibis. The ram is depicted with a human head, which had been skinned from a human body and discarded by the god. The ibis, in contrast, symbolizes the resurrected body, with the missing head and beak representing death. It is this ancient connection between Osiris (death) and Thoth (resurrection) that is meant to be evident in the slaughter of the king-god. The sacrifice of the king served to resurrect the god Thoth. In the case of Djehuti, a sacred cow was slaughtered as a substitute for human victims. The god Horus presided over the ritual slaughter, while Thoth did not participate directly. The animal was always a male, and the horns were a symbolic reference to the phallus. Its blood, with which the god was resurrected to life, dripped down the walls of the temples, symbolizing the life-giving power of blood. Replacing Human Victims with a Sacred Cow Thoth's temple at Busiris featured two sacred white ibis with golden beaks as decoration, standing on a pedestal. This was the first time the god was depicted as a ram. The replacement of human victims by a sacred cow served to emphasize Thoth's place in the Egyptian pantheon and to show that he was the god of life. As we have seen, Osiris and Thoth were often associated in the minds of the Egyptians. The sacred cow at Busiris was a substitute for both Osiris and Thoth. The king-god represented Thoth, the king's body was a temporary extension of Osiris, and the sacred cow represented Osiris, the regenerated body of Thoth. The king was ritually sacrificed, thus resurrecting Thoth, the god of renewal and resurrection. This association was later carried on with the story of Horus and the sacred cow, where Horus, who was actually Osiris, was symbolically killed and resurrected. And Horus' mother Isis was the queen who stood for the phallus, so her phallus-like staff could symbolize the resurrection of Horus. And thus the sacred cow was symbolically resurrected through its death. The killing of the bull at Busiris was symbolic of the killing of Osiris, and his rebirth through a new life. The king's ritual sacrifice on top of a pyramid was a kind of substitution for Osiris, and like Osiris, the king was resurrected. When the king was sacrificed, a new life was generated by his death. The ritual death of the king-god and the resurrection of Thoth was a reminder to the Egyptians of the cycle of nature. The kingdom flourished during the reign of the pharaoh, but inevitably he died and the cycle began anew. The sacrificial slaughter of the king symbolized the beginning of the new period. In later mythology, the goddess Hathor was substituted for Thoth, as she became a form of the regenerative phallus. But at first, Thoth was symbolized through the king. In his work, Thoth's Sacred History, Jean Vercoutter explained: "The Egyptian belief in the resurrection of the deceased is attested in the oldest of our literary sources. In the Egyptian Books of the Dead, where one sees an ever-increasing number of examples, we note that it was a belief well-established among them. The corpse was surrounded by funeral offerings that were kept intact in order to carry out a part of the ritual: offerings and libations were made to the body of the departed in order to have it join the dead during the judgment of Osiris." "The funerary offerings mentioned are: the offering of incense, the offering of perfume, the libation, and the offering of food to the deceased. This food would be offered in order to sustain the deceased during the judgment. At the same time it was a symbol of resurrection. The corpse was not buried in a common pit, but buried in a tomb where the food offerings and other libations would be stored, symbolizing life for the deceased's body." "It seems that the Egyptians were not opposed to burial as such, in other words, the inhumation of the corpse. But they believed that this was followed by the "judgment of Osiris." (...) The cult of Thoth served to remind the Egyptians that the deceased needed a life to which offerings could be made and offerings which would be made to him in order to sustain him during the judgment." In summary, the rituals of the pharaoh, even as a human-headed ram, were considered to be the rituals of Thoth, who was the resurrection god, or Osiris, the resurrected king. The Death and Resurrection of Thoth The pharaoh Ramses II led a campaign into Nubia to conquer the southern kingdom of Kush. As the god of war, Thoth was considered to be a part of the victory and the king often wore a feather crown on his head to represent the rising sun. A gold crown also represented his phallic role. During this campaign, Ramses had died and so he was resurrected as a divine phallus by an Egyptian woman. The divine phallus would bring about the resurrection of the king as the god. The phallic symbol represented the regenerative power of the phallus. Ramses had performed the rituals of the phallus. In Ancient Egyptian tradition, when the pharaoh died, Osiris would appear to him in a dream. He would also appear to his successor and give him a mummy and a throne. Thus, the pharaoh was the physical embodiment of Osiris. The pharaoh was seen as an extension of the sun, and in Egyptian mythology, the sun was always male. Osiris and Isis While Thoth was the god of the moon, he had his throne in the east, on the banks of the river, which, like the Nile, was considered to be holy. The Egyptians believed that Osiris was the first king of Egypt. But Osiris was killed by his evil brother Seth, and his body was cut in two. But the god Thoth, as pharaoh of the north, brought Osiris back to life with his magic powers. But his phallus had been bitten off and hidden by Seth. His son Horus set out to find the parts of his father's body, and finally found a boat made out of wood of the forest of Lebanon that was sailing in the ocean. In the Greek accounts, Osiris, who had been married to the goddess Isis, was murdered by his brother Seth, who chopped him up and buried the pieces in various locations. These parts of Osiris's body became the first crops of grain, growing from his chopped-up phallus and scattered all over Egypt. The cult of Osiris was extremely important and was the Egyptian prototype of the Judaic religion of Judaism. In Egyptian belief, Osiris was the king of the country, as well as the god. The Egyptians depicted Osiris with the horns and the beard of a ram. The Egyptians believed that Osiris had an immortal life and when he died he was transformed into a god. In the Greek accounts, Osiris was the husband of the goddess Isis and he was murdered and cut into pieces by his evil brother Seth. Osiris was the son of the sun-god and his father's sister. Seth was the son of the god Sebek. The story of Osiris and Seth is a reminder to the Egyptians of the regenerative power of the god, which was always embodied in Osiris, as the living phallus. The Egyptian belief was that Osiris was a living god, and when he died he rose again from the dead in a resurrected state, having been born again from the sun. Isis the goddess loved to fish and hunted on a white boar named Busiris. Isis was a goddess of motherhood, as well as water and healing. Osiris and Isis had children together, who were all of royal descent, and as such