… The gods tell Horus and Seth to stop figithing; Seth seduces Horus who catches the semen of Seth and tells Isis; Isis cuts off the hand of Horus, throws it into the marshes, and replaces it, then puts the semen of Horus on a lettuce in the garden of Seth; when Seth tells the gods he has done the ‘work of male’ against Horus, the semen of Seth comes out of the marsh, and the semen of Horus comes out of the head of Seth as a disk, taken by Thoth as a crown…

In the Hathor-Tefnut myth, Thoth of Pnubs is in charge of the offering of wine to Hathor, thus he is also called ‘Lord of wine’

The Nubian Hathor was a form of the Distant Goddess. It was Thoth, lord of Pnubs, who was able to bring this goddess back; he was assisted by Bes, who by this act became ‘lord of Punt’, because this bearded gnome was not a god of Nubian origin. The temple of Thoth at el-Dakka, built under Ptolemy II, was the Lower Nubian substitute for his actual sanctuary at Pnubs, located nearly 200 miles to the south.

So, the baboon- or ibis headed lunar intellectual Thoth was by the New Kingdom, first and foremost the scribe who invented writing. He was associated with knowledge, secrets and magic and, as he was known to be an exceptionally just god, he acted as record keeper at the judgement of the dead. He was also a skilled healer. While his private life is barely mentioned - it seems that he was either self-created, that he was a motherless son of Ra, or that he was, perhaps, the 'son of two fathers', born to Seth and Horus. He was married either to the obscure goddess Nehmettawy or to Seshat, the patroness of mathematics, architecture and astronomy, who might also be either his sister or his daughter. Thoth continually appears as a peripheral character in other people's tales where, invariably, he acts as a calming influence and displays great wisdom. However, even the most mild mannered of accountants may be capable of violence. The original Thoth, the Thoth who appears in the Pyramid Texts, is an altogether more aggressive knife wielding being, prone to decapitate the enemies of the deceased.

And the Greek settlers identified Thoth with their god Hermes. Like Thoth, the classical Greek Hermes was associated with the moon, medicine and the realm of the dead. Furthermore, both has a reputation for inventiveness and trickery, and both functioned as messenger of the gods, which in Hermes’s case prepared him as well for his characteristic function in the Hellenistic period, as the logos or ’word’ the interpreter of the divine will to mankind.

…remedy to be prepared for one suffering from the bite of any serpent: fur of baboon, 1/8; cumin, 1/8; ‘great protection’ resin, 1/64; honey, 1/8; sweet beer, 1/32. Strain. To be drunk by the patient. Recite over him with a magic formula: May Thoth come, equipped with his magic, supplied with his spells, in order to exorcise the venom. You (the venom) will not have power in any limb of NN born of NN, just as the rebels were exorcised after they rebelled against Ra himself. May you subdue it in every limb of NN born of NN, just as subdued the two lands for Re and Maat approached your breast as a reward for it. May you appear against it (the venom), this noble god, son of the goddess whose magic is great. May you exorcise NN born of NN as you exorcised your own malady on this day of spitting on your shoulder. May you cause it to fall to the ground from every limb of NN born of NN as you caused this enemy who rebelled against Osiris to fall. May you cause the venom to fall from the opening of the bite. Behold, I have brought you divine substance from his (Thoth’s) own person in order to overthrow you, to expel you, to drive off the venom of every male serpent and every female serpent that in is any limb of NN born of NN. Come emerge upon the ground. I am Thoth, the eldest, son of Ra.

First and foremost, Thoth was the god of writing and reckoning, the patron of scribes and officials. The pronounced intellectuality of this god in no way contradicted his cosmic form of manifestation, however, but stemmed directly from it. In the complexity and precision of its phases, the moon was the reckoner par excellence of time, and as such, a distinctly intellectual heavenly body.