The Ancient Egyptian Book of Thoth

In 2020 a special edition of the two-volume Book of Thoth published in 2005 will be available. The first volume, a reprint, comprises interpretative essays, discussion of specific points such as the manuscript tradition, script, and language, the transliteration of the Demotic text, translation, and commentary as well as a consecutive translation, glossary, bibliography, and indices. The second volume, which contains photographs of the papyri, is published in a new smaller layout. The composition, which the editors entitle the “Book of Thoth”, is preserved on over forty Graeco-Roman Period papyri from collections in Berlin, Copenhagen, Florence, New Haven, Paris, and Vienna. The central witness is a papyrus of fifteen columns in the Berlin Museum. Written almost entirely in the Demotic script, the Book of Thoth is probably the product of scribes of the “House of Life”, the temple scriptorium. It comprises largely a dialogue between a deity, usually called “He-who-praises-knowledge” (possibly Thoth himself or a priestly master assuming the role of Thoth) and a mortal, “He-who-loves-knowledge”. The work covers such topics as the scribal craft, sacred geography, the underworld, wisdom, prophecy, animal knowledge, and temple ritual. The language is poetic; the lines are often clearly organized into verses. This special edition is intended as a prelude to the forthcoming Volume Three of the Book of Thoth, which will present a revised transliteration, translation, notes, and facsimiles, as well as editions of numerous “new” fragments. Volume Three will take into account progress made on the understanding of the composition and its reconstruction by the editors and other scholars since the publication of the editio princeps in 2005.