Available inEnglishFrenchGermanHindiPortugueseRussianSpanish
Ancient Egypt: Gods, Pharaohs, Hieroglyphs
Walk into an Egyptian gallery and name what you are looking at without reading the label: which canine-headed god is which, which way a line of hieroglyphs runs, why every tomb sits on the west bank. For museum-goers and travellers; no Egyptology assumed, no transliteration taught. Fifty-one cards cover the gods, the river, the tomb, the script and three thousand years in four blocks.
The scribe-god wears the head of this marsh bird. Why did it become the sign of writing?
It is the bird of Thoth, god of writing: its long curved beak echoed both the crescent moon Thoth ruled and the scribe's reed pen.
— What does the curved beak resemble — in the sky, and in a scribe's hand?
Source
The sacred ibis probes the marsh with a long down-curved beak. Egyptians saw in it the crescent of the moon — Thoth governed the lunar calendar — and the reed pen of the scribe. So the bird became Thoth's animal, and in the script itself an ibis on a standard writes the god's name. At Hermopolis, Thoth's cult city, millions of ibises were mummified as offerings to him.