Festival of Ptah Protecting the Winged Golden Disk

In Neos Alexandria today, it is the Festival of Ptah Protecting the Winged Golden Disk.

This wonderful image of Ptah is by Gabriel Rodribuez. I feel it captures, to some extent, the essence of this festival’s significance. It is only in the protection of the gods that the universe continues to proceed as it should.

Ptah is a very interesting Egyptian god, the principal deity of the Memphite Triad of Ptah, his wife Sekhmet and their son Nefertem. He is usually portrayed as mummiform, and his staff often combines the ankh and the djed pillar. Mummiform deities in Egyptian religion were considered “eternal” or never-changing and fixed in their significance and endurance, and thus Ptah is consistently portrayed in this fashion not to suggest death, but instead to suggest deathlessness. Apis and the Apis Bull of Memphis were considered the herald of Ptah, and eventually were syncretized with Ptah himself, which in turn added into the syncretism of Serapis.

Ptah is credited, in the Memphite cosmology, with having created the universe. Thus, he is considered a demiourgos or “creator/builder” deity, and as a result was linked by the Greeks to Hephaistos. Within Egyptian culture, he was also often linked to Sokar and Osiris, and in his connection as Ptah-Sokar, he was sometimes known as Pataikos, which Herodotus described as Ptah in the form of a dwarf (thus suggesting a Bes connection as well, possibly).

In the context of Antinoan devotion, all of this is extremely suggestive. Antinous had games celebrated in his honor in the city of Memphis in Egypt. Further, Hadrian may have made an explicit connection between the cult of Ptah and the cultus of Antinous, as evidence from Hadrian’s Villa demonstrates. In the Antinoeion that was recently discovered there, there were statues of both Ptah and of Nefertem, thus suggesting that one or both of these deities may have been involved in or contributed to the syncretistic associations that eventually were given form in Antinous’ cultus, at least in its Egyptian contexts. It seems likely that Pancrates was responsible for this in some fashion. Hadrian’s coinage from the time period around his visit to Egypt and in the aftermath of Antinous’ death, additionally, features Ptah.

I have, as a result of this realization, been much more interested in Ptah, and recently obtained an image of him for my shrine. If today is a holiday in which Ptah protects the Winged Golden Disk, which is to say, the sun and therefore the god Re, then perhaps we can think of this in Antinoan terms as well as Antinous, who is called the son of Re-Harakhte on his Obelisk, as “returning the favor” shown to him by his father, and taking up a position not unlike Set in defense of that which gives everyone light and life.

Therefore, today let us thank the deities from whom we gain our life, for truly, this is where life comes from–Haec est unde vita venit!

Dua Ptah! Dua Antnoos!