Heart and tongue in Egyptian thinking : The heart and tongue represent thought and speech, the attributes of the creator, and are deified as Horus and Thoth (The Moon-God of Egypt).
By his thought and speech Ptah does the following:
- Brings the gods into existence,
- Brings order out of chaos;
- Fixes the destinies (like Marduk);
- Provides food for mankind,
- Divides Egypt into provinces and cities;
- Assigns their places to the various local gods.
(In those days thinking and feeling were associated with the heart, and a simple utterance by the supreme being was thought to be sufficient for the materialization of that thought at that moment. This heart and tongue issue could be found also in the next belief system.
Now hold tight!: This description of Ptah's creative activities closes with the words "..And so Ptah rested (or was satisfied), after he had made everything". Does it sound familiar? Yes! The identification of Ptah with Atum-Re constitutes the link between the Heliopolitan myth of Re as creator and the Memphite Theology which takes the myth as the basis for cosmological speculation of great subtlety.
How about the creation of man? Well it has no special place in Egyptian mythology. There are representations of god Khnum fashioning mankind on the potter's wheel and there are various references in Egyptian texts to this special creative activity, but the line between man and the gods is not as sharply drawn as it is in the next religion. As a result the creation of man has a comparatively slight emphasis in Egyptian mythology.
