Britannica 11th · 11th edition

Ptah

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OCR text aligned to scanned pagesVol. 9, pp. 53-531910–1911

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This entry is linked to Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition. The cited range is Vol. 9, pp. 53-53.

PTAH, the Hephaestus of the Greeks, a demiurgic and creative god, special patron of hand-workers and artisans. Worshipped in Mempnis, he perhaps owed his importance more to the political prominence of that town than to anything else. He was early identified with an ancient but obscure god Tenen, and further with the sepulchral deity Sokaris. He is represented either as a closely enshrouded figure whose protruding hands grasp a composite sceptre, the whole standing on a pedestal within a shrine; or else as a misshapen dwarf.