Sokar- Egyptian GodDeity"Lord of the Mysterious Region"
Also known as: Skr, Seker, Sokaris, and Sokari
Titles & Epithets
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Description
Lord of a dark, sand-filled realm beneath the earth where the dead dwell before resurrection. Sokar's ceremonial boat, the hennu barque, was not built for water. It was dragged over desert sand, a vessel for the dry underworld where no river flows.
Mythology & Lore
The Sand Beneath the Sand
Sokar was a falcon-headed funerary god, already appearing in the Pyramid Texts. His domain was the Memphite necropolis stretching from Abu Rawash to Dahshur: Giza, Saqqara, the vast city of the dead along the western desert's edge. His true realm lay beneath it. A dark, silent, sand-filled expanse called "the mysterious region," the deepest reaches of the Duat through which Ra's sun barque passed during the fourth and fifth hours of the night.
His most distinctive attribute was the hennu barque, an elaborate ceremonial boat mounted on a sledge with a high ornate prow. It was not built for water. During the annual Sokar festival in the month of Khoiak, priests dragged the barque around the walls of Memphis through sand. The barque moved where no river flowed, through a kingdom of silence and dust.
Sokar was associated with silver, not gold. The Egyptians called silver "the bones of the gods." It belonged to the moon and the night, to hidden things. It suited a god whose realm held no sun.
Ptah-Sokar-Osiris
Over centuries, Sokar merged with Ptah and Osiris to form the composite deity Ptah-Sokar-Osiris: creation, death, and resurrection in a single figure. Figurines of this composite god were placed in tombs throughout the New Kingdom and Late Period. Made, unmade, made again.
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