Thoth, or Tehuti, was a highly composite deity. His birth was coeval with that of Ra. Let us enumerate his attributes before we seek to disentangle his significance. He is alluded to as the counter of the stars, the measurer and enumerator of the earth, as being twice great and thrice great lord of books, scribe of the gods, and as possessing knowledge of divine speech, in which he was "mighty". In general, he was figured in human form with the head of an ibis, but sometimes he appears in the shape of that bird. He wears the crescent moon and disk upon his head, the Atef crown, and the crowns of the North and South. In the Book of the Dead, he is drawn as holding the writing reed and palette of the scribe and placing on his tablets the records of the deceased whose heart is being weighed before him.

There is no reason to suppose that Thoth was totemic in character, as he belongs to the cosmogonic or nature deities, few or none of whom were of this type. Another form of Thoth is that of the dog-headed ape, which, it has been stated, symbolizes his powers of equilibrium. His principal seat of worship was Hermopolis, where Ra was supposed to have risen for the first time. To Thoth was ascribed the mental powers of Ra, and, indeed, the dicta of Ra seem to have come from his lips. He was the Divine Speech personified. Nevertheless, we are looking ahead. Let us discover his primitive significance before we enumerate the more or less complex attributes heaped upon him later.