sigmund freud's collection an archaeology of the mind

Baboon of Thoth
Egyptian, Roman period, 30 BC–AD 395.
marble, 22.0 x 9.5 x 10.5 cm
LDFRD 3133
Collection Freud Museum London
Thoth was one of Egyptian mythology’s most complex and interesting
deities, the scribe of the ceremony called the Weighing of the Heart.
He was regarded as the inventor and god of all the arts and sciences
and the special patron of medicine, writing and magic. The Book of
the Dead, a collection of spells which were chanted by priests over the
deceased, was assumed to have been composed by Thoth and certain
chapters written ‘with his own fi ngers.’ 1
Baboon of Thoth shows the god in his manifestation as a dogheaded
ape, symbolising wisdom and equilibrium. On his head, he
wears the lunar crescent and disc, associating him with the moon and
the measurement of time. Seated with his paws on his knees, Thoth’s
expression is sagacious and refl ective. Thoth sometimes appeared
twice in depictions of the Weighing of the Heart: as the ibis-headed
scribe and as a tiny baboon seated atop the scales, their equalising
force. In his role as royal scribe, Thoth was represented as a bird; as
a household god, he was depicted as a baboon and meant to confer
good fortune. Exactly why Thoth had two animal identities remains a
mystery. 2
The Egyptians were fond of apes, regarding them as lusty and
canny, and often kept them as pets. Thoth’s genitals are displayed
and realisitically rendered, unusual in Egyptian art which prized dignity
and the asexual schematisation of form. Thoth’s attributes as the
patron of writing, knowledge and healing, as well as being a protective
household deity, made him an ideal muse for Freud’s writerly journeys.
Freud must have known, from the museum collections with which he
was familiar, that this was a fi rst-class work.
1. E. A. Wallis Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians,or Studies in Egyptian Mythology, vol. 1,
Dover Publications, New York, (1904), 1969, p. 401.
2. C. J. Bleeker points out that ‘whenever Thoth takes action and makes pronouncements,
he appears in human form with the head of an ibis’ but ‘for domestic use the effi gies of
Thoth as a baboon were made.’ C. J. Bleeker, Hathor and Thoth, two key fi gures of the
ancient Egyptian Religion, Brill, Leiden, 1973, pp.108, 113.
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