A'an (Thoth) - San Jose, CA
Posted by: 
Metro2
N 37° 20.008 W 121° 55.376
10S E 595414 N 4132409
This sculpture is located in San Jose's Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum.
Waymark Code: WMN8W6
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 01/20/2015
Views: 1
The placard accompanying the piece informs us that informs us that is from Egypt's Saite Period and made from sandstone. It depicts the god Thoth in one of his many forms...that of A'an who takes the appearance of a baboon.
Wikipedia's article for Thoth (
visit link) has a passage about the god's several depictions:
"Thoth has been depicted in many ways depending on the era and on the aspect the artist wished to convey. Usually, he is depicted in his human form with the head of an ibis. In this form, he can be represented as the reckoner of times and seasons by a headdress of the lunar disk sitting on top of a crescent moon resting on his head. When depicted as a form of Shu or Ankher, he was depicted to be wearing the respective god's headdress. Sometimes he was also seen in art to be wearing the Atef crown or the United Crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt. When not depicted in this common form, he sometimes takes the form of the ibis directly.
He also appears as a dog-faced baboon or a man with the head of a baboon when he is A'an, the god of equilibrium. In the form of A'ah-Djehuty he took a more human-looking form. These forms are all symbolic and are metaphors for Thoth's attributes. The Egyptians did not believe these gods actually looked like humans with animal heads. For example, Ma'at is often depicted with an ostrich feather, "the feather of truth," on her head, or with a feather for a head."