"The gods of the Egyptians, although always portrayed in anthropomorphic and theriomorphic forms, were not such simplistic beings as their iconography might suggest....Because of the popularity of werewolves and, perhaps, vampires, in the popular media, this week's term to learn may come in handy. The reason I add the qualifier "perhaps" to vampires is that I'm not sure vampires are still thought of as morphing into bats, and without a wild animal, I don't think the term works. At any rate, theriomorphic kept coming up in my week's readings about the Egyptian gods.That's because so many of the gods are associated with animals. Theriomorphic is an adjectival form of a noun (theriomorph) based on the Greek for wild animal (therion) and "morph" for shape. Theriomorphic doesn't mean shape-shifter. It is sometimes used to refer to a god like Thoth who is represented with an ibis head, or to Horus who is shown as a falcon-headed god, although some would say the proper term is therioanthropic if it's the humanoid, animal-headed god you're referring to; reserving the term theriomorphic proper to refer to a god like Thoth as a baboon, Zeus while in eagle form, or Asclepius while a snake.[L]ike every other aspect of the divine world, the gods were mysterious and indefinable, their true essence being unknown to mortal man who could hope to know them only after death when he would be capable of perceiving the true forms of the gods."
"Mytho-Theology in Ancient Egypt," by Vincent Arieh Tobin; Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt (1988), pp. 169-183.
For more items related to theriomorphs, see:
More Thursdays' Terms to Learn
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Comments
We do genetic ideas today. So, how did all these stories arrive to our time frame from then? Politacally, we should stay away from crazy.
i’ve been receiving your e-letter for quite a while, but this is my first visit to your blog……thanks for all of it, the e-letter and the blog…..
I’ll be bach……
I had never encountered the word “theriomorphic” before! Thanks for the great definition and for pointing out that it does not refer to shape shifting. If you examined the Greek base words one might have come to that erroneous conclusion!
Just a thought to share and I can’t recall where I read it. “The gods are not anthropomorphic. Mankind is theomorphic.”
Mary – I don’t think it’s a hard and fast rule. I think you could make a verb out of it and make it mean change into a wild animal. It’s just that the adjective doesn’t (yet?) signify shape-shifting.
Bill – I don’t know if that applies to theriomorphic pantheons.