Sokar

Sokar is the god of the ground the Memphite dead are buried in, and Saqqara appears to be named after him. He is a falcon, which is unexpected for an underworld god, and he travels on the henu barque — a boat with an oryx head on the prow that is carried on a sledge round the fields rather than floated, since the necropolis is desert. His festival is among the oldest in Egypt and it lasted to the end. Eventually he is absorbed into a compound: Ptah-Sokar-Osiris, the craftsman, the necropolis and the dead king in one figure, mass-produced in the Late Period as painted wooden statuettes with a hollow base for a papyrus.

Domains

• underworld
• craft

Relations

• counterpart of: PtahJoined with Ptah, the craftsman god of Memphis, and with Osiris, the god of the dead, into the composite Ptah-Sokar-Osiris — a single funerary god assembled out of three cities' answers to the same question.Reference treatment of Sokar, on his fusion with Ptah and Osiris as the triple god Ptah-Sokar-Osiris. (secondary)
• counterpart of: OsirisThe third member of the composite; the Ptah-Sokar-Osiris statuettes with hollow bases holding a papyrus are among the commonest Late Period funerary objects.Reference treatment of the composite deity Ptah-Sokar-Osiris. (secondary)

Sources

• Sokar is the falcon god of the Memphite necropolis, carried on the oryx-prowed henu barque, named in the Pyramid Texts, and fused with Ptah and Osiris as Ptah-Sokar-Osiris.: Pyramid Texts on the henu barque of Sokar. (primary); Reference treatments of Sokar, his iconography, his barque and the composite Ptah-Sokar-Osiris. (secondary)