Certain numbers were considered sacred, holy, or magical by the ancient Egyptians, particularly 2, 3, 4, 7, and their multiples and sums.[1][clarification needed]
Three: symbol of plurality
The basic symbol for plurality among the ancient Egyptians was the number three: even the way they wrote the word for "plurality" in hieroglyphics consisted of three vertical marks (𓏼). Triads of deities were also used in Egyptian religion to signify a complete system. Examples include references to the god Atum "when he was one and became three" when he gave birth to Shu and Tefnut, and the triad of Horus, Osiris, and Isis.[2]
Examples
The beer used to trick Sekhmet soaked three hands into the ground.
The second god, Re, named three times to define the sun: dawn, noon, and evening.
Thoth is described as the “thrice-great god of wisdom”.[3]
A doomed prince was doomed to three fates: to die by a crocodile, a serpent, or a dog.[4]
Three groups of three attempts each (nine attempts) were required for a legendary peasant to recover his stolen goods.[5]
A boasting mage claimed to be able to cast a great darkness to last three days.[6]
After asking Thoth for help, a King of Ethiopia was brought to Thebes and publicly beaten three further times.[7]
An Ethiopian mage tried—and failed—three times to defeat the greatest mage of Egypt.[8]
An Egyptian mage, in an attempt to enter the land of the dead, threw a certain powder on a fire three times.[9]
There are twelve (three times four) sections of the Egyptian land of the dead. The dead disembark at the third.[10]
The second god, Rê, named five gods and goddesses.[12]
Thoth added five days to the year by winning the light from the Moon in a game of gambling. [13]
It took five days for the five children of Nut and Geb to be born. These are Osiris, Nephthys, Isis, Set and Haroeris (Horus the Elder) - not be mistaken with Harpocrates (Horus the Younger), who defeated Set in battle.[14]
A boasting mage claimed to be able to bring the Pharaoh of Egypt to Ethiopia and by magic, have him beaten with a rod five hundred (five times five times five times four) times, and return him to Egypt in the space of five hours.[15]
An Ethiopian mage comes to challenge Egypt's greatest mage—to reading of a sealed letter—five hundred (five times five times five times four) years after the atrocity depicted in it occurred.[16]
^ According to Plutarch. "Osiris, the murdered god," A History of Religious Ideas, Vol. 1: From the Stone Age to the Eleusinian Mysteries,Mircea Eliade, page 97, note 35. University of Chicago Press, 1978.
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