In the nineteenth century, a sprawling temple to the Egyptian god of wisdom was demolished so its stones could be ground into filler for a sugar factory. This deep dive treats the god it honored, Thoth, or Djehuty, as the subject of a narrative biography spanning thousands of years, beginning with a deity who was self-begotten, whose ibis head reflects the crescent moon, and whose inner circle of Ma'at, Seshat, and Nehmetawy personified truth, measurement, and protection.

The episode covers his invention of hieroglyphs and the sciences that flowed from them, the calculated gamble with the moon that added five days to the 360-day year and made the birth of Osiris, Set, Isis, and Nephthys possible, his role as scribe on Ra's solar bark and mediator in the war between Horus and Set, and his baboon form presiding over the weighing of the heart. ...