Sokar

Other Names:
Seker, Sokaris

(Seker; G/R Sokaris) - "Adorned One" An obscure Name in its beginnings, Sokar is depicted as a hawk-headed mummified man and was originally Lord of both darkness and death (in the sense of inertia and inaction) in the region of Mennefer and especially in Ankh-tawy ("Lady of Life," a name given to the large Memphite necropolis now known as Saqqara). Sokar eventually came to be viewed as a mysterious form of Ptah, and in very late periods was triply syncretized to become Ptah-Sokar-Wesir, the penultimate lord of death, judgment and burial. The sacred boat upon which Sokar's icons were carried in procession (called henu), is one of the earliest-mentioned of such boats in the Kemetic scriptures, and may have served as a model for later sacred barques.