Persona5: The Phantom X

Persona5: The Phantom X

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Egyptian God Medjed
By Medjed
In Ancient Egyptian religion, Medjed (Egyptological: mḏd) is a minor deity mentioned in certain copies of the Book of the Dead. While not much is known about the deity, his ghost-like depiction in the Greenfield papyrus has earned him popularity in modern Japanese culture, and he has appeared as a character in video games and anime.
   
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In the Book of the Dead
The Book of the Dead is made up of a number of individual Ancient Egyptian funerary texts with accompanying illustrations. They are in general written on papyrus and were used from the earliest period of the New Kingdom (c. 1550 BCE) until around 50 BCE. These texts consist of magic spells, some of which are to grant the dead person mystical knowledge in the afterlife, or to give them control over the world around them through their journey in the Duat, or underworld.
Of the Book of the Dead copies that have been found, a limited number reference an obscure entity in spell 17b named "Medjed" (also spelled "Metchet"), which means "The Smiter". In an English translation of the Papyrus of Ani, Raymond O. Faulkner renders the portion of the spell referring to Medjed as follows:

I know the name of that smiter [i.e., Medjed] among them who belongs to the House of Osiris, who shoots with his eyes, yet is unseen. The sky is encircled with the fiery blast of his mouth and Hāpi makes report, yet he is unseen.

Apart from this short passage, nothing is known about Medjed. Hermann Grapow proposed that Medjed could refer to a star (given that Medjed is said to radiate light and to have a connection with the cyclical flooding of the Nile), but as Ilaria Cariddi notes, the name is never written with a star determinative.

New Kingdom Papyri
Medjed is also mentioned in the New Kingdom Papyri, a specific group of Papyri. They were known as the "Theban Recenscion of the Book of the Dead". It states, "I know the being Mātchet [Medjed] who is among them in the House of Osiris, shooting rays of light from [his] eye, but who himself is unseen. He goeth round about heaven robed in the flame of his mouth, commanding Hāpi [god of the annual flooding of the Nile], but remaining himself unseen."



The Egyptian Neter, Medjed
Spell 17 of the Book of the Dead mentions, among many other obscure gods, one Medjed ( "the Smiter"), in the following line:
The text on the Greenfield papyrus names him Medjed (or Metchet) and says that he “shooteth forth light from his eyes, but is himself invisible” and that he “revolveth in heaven inside a flame produced by his own mouth, whilst his own form is invisible”. ( translation is according to Budge. 1912).
Ascertained from different sources:
"Medjed is unseen (hidden or invisible), can fly, can shoot rays of light from his eyes, can breathe fire (like our usual dragon, maybe) and can smite other beings. Besides this, nothing else is known about this god."
Nothing else is known about him.
In popular culture

After the Greenfield papyrus illustrations were exhibited in 2012 at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo and the Fukuoka Museum of Art, Medjed became an internet meme on Japanese social media, thanks largely to his "cartoon ghost"-like appearance. He has since entered into Japanese popular culture and has appeared in video games (e.g., Fate/Grand Order🤢) and anime (e.g., Kamigami no Ki and Oh, Suddenly Egyptian God).

In the 2016 Japanese video game Persona 5, his name is used for a fictional antagonistic hacker group that describe themselves as the "true executors of justice".
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
sources:
Danger_Zoner @ X 1/2 [x.com]
Danger_Zoner @ X 2/2 [x.com]
Jgeekstudies [jgeekstudies.org]
Medjed Wikipedia page [en.wikipedia.org]
Arun's Sexy Tails Guide
Futaba Art[impactfuma.tumblr.com]