He’s a shadowy figure who appears to work behind the scenes pulling strings.

He’s best pals with Osiris and Thoth, but seems strangely superior to them. Perhaps because he rules the 360-day moon calendar which governs the year.

Iah is best known for gambling away five days of moonlight in a dice game. Because Ra had laid a curse upon Sky Goddess Nut, she could not give birth to a child on any day of any year. So the sympathetic Thoth gambled with Iah and won five days worth of moonlight. (And as any cosmological person will know, moonlight is not measured in litres or kilograms, but hours and days.)

Thoth took this moonlight, divided it into five days and inserted it into the month of July. Because these extra days were not covered by Ra’s curse, Nut discovered she could give birth during that time.

So Isis, Osiris, Horus, Set and Nephthys are all July babies. And the year has remained 365 days ever since.

Meanwhile Iah found himself increasingly eclipsed by lunar newcomer Khonsu, and was frequently mistaken for him. It’s all down to translinguistical hieroglyphiculties. Iah is actually the word for moon and pops up in the names of many Ancient Egyptian celebs. All these Moon Gods start to look the same after a while.

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Article last revised on November 12, 2018 by the Godchecker data dwarves.
Editors: Peter J. Allen, Chas Saunders

References: Coming soon.

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