One of the Uthras; as the executor of the cosmogonic designs of a group of Uthras, most directly connected with the fashioning of this world: he is thus the Mandaean Demiurge. The name Ptahil is that of the Egyptian artisan-god Ptah with the Semitic — il (“god”) suffixed to it. That the name for the Demiurge was taken from the Egyptian pantheon is doubtless connected with the symbolic role of Egypt as the representative of the material world (see under “Suf-Sea”; cf. p. 117 f.). [Hans Jonas  ]