The house of Ptaḥ's ka

Every now and again I ponder the word "Egypt". Not "Miṣr"; I view that name as an exonym, like "Ukraine". (The Arabs likely took this from the Bible.) Aiguptos is where we get our word. It's Greek. But... it's a specific name applied to the whole Nile Delta, like Psalm 78 applies "Ṣōʕan" - Tanis - to the whole Delta. One wonders why the Greeks didn't call this country Zonithia or something similar.

Everyone agrees that Aiguptos transcribes ḥwt kꜣ ptḥ which is usually translated the House of the ka of Ptaḥ, but is best simplified "Ptaḥ's Temple". Ptaḥ might grace other structures around the Two Lands, as YHWH might bless a synagogue in Cyrene; but Ptaḥ's spirit "rested" - took its seat upon the throne - only here. This Temple featured in the city Mennefer, known to Greeks as "Memphis" and to the Arabs as "Manf" or maybe "Manuph". Hosea was aware of the site as "Moph". As the Temple Scroll considers all Jerusalem to be an extension of the Lord's Temple; so Memphians likely came to consider their city ḥwt kꜣ ptḥ.

Linear B records a local worker as an ai-ku-pu-ti-jo "Aegyptian". Something between ḥwt kꜣ ptḥ and *Aikupt_os appears in Ugarit hymnody (to god Kothar) as ḥkpt. So the pointer existed in the Late Bronze, probably (assuming hymns tended conservative, especially in formulae like bʕl ḥkpt or ḥkpt arṣ nḥlth). Both times the scribe applied the term to people of this house; so, was the Aegyptian a general Nilotic, a specific Memphian, or a high-level devotee of Ptah? If Linear B or Ugarit give up another name for another Delta town, like Tanis, we might retire the assumption that these terms refer to the whole realm.

Genesis 10's genealogy seems aware of an ethnonym for the Memphians, "Naptuḥim" (pdf). Genesis interestingly does the Nile the favour of not applying Memphis or Ptaḥ to the whole country; which Psalm 78 did not grant, with Ṣōʕan.

As for "Copt": the Copts did themselves no favours by taking on the Greek alphabet and too many loanwords. But I cannot rule out that some Genesis-savvy Ptolemaic-era Memphians, or perhaps Memphists, might have started out calling themselves neither houseboys-of-Ptaḥ nor Na-Ptaḥ; but Na-Ka-Ptaḥ: the People of Ptaḥ's Soul, translated as Koptakhioi. As Memphians the Coptachii'd have spoken Bohairic, and been followers of the old gods; so the Christian Sahidis upriver would count as cultural-appropriators, I guess...