Deity of the Day Amun

Egyptian God

Amun is considered as one of the most important andpowerful gods of ancient Egypt.He existed as early as the primeval times of the Ogdoad cosmogony and evolvedas one of the gods responsible for the creation of the world from the chaosthat is Nun. He if often represented as bearded man wearing a cap surmounted bytwo tall plumes made of red ostrich feathers usually seated on a throne holdingthe ankh on one hand and the was scepter on the other. His name may also bespelled as Amon, Amoun, Ammon, Amoon, or Amen that translates into the “HiddenOne” suggestive of his role as the invisible god of the wind and air. His wifeand consort in the Hermopolitan worship is Amaunet.

Aside from his human form, he may also be seen in severalother representations. He used to take the form of the goose thus acquiring theepithet “the Great Cackler”. He is sometimes seen as a man with the head of thefrog, uraeus or cobra. As a snake, he could regenerate himself by shedding hisskin. He is also seen as a man with head of the ram or simply just as rambecause at some point he was a god of fertility. He may also be seen as lioncrouching by the throne or an ape or even a crocodile. During the PtolemaicPeriod, he is depicted as a man with four arms, the body of a beetle, the wingsof the hawk, the legs of a human, and the paws of a lion.

Amun is believed to be a self-created god. His first wifewas named Wosret but later married Amaunet and Mut. With Mut, he sired a sonnamed Khonsu, the god of the moon. He was originally a deity of localimportance in Thebesas a creative force. He rose to prominence when he assimilated another Thebangod Montu, the deity of war in the Eleventh dynasty. He became the principalgod of the city. During the Middle Kingdom, he rose to national importance whenthe Theban chief Ahmose I expelled Hyskos from the country. The royal family,in honor of the deity, built several temples to his name – the most prominentof which are the Luxor Temple and the GreatTemple in Karnak.

During the New Kingdom, Egypt came close to being amonotheistic state with Amun at the center of attraction. Amun was adopted intothe Ennead cosmogony. He and the sun god, Ra, became the hybrid god Amun-Ra.Amun-Ra was thought of as the father and protector of all the pharaohs of Egyptsince then. His cult was responsible for the rising role of the women in thesociety – they wielded great powers and held positions of authority and responsibility.Queen Ahmose Nefertari, for example, was granted the title the “God’s Wife ofAmun” – an epithet given to the wife of the pharaoh in acknowledgment of herrole and position in the state religion of Amun. The pharaoh Hatshepsut evenclaimed that her mother was impregnated by Amun in the guise of PharaohThutmoses II

His cult spread further even to neighboring states andcountries particularly Nubia.Amun-Ra became the principal deity of Napataduring the twenty-fifth dynasty. The people there believed he was Gebel Barkal.By this time, he was considered an equivalent of Zeus by the Greeks.

One of the grandest festivals in ancient Egyptis the Opet Festival. Here, the statue of Amun traverses in the route of theNile from his temples in Luxor to Karnak in celebration of his marriage to Mut. Thisfestival epitomizes his role in procreation as the “Ka-mut-ef” or the “bull ofhis mother”.

To date, he and Osiris are one of the most chronicledmale deities especially in relics and tablets both of which were referred to asthe King of Gods.

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Egyptian Godsand Goddesses