Egyptian Gods
Ancient Egyptian Gods, Goddesses and Religion
Amun Ra
Mythology of Amun Ra
One of the most important Ancient
Egyptian gods. Amun is first mentioned, along with his
consort Amaunet, in the Pyramid Texts (PT 446). He appears
as a local god of the Theban region from at least the 11th
Dynasty when four rulers took the name Amenemhet or "Amun
is pre-eminent". Within a century and a half Amun gradually
displaced the old god of that region, Montu, and the
ascendancy of the Theban kings in the Middle Kingdom and
the New kingdom times eventually propelled him (as the
combined Amun-Re) to the position of supreme god of the
Egyptian pantheon. He was associated with two other deities
who together made up the local divine triad of Thebes: his
consort, the goddess Mut - who largely replaced Amaunet in
this role - and the lunar god Khonsu who was worshipped as
their son. His character developed over the millennia into
that of a rich and varied personality. The Egyptians
themselves called him Amun asha renu (Amun rich in names),
and the god can only be fully understood in terms of the
many aspects which were combined in him.
Concealed
god: The Greek writer Plutarch quotes the Egyptian
chronicler Manetho as stating that Amun meant "that which
is concealed" or "invisible", and the god was also commonly
given epithets such as "mysterious of form" - suggesting an
essentially imperceptible nature - and it is possible that
his name originally referred to Amun as the invisible power
of the wind. While it is true that his name was written
without a defining determinative, this was also true of
some other creator gods, but the aspect of Amun as a
mysterious, hidden god was primary to his nature.
Creator god: In addition to being a member of the Ogdoad, the group of eight primeval deities worshipped in Hermopolis, Amun was worshipped as Amun Kematef or "Amun who has completed his moment", a creator god in the form of a snake which renewed itself. In this form Amun was said to predate the other members of the Ogdoad, and it was probably this form of Amun that Plutarch refers to as "Kneph" - an eternal self-engendering god worshipped by the inhabitants of Thebes. By the 18th Dynasty Karnak Temple was said to occupy the "mound of the beginning" where Amun brought the world into being; and a number of New Kingdom hymns extol Amun for creating the cosmos through his thoughts, an important step in the theological development of cosmographic ideas. Solar god: In the Book of the Dead Amun is called "eldest of the gods of the eastern sky", an epithet reflecting both his primeval character and solar associated nature, and an 18th-dynasty hymn to AMun preserved on a stela in the British Museum refers to Amun when he rises as Horakhty, directly fusing the hidden one with the visible sun. When he was syncretized with the god Ra, as the composite Amun-Ra, Amun took on a number of aspects of the solar deity, though these were clearly secondary to his hidden nature and the god was regarded as antithetical to the sun during the Amarna Period. Fertility god: From the 12th Dynasty, Amun kamutef - literally, "bull of his mother" - was the ithyphallic form of Amun depicted in ritual scenes in the temples of Thebes and especially Luxor Temple. The epithet suggests both that the god was self-engendered - meaning that he begot himself on his mother, the cow who personified the goddess of the sky and of creation - and also conveys the sexual energy of the bull which, for the Egyptians, was a symbol of strength and fertility par excellence. In this ithyphallic aspect Amun was related to the fertility god Min and is sometimes called Amun-Min. Warrior god: It seems that some of the character of the old Theban war god Montu, whom AMun largely displaced, was absorbed by the ascendant deity. The Theban rulers of the 13th Dynasty had made their city a rallying point against the invading Hyksos and, when the Hyksos were finally driven from Egypt (c. 1550 BC), it was Amun who received credit for the military victories of the time. Likewise, in the succeeding period of New Kingdom Empire Amun was not only said to instigate Egyptian expansion and to protect the Egyptian king in battle, but the "lord of victory" and "lover of strength" was especially given credit for successful military strategy. King of the gods: Pyramid Text 1540 states "you have come, O king, as the son of Geb upon the throne of Amun", and from the Middle Kingdom the god was styled "Lord of the thrones of the Two Lands" of Upper and Lower Egypt. The first known example of Amun's title "king of the gods" appears on the 12th-dynasty "White Chapel" of Senwosret I at Karnak and is used frequently thereafter. He was also called "chief of the gods" in this same role of divine king. By Ptolemaic times Amun was directly equated with Zeus, and his Greek name Amonrasonther may be based on the Egyptian title Amun-Ra nesu netcheru, "Amun-Ra king of the gods".  Universal god: Unlike deities who
were thought to personify the sky, earth or some other
limited region or phenomenon, Amun was held to be a
universal god who, at least in his developed theology,
permeated the cosmos and all it contained. While a few
other Egyptian gods could be said to be "universal" in
nature, it is with Amun that we find a developed
rationale for this claim. As the god "who exists in
all things" and the one in whom all Egyptian gods were
subsumed, Amun came particularly close to being a king
of monotheistic deity and was sometimes revered as the
ba or soul of all natural phenomena.
Image: The great god Amun Ra - depicted in both his normal anthropomorphic form (second from right) and as theithyphallic Amun-Min (at left), Amun was venerated in a number of roles but his identity as king of the gods and as a powerful fertility god were of primary importance in New Kingdom times. 19th Dynasty. Temple of Sethos I. Abydos. Egypt. Iconography of Amun Ra
Usually Amun was represented in human
form wearing a short kilt (to which is often attached a
bull's tail), a feather pattern tunic and a double plumed
crown. It has been suggested that these tall feathers were
a way of representing Amun as a god of the wind - either as
it could be seen ruffling the feathers or as it might be
generated by feather fans - though this is purely
speculative. The twin feathers would seem to reflect some
aspect of the basic dualism which pervades Egyptian
symbolism, and each feather was itself also frequently
divided into the significant number of seven sections.
Anthropomorphic images of Amun are found in two forms -
with red and blue skin. The god's original color was red,
like that of most other gods, but after the Amarna Period
(and apparently in some instances before), the god was also
shown with a blue complexion, possibly in order to
symbolize his aspects as a deity of the air and of primeval
creativity. In depictions of the god standing, Amun is
usually shown in a striding pose, though in his form of
Amun-Min he stands with legs together, and as befitting his
position as king of the gods, Amun frequently also depicted
seated on a throne.
Probably because of its procreative
vigou, the ram (ovis platyra aegyptiaca - recognized by its
curved horns) could symbolize Amun. The processional routes
which led to Amun's chief temple at Karnak were flanked
with prone rams or ramheaded lions symbolizing the god, and
the great festival barque of Amun "lord of the two horns"
was decorated with rams" heads at its tprow
 and stern. Occasionally, Amun is depicted
as a man with the head of a ram, a form of the sun
god. The Nile goose (Alopochen aegyptiaca) was also a
symbol of Amun, probably because of its association
with the creation of the primeval world (see
Gengen-Wer); and for the same reason Amun also could
be depicted as a serpent, though the iconographic use
of this form is rare. Finally, in his solar-related
form, combined with Ra, Amun could also be associated
with the lion, and the criosphinxes which represented
him as ram-headed lions must be understood in this
way.
Image: The god Amun (at right), in his role as supreme state god and named as "Lord of the thrones of the Two Lands (of Upper and Lower Egypt)", grants the gift of life to Ramesses III. 20th Dynasty. Mortuary Temple of Ramesses III. Medinet Habu. Western Thebes. Egypt. Worship of Amun Ra
Although of great importance at Thebes
during the Middle Kingdom, relatively little is known of
the worship of Amun before the New Kingdom when the god
rose to the position of supreme state god. The monuments
which were built to him at that time were little short of
astounding and Amun was worshipped in many temples
throughout Egypt, though in Thebes itself, on the east bank
of the Nile, two temples in particular were greatly
enlarged in his honor. The main temple of Amun at Karnak -
called by the Egyptians Ipet-isut ("most select of places")
- remains the largest religious structure ever created and
consisted of a vast enclosure containing Amun's own temple
as well as several subsidiary temples of other Egyptian
gods. This complex was connected via a professional way
with Ipet-resyt, the 'southern sanctuary' of Luxor Temple
which the god visited annually in the "Beautiful Festival
of Opet". In this most important of Amun's festivals, the
god's cult statue was taken to his southern temple to
celebrate union with his divine consort Mut in the form of
the ithyphallic Amun of Luxor who appeared in the guise of
the fertility god Min. On the western bank of Thebes Amun
also had smaller but theologically important cult areas in
the temples of Deir el-Bahari, Medinet Habu and elsewhere
that were also visited by the god in festivals processions
which crossed the Nile and travelled from one shrine to the
next. In the New Kingdom and later Amun was incorporated
into many Lower Egyptian centers, notably at Perunefer (the
river port of Memphis) in the 18th dynasty, at Per-Ramesses
in the 19th, and on a vast scale at Tanis in the eastern
Delta where Karnak was almost virtually recreated during
the 21st Dynasty.
As a result of the royal gifts following
successful military campaigns during the New Kingdom and
other sources of income, tremendous wealth flowed into the
Theban cult center of Amun, so that by the time of
Akhenaten (c. 1353 BC) it is clear that the priesthood of
Amun held a vast share of the wealth - and doubtless power
- in Egypt. Whether this fact affected the religious
revolution attempted by Akhenaten to any degree is unclear,
but Amun certainly suffered the brunt of Akhenaten's
religious "reform", the names and images of the god being
zealously erased from temples throughout Egypt. In the
period of restoration which followed the Amarna interlude
the prestige and power of Amun were rapidly regained. By
the time of Ramesses III Amun's holdings extended to a full
one-third of the cultivable land in Egypt; and by the close
of the New Kingdom the first priest of Amun was powerful
enough to rival the contemporry pharaohs who ruled from the
north. During the 21st dynasty a practice had been
established in which the daughter of the reigning king was
consecrated to Amun as the "divine wife of Amun", a custom
which helped maintain the balance between Egypt's earthly
rulers and her divine kings. The Kushite kings of the 25th
Dynasty continued this practice, and their rule actually
led to a resurgence in the worship of Amun as the Nubians
had accepted the gods as their own. Even after the invading
Assyrians sacked Thebes in 663 BC, Amun still held great
sway in the religion of Egypt; the god was sought out and
honored by Alexander the Great and, under the name of
Zeus-Ammon, continued to be worshipped throughout the Greek
and Roman Periods.
The worship of Amun also extended to the
non-formal veneration of popular religion. The god was
regarded as an advocate of the common man, being called
"the vizier of the humble" and "he who comes at the voice
of the poor", and as "Amun of the Road" he was also
regarded as the protector of travellers. Most amulets of
the god do not seem to predate the Third Intermediate
Period but are often made of expensive materials and seem
to have been worn in life, perhaps by the priests in their
services. The god was well represented in the spells and
charms of Egyptian magic and seems to have been especially
regarded as a god who cured eye ailments. His power was
also invoked in spells against scorpions, crocodiles and
other dangerous creatures.
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Image: Amun-Ra in ram-headed form (at right)
with the god Khnum. The two deities are differentiated by
the curved horns of Amun and the straight or undulating
horns of Khnum (reflecting different species of ram), as
well as by the characteristic tall plumes of
Amun.
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