Amun

Amun


 * Other Names:**

Amon, Amoun, Amen, Hammon, Ammon, Yamanu, Imen


 * Meaning of Name:**

“The Complete One.” One possible origin of his name is the ancient Libyan word //aman//, "water."


 * Hieroglyphics:**

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 * Titles:**

“He Who Abides in All Things”

//Nesu Netcheru// ("King of the Gods")

“Protector of the Road”

"Lord of Destiny"

“Eldest of the Gods of the Eastern Sky”

//Kamutef// (“Bull of His Mother”)

"Lord of Thebes" (the main center of his worship)

"Great of Strength"

//Kematef// (“He Who Has Completed His Moment”)

"Maker of Mankind"

“//Tjaty// (Vizier) of the Poor”

“Lord of the Thrones of the World”

“Father of the Gods”


 * Family:**

Amun was thought to be the husband of Amaunet, Anuket, and Mut, and the father of Khonsu, Montu, Shu, Tefnut, Bast, Tefnut, and Sekhmet. In some instances Amun was thought to have fathered Osiris, by Taweret. Amun was occasionally thought to have been created by Ptah, or to be a son of Ma'at and Thoth.

One of the Ogdoad, he was called //Amun asha renu//, or “Amun rich in names.” As a creator god, he was associated with fertility. Amun was believed to be the essence of all things, the //ba// (soul) in all of nature. He was often called “The Hidden One,” which shows an association with invisibility, and the force of the wind. Amun’s image came to be painted blue, which was the symbol of invisibility, water, and life. He was believed to protect travelers and boatmen from danger, and papyri tell of Amun protecting the rights of the poor in law courts. Amulets of Amun, made of faience, gold, and lapis lazuli, were very popular.

Amun was, above all, worshiped as a compassionate ruler, close to the one who calls to him, a god to whom the humble can pray: “You are Amun, the lord of him who is silent, who comes at the voice of the humble. I called to you when I was in distress, and you came to save me.” He was said to come swiftly to aid the poor and friendless. Women who served in his temples were known as the //Hemet netjer nt Imen// (“Divine Consorts of Amun,” or “God’s Wife.”) The highest of these women was in religious matters very much like a female pope, ruling by the word of Amun.

Although his true appearance was said to be beyond human concept, Amun was most often shown as a bearded man with blue-black skin, wearing the Two Feathers Crown (a reference to his status as a wind god), a short kilt (to which was often attached a bull’s tail), and a feather-pattern tunic. Amun was also pictured as a baboon, a goose, a ram-headed man, a crocodile-headed man, a ram-headed lion (a criosphinx), a horned viper, a frog-headed man, a cobra-headed man, or as a woolly ram with curved horns. In a odd hymn, Amun is referred to as "the one who remained unique, with four arms, four hands, and four wings." A possible connection to the multi-limbed gods of Hinduism? Another hymn describes Amun as a "fierce red-eyed lion." In the Greek Period, Amun had the body of a scarab, the wings of a falcon, and the toes and claws of a lion.

Rams and geese, Amun’s sacred animals, were kept at his temples. Prayers have been found addressed to the “Good Goose of Amun.” A barque sacred to Amun, shaped like an enormous goose, has been found. The processional routes which led to Amun’s chief temple were flanked with prone rams or ram-headed lions symbolizing the god, and the great festival barque of Amun “Lord of the Two Horns” was decorated with ram's heads at its prow and stern. A sacred ram was kept at Thebes and worshiped as an incarnation of the god; when it died, the image of Amun was then clothed in its skin. Amulets of Amun have been found, shaped like rams.

Hymns from the New Kingdom praise the trio Amun, Ra, and Ptah: “Three are all the gods, Amun, Ra, and Ptah, their equal does not exist.” Amun's reign as pharaoh on earth was thought to have been 7,000 years. Amun was often credited by the queens of Egypt as having fathered their children. Thunder was thought to be Amun’s voice. It was believed that Amun could regenerate himself by becoming a snake and shedding his skin. Snake s, in particular the horned viper, were sometimes mummified and buried beneath his temples as a means of magically sustaining the god’s self-regenerating power.

Amun was thought to "protect the other gods with his shadow." During one Festival of Amun in the 12th century B.C.E., a statue of the god was carried through the city by priests, and temple officials distributed to citizens 11,341 loaves of bread and 385 jars of beer. Amun was well represented in the spells and charms of Egyptian magic, and seems to have been especially regarded as a god who cured eye aliments. His power was also invoked in spells against scorpions, crocodiles, and other dangerous creatures. Like Ra, Amun also had the responsibility of "healing feline limbs" when cats had been bitten or stung. Amun’s famous temple, Karnak, was the largest religious structure ever built by man.

Every pharaoh tried to suppress the monuments of the last. Amenhotep II commissioned his artisans to build for Amun a temple of gold, the floor of which was made of silver, with enormous columns in the festival hall tipped with electrum. Amenhotep III made for Amun the largest sacred barque ever to be built, carved of Lebanese cedar, and named the “Beginning of the River.” The boat was ornamented with silver and covered in gold inside and out. The barque carried its own shrine and two obelisks, both wrought with electrum. The reflection of the glittering boat on the water must have been quite a sight.

A text in the New Kingdom funerary temple of Ramses II records that the king gave Amun offerings of bread and beer, desert game, wine, fruit, “pure incense in your presence,” gold and silver altars, libations from the sacred lake “which I dug,” as well as priests to present these offerings “to your spirit.” Not to be outdone, Ramses III offered to the temple of Amun nearly 3 million loaves and cakes, 219 jars of beer, nearly 40 thousand jars of wine, 3,410 lotus bouquets, nearly 3,000 cattle, oryxes, and gazelles, 126,250 fowl, and nearly half a million fish, as well as gold, silver, copper, lapis lazuli, carnelian, malachite, cedar, ebony, precious oils, incense, spices, linen garments, fruit, and grain.

In a text called the Papyrus Harris, Ramses III reminds the gods that the oracle of Amun promised him a reign of two hundred years to repay him for his kind offerings to the spirit of the god. Indeed, there were two hundred years of pharaohs named Ramses ruling Egypt, including Ramses the Great before him and all the pharaohs of the 20th Dynasty after him.


 * Feast and Holy Days:**

January (Month of Amun)


 * Quotes from the Book of the Dead and other sources:**

“Pray to Amun, for he is the Virile Male, the Holy Phallus, which stirreth up the passions of love, the Ram of Rams.”

Hymns of Amun


 * Egyptian Names Honoring This Deity:**

Ked-Amun, Amenia, Nesyamun, Amenirdas, Amentetusert, Wenamun, Amenemwashet, Amenmikui, Amenkhesi, Neseramun, Amenemipet, Amenthu, Iufenamun, Tai-Amun, Useramun, Shedamun, Qenamun, Paheq-Amun, Amenmessu, Amunpahapy, Penamun, Amunedjeh, Amenemhetsonbe, Nakhtamun ("May Amun Live"), Amenemhat (“He Who is in Front of Amun”), Amenemope ("Amun in Festivity"), Karakhamun ("The Living Ka of Amun"), Amenhotep ("Amun is Satisfied"), Amenmose ("Born of Amun"), Siamun ("Chosen of Amun"), Nebamun ("My Lord is Amun"), Sa-Amun ("Son of Amun"), Meryt-Amun ("Beloved of Amun"), Tentamun ("She of Amun"), Beketamun ("Maiden of Amun"), Amenneferu ("Beautiful of Amun"), Meresamun ("Amun Loves Her"), Amenemwia ("Amun in His Divine Barque"), Ankhesenamun ("Her Life is of Amun"), Tutankhamen (“The Living Image of Amun”)


 * Outside of Egypt:**

In Nubia, where his name was “Amane,” Amun was regarded as the national god, with his priests at Meroe and Nobatia, via an oracle , regulating the whole government of the country. Amun’s importance endured into the Greek and Roman times, when several temples were dedicated to him, in the form of “Amun-Zeus.”

Amun had an oracle at the Siwa Oasis in the western desert that remained prominent at least until the time of Alexander the Great, who visited the oracle. This oracle was so famous that the Greeks wove it into their own mythology, claiming that the heroes Perseus and Hercules had consulted Amun-Zeus there.

Alexander the Great was claimed to be the son of Amun, and was modeled by sculptors as wearing a pair of Amun’s sacred ram horns. When he died he was mummified like a pharaoh. At one time the biblical God himself wore ram’s horns, later assigned to the devil. Joshua’s priests used ram’s horns to make victory magic (Joshua 6:4), showing that they were led by the Divine Ram in battle.


 * Modern Influences:**

In ancient Egypt it became customary to say Amun’s name after each prayer, to ensure that the god would deliver a blessing. This is the origin of the word “amen,” which is often said today at religious gatherings.

Several words derive from Amun via the Greek form Ammon, including “ammonia” and “ ammonite .” Ammonites (extinct shelled cephalopods ) had spiral shells resembling ram’s horns. And the regions of the hippocampus in the brain are called the // cornu ammonis // – literally “Amun’s Horns,” due to the horned appearance of the dark and light bands of cellular layers.

In modern-day Egypt, natives say that on a full-moon night one can occasionally still see the ghostly shape of the golden barque of Amun sailing on his sacred lake, glittering beneath the moonlight.

Egyptian Deities - A