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DIVINITIES OF RIVER AND DESERT

Khnum (Khnemu), Khnoumis, was a god of the region of the Cataracts. He is portrayed as a ram-headed man with long wavy horns, unlike the curved horns of the ram-headed Amon. He was a god of fecundity and creation and was originally worshipped under the form of a ram or a he-goat. Like all gods of this sort he symbolised the Nile which comes from the heavens to fertilise the earth and make it fruitful. His chief sanctuary was near the Cataracts, not far from the spot where the earliest Egyptians placed the source of their great river, on that Isle of Elephantine of which Khnum was proclaimed sovereign lord. From his temple, where he received offerings in company with his two wives, Sati and Anukis who were, as far as we know, childless -. Khnum watched over the sources of the Nile. Khnum means ‘the Moulder’ and it was taught that he had formerly fashioned the world-egg on his potter’s wheel. At Philae, moreover, he was called ‘the Potter who shaped men and modelled the gods’. We see him moulding the limbs of Osiris: for it was he, they said, who ‘shaped all flesh -— the procreator who engendered gods and men’. In this quality he presided over the formation of children in their mothers’ wombs. Temple bas-reliefs show him fashioning the body of the young Pharaoh on his sculptor’s turntable. At Armant this young Pharaoh is none other than the son of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra, here identified with the divine child Harsomtous. The celebrity of Khnum soon crossed the nearby frontier and penetrated Nubia, whose god Doudoun was also a ram, or a ram-headed god. This facilitated the iden tification of the two gods and attracted new and numerous worshippers to the Isle of Elephantine.

Harsaphes, Hershef (‘He who is on his lake’), was the name of another ram-headed god, a Nile god, like all ram-headed gods according to Maspero, Harsaphes was from the earliest times the object of great veneration.

Sati(Satet) was one of Khnum’s two wives and as such a guardian goddess of the Cataracts. She is the Archer who lets fly the river’s current with the force and rapidity of an arrow. She is represented as a woman wearing the white crown of the South, flanked by two long horns. Like Neith she often holds arrows and a bow in her hands. She was worshipped in the extreme south of Egypt, in Upper Egypt which was called Ta Setet, the ‘Land of Sari’. Its capital was Abu, ‘City of the Elephant’, where Sati took her place in the temple of Khnum in company with Anuket.

Anuket (Anquet), Anukis, was Khnum’s second wife. She is represented as a woman wearing a tall plumed crown. Her name means ‘the Clasper’ — she who clasps the river bank and presses the Nile between the rocks of Philae and Syene. She was worshipped at Elephantine with Khnum and Sati as a regional goddess of the Cataracts.

Min, was a very ancient god whose totem, a thunderbolt apparently, appeared at the top of old prehistoric standards. Wearing a crown surmounted by two tall straight plumes which seem to have been borrowed from Amon, Min is represented standing with a flail raised in his right hand behind his head and always with phallus erect. This seems to indicate that Min was originally considered by his priests to be the creator of the world. He is often identified with Horus; and we think his name was a special name for the sun-god. Min was worshipped as god of the roads and protector of travellers in the desert. The principal centre of his cult was Coptos, ‘the town of caravaneers’, a point of departure for commercial expeditions. Before risking themselves in the deserts, people never failed to invoke the great local god Min, god of the Eastern desert and ‘Lord of Foreign Lands’. He was worshipped also as a god of fertility and vegetation and protector of crops. A white bull, was sacred to Min. In his honour gymnastic games were celebrated,

Hapi was the name of the deified Nile. He is given the figure of a man vigorous but fat, with breasts developed like those of a woman, though less firm and hanging heavily on his chest. He is dressed like the boatmen and fishermen with a narrow belt which sustains his massive belly. On his, head he wears a crown made of aquatic plants — of lotus if he is the Nile of Upper Egypt, of papyrus if he represents the river in Lower Egypt.s. The Egyptians in June would make offerings to Hapi, imploring him with fervour and singing hymns, often of great poetic quality. In temples he occupied a secondary role, and appears as a servant offering his river products to the great gods.

DIVINITIES CONCERNED WITH BIRTH OR DEATH

Taueret (Apet, Opet) ‘the Great’ was a goddess of childbirth and symbolised maternity .She is represented as a temale hippopotamus with pendant mammae standing upright on her back legs and holding the hieroglyphic sign of protection, ‘sa’, a plait of rolled papyrus. she enjoyed great popularity among people of the middle class, who often gave her name to their children and decorated their houses with her images. As a protectress Taueret sometimes would appear as a goddess with the body of a hippopotamus but the head of a lioness who brandished a dagger .

Heket was a frog-goddess or a frog-headed goddess who, symbolised the embryonic state when the dead grain decomposed and began to germinate. A primitive goddess, that came with Shu from the mouth of Ra himself and that she and Shu were the ancestors of the gods. She was, one of the midwives who assisted every morning at the birth of the sun. In this aspect she fits among the patrons of childbirth.

Meskhent is sometimes represented as a woman wearing on her head two long palm shoots, curved at their extremities. A goddess of childbirth and personified the two bricks on which, at the moment of delivery, Egyptian mothers crouched. Sometimes we see Meskhent in the form of one of these bricks, terminated by a human head. She appeared beside the expectant mother at the precise moment the baby was born; and she was said to go from house to house bringing relief to women in labour. She also played the role of fairy godmother and pronounced sentence on the newly born and predicted its future.

The Hathors were kinds of fairy godmothers who sometimes appeared at the birth of the young Egyptian to prophesy his destiny, much as Meskhent . There were seven or even nine of them and we see them, in the form of young women, at the confinement of Ahmes. Their predictions were sometimes favourable, sometimes not; but no one escaped the fate they foretold.

Shai was ‘Destiny’, and was sometimes made a goddess Shait. He was born at the same moment as the individual, grew up with him and shadowed him until his death. Shai’s decrees were inescapable. After death, when the soul was weighed in the presence of Osiris, Shai could be seen in the form of a god without special attributes attending the trial in order to prepare him for the conditions of a new life.

Renenet was the goddess who presided over the baby’s suckling. She nourished him herself and also gave him his name, his personality and fortune, At his death we see her with Shai when his soul is weighed and judged. She is represented: as a woman without attributes, as a snake-headed woman, as a woman with the head of a lioness, or as a uraeus, dressed and with two long plumes on her head. She symbolised nourishment in general and sometimes appears as a harvest goddess with the title, ‘Lady of the Double Granary’. She gives her name to the month of Pharmuti, ‘the month of Renenet’, the eighth month of the Egyptian calendar.

Renpet was the goddess of the year, the goddess of springtide and of youth. She was called ‘Mistress of Eternity’. She is represented as wearing above her head a long palm -shoot, curved at the end ideogram of her name.

Bes appeared at birth too, but he was a marriage-god and presided over the toilet of women. Bes was a popular god called the Lord the land of Punt. He appears in the form of a robust dwarf of bestial aspect. His head is big, his eyes huge, his cheeks prominent. His chin is hairy and an enormous tongue hangs from his wide-open mouth. For head-dress he has a bunch of ostrich feathers; he wears a leopard skin whose tail falls behind him and is visible between his bandy legs. Bes was the buffoon of the gods. They delighted in his grotesque figure and contortions, Just as the Memphite Pharaohs of the Old Kingdom enjoyed the antics of their pygmies. At first Bes was relegated to the lowest rank among the host of genii venerated by the common people, but his popularity grew; and under the New Kingdom the middle classes liked to place his statue in their houses and name their children after him. He presided over childbearing and appears with Taueret and other titulary genii beside the queen’s bed as a protector of expectant mothers. He also presided over the toilet and adornment of women, who were fond of having his image carved on the handles of their mirrors, rouge boxes and scent bottles. Red-heads are also frequently found ornamented with various representations of Bes; for he was the guardian of sleep who chased away evil spirits and sent the sleeper sweet dreams. He was an excellent protector against evil spirits and dangerous beasts: lions, snakes, scorpions, crocodiles. Bes was even supposed to be the protector of the dead, and became as popular as Osiris.

Selket (Selquet) is the name of the old scorpion-goddess who was depicted as a woman wearing on her head a scorpion, the animal sacred to her. She was also at times a scorpion with a woman’s head. She was a daughter of Ra. She often played the role of guardian of conjugal union. Selket played an special part in the ceremony of embalming. She protected the entrails and, guarded the canopic vase which contained the intestines. Selket is often found in company with Neith, as Isis is with Nephthys. Like the other three goddesses, Selket protected the dead, and we see her extending winged arms across the inner walls of the sarcophagi.

The four sons of Horus, who were members of the Third Ennead, were supposed to have been born from Isis; but it was also said that Sebek, on Ra’s orders, caught them in a net and took them from the water in a lotus flower. It is on a lotus flower that they stand before the throne of Osiris during the judgment of the dead. They were appointed by their father, Horus, to guard the four cardinal points. He also charged them to watch over the heart and entrails of Osiris and to preserve Osiris from hunger and thirst. From then on they became the official protectors of viscera. It had been usual to remove the viscera from the corpse, to separate them and preserve them in cases or jugs. Each jug was confided to the care of one of the four genii and also of a goddess. The human-headed Imsety watched with Isis over the vase containing the liver. The dog-headed Hapi guarded the lungs with Nephthys. The jackal-headed Duamutef with Neith protected the stomach. And the hawk-headed Qebhsnuf with Selkit had charge of the intestines.

Ament, whose name means ‘the Westerner’, is a goddess wearing an ostrich feather on her head or sometimes an ostrich plume and a hawk. This feather, the normal ornament of Libyans, who wore it fixed in their hair, was also the sign for the word ‘Western’ and was naturally suitable to Ament, who was originally the goddess of the west of Lower Egypt. Later ‘the West’ came to meaning the Land of the Dead, the goddess of the West became the goddess of the the dead. At the gates of the Other World, the entrance of the desert, where she offers the dead bread and water. If he drinks and eats he becomes the ‘friend of the gods’ and follows after them, and can never return. Ament The deity who thus welcomes the dead, she may frequently be Nut, Hathor, Neith or Maat, who take their turn in replacing her.

Mertseger (Merseger), means ‘the Friend of Silence’ or ‘the Beloved of Him who makes Silence’ (i.e. Osiris), the name of a snake-goddess of the Theban necropolis. She is represented as a human-headed snake or even as a snake with three heads: namely, a human head surmounted by a disk flanked by two feathers between two others: a snake’s head and a vulture’s head. Although Mertseger was benevolent she could also punish.

The Judges of the Dead and the Weighing of the Soul . When the deceased had, thanks to the talismans placed on his mummy and the passwords written on the indispensable Book of the Dead with which he was furnished, safely crossed the stretch of country between the land of the living and the kingdom of the dead, he was immediately ushered into the presence of his judge, either by Anubis or by Horus. After he had kissed the threshold he penetrated into the ‘Hall of Double Justice’. : Osiris, ‘the Good One’, redeemer and judge who awaited his ‘son who came from earth’. In the centre was erected a vast scale beside which stood Maat, goddess of truth and justice, ready to weigh the heart of the deceased. Meanwhile Amemait, ‘the Devourer’ — a hybrid monster, part lion, part hippopotamus, part crocodile -- crouched nearby, waiting to devour the hearts of the guilty. All around the hall, to the right and to the left of Osiris, sat forty-two personages. Dressed in their winding-sheets, each held a sharp-edged sword in his hand. Some had human heads, others the heads of animals. They were the forty-two judges, corresponding to a province of Egypt; and each was charged with the duty of examining a part of the deceased’s conscience. The deceased began the proceedings on reciting ‘the negative confession’. He addressed each of his judges in turn and called him by name to prove that he knew him and had nothing to fear. And, he affirmed, he had committed no sin and was truly pure. Then followed the weighing of his soul. In one plate of the balance Anubis or Horus placed Maat herself, or a feather, symbol of truth. In the other he placed the heart of the deceased. Thoth then verified the weight, wrote the result on his tablets and announced it to Osiris. If the two pans of the balance were in perfect equilibrium Osiris rendered favourable judgment. ‘Let the deceased depart victorious. Let him go wherever he wishes to mingle freely with the gods and the spirits of the dead.’ The deceased, thus justified, would lead from then on a life of eternal happiness in the kingdom of Osiris. Little statuettes in stone or glazed composition which have been found in tombs by the hundreds and which, when the dead man was called upon to perform some task, would hasten to take his place and do the job for him.

Maat is depicted as a woman standing or sitting on her heels. On her head she wears the ostrich feather which stands for truth or justice. She was the goddess of law, truth and justice. The texts describe her as the cherished daughter and confidante of Ra, and also the wife of Thoth, the judge of the gods who was also called ‘the Master of Maat’. She was part of the court of Osiris, and the chamber in which the god held his tribunal was named the ‘Hall of Double Justice’, Maat was often doubled into two absolutely identical goddesses who stood one in each extremity of the hall. The gods, loved to nourish themselves on truth and justice. So it was the offering of Maat that pleased them.

Neheh (Heh), ‘Eternity’, The god of eternity is represented as a man squatting on the ground in the Egyptian manner and wearing on his head a reed, curved at the end. Often seen , carved on furniture and other homely objects, holding in his hands the sign for millions of years and various emblems of happiness and longevity.

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Last modified: 06/27/08