From the time of the Middle Kingdom, the supreme deity in Egyptian religion. Later he was given the qualities of the sun-god Re, hence the usual title Amun-Re. The name means the hidden one.
For other uses, see Amun (disambiguation).Amun (also spelt Amon, Amoun, Amen, and rarely Imen, and spelt in Greek as Ammon, and Hammon) was the name of a deity, in Egyptian mythology, who gradually rose to become one of the most important deities, before fading into obscurity.
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Amun in hieroglyphs |
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Origin of name
Amun's name is first recorded in Egyptian records as imn, meaning "The hidden (one)".
God of Air
Originally, he was simply nothing more than a deification of the concept of air, and thus wind, one of the four fundamental concepts held to have composed the primordial universe, in the Ogdoad cosmogeny, whose cult was strongest in Hermopolis.
Creator
Gradually, as god of air, he came to be associated with the breath of life, which created the ba, particularly in Thebes. As he became more significant, he was assigned a wife (Amunet being his own female aspect, more than a distinct wife), and since he was the creator, his wife was considered the divine mother from which the cosmos emerged, who in the areas where Amun was worshipped was, by this time, Mut.
Amun became depicted in human form, seated on a throne, wearing on his head a plain deep circlet from which rise two straight parallel plumes, possibly symbolic of the tail feathers of a bird, a reference to his earlier status as a wind god.
Having become more important than Menthu, the local war god of Thebes, Menthu's authority became said to exist because he was the son of Amun.
King
With the eviction of the Hyksos rulers from Egypt, by the armies of the Eighteenth dynasty, Thebes, where the victors were based, became the most important city, and so Amun became nationally important. And so, when the Greeks reported back on their visits to Egypt, Amun, as king of the gods, became identified by the Greeks with Zeus, and so his consort Mut with Hera.
As the Egyptians considered themselves oppressed during the period of Hyksos rule, the victory under the supreme god Amun, was seen as his championing of the underdog.
Fertility God
When, subsequently, Egypt conquered Kush, they identified the chief deity of the Kushites as Amun. This deity was depicted as Ram headed, specifically a woolly Ram with curved horns, and so Amun started becoming associated with the Ram.
However, since rams, due to their rutting, were considered a symbol of virility, Amun became thought of as a fertility deity, and so started to absorb the identity of Min, becoming Amun-Min.
Sun God
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Amun-Ra in hieroglyphs |
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As Amun's cult grew bigger, Amun rapidly became identified with the chief God that was worshipped in other areas, Ra-Herakhty, the merged identities of Ra, and Horus. This identification led to a merger of identities, with Amun becoming Amun-Ra.
Ra-Herakhty had been a sun god, and so this became true of Amun-Ra as well, Amun becoming considered the hidden aspect of the sun (e.g. The priests persuaded the new underage pharaoh Tutankhaten (most likely Akhenaten's son), whose name meant "the living image of Aten", to change his name to Tutankhamun, "the living image of Amun".
Decline
After the Twentieth dynasty moved the centre of power back to Thebes, the powerbase of Amun's cult had been renewed, and the authority of Amun began to weaken.
As the sovereignty weakened the division between Upper and Lower Egypt asserted itself, and thereafter Thebes would have rapidly decayed had it not been for the piety of the kings of Nubia towards Amun, whose worship had long prevailed in their country. Thebes was at first their Egyptian capital, and they honoured Amun greatly, although their wealth and culture were not sufficient to affect much.
In areas outside of Egypt, where the Egyptians had previously brought the worship of Amun, Amun's fate was not as bad.
Likewise, in Libya, there remained an oracle of Amun in the desert, at the oasis of Siwa. Even during this occupation, Amun, identified as a form of Zeus, continued to be the great god of Thebes, in its decay.
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
Derived Terms
Several words derive from Amun via the Greek form Ammon: ammonia and ammonite.
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