King of the Gods

Amun-Re

     The size of a god’s temple reflected his importance since size dictated land claims, herd sizes, and income. The greater numbers of temples dedicated to a god, the more widespread his acclaim.1 It is not surprising then that by the end of the New Kingdom, Amun-Re dominated the religion of the Egyptian people.
     The religion attributed three common ranks to deities. All people recognized the universal rank. Claimed by Ma’at, Nun, Osiris, and few others, these gods were worshipped by all Egyptians with no known exceptions.2 The major gods, favored by the state, included Re, Amun, Ptah, and well known triads. The most famous of these state groupings, as arranged by the eighteenth dynasty, is the Great Ennead. These twelve gods oversaw the divine birth as established in the Old Kingdom and which remained popular throughout the millennium of pharaonic rule. Each nome had appointed gods that characterized that region. A nome in Upper Egypt dedicated itself to Hathor while one in Lower Egypt declared Neith its patron. Every city also had special gods which were honored with their names and symbols paraded on a stand at festivals. There is no known limit for the total number of Egyptian gods. The lowest order of gods represented familial and personal gods which the lower classes clung to with great affinity. Tauret and Bes are the most commonly exemplified gods of this division and functioned largely as protectors. All gods had special locality of significance, even cosmic gods, and these areas fostered strong association with worship to that deity.

Amun

     Amun’s origin remains ambiguous though records of his temples date from the fifth dynasty onwards. During the First Intermediate Period, Amun displaced Montu’s dominance in Thebes and retained that position until the fall of the Egyptian religion. With his established prominence at Thebes, Amun’s relationship with other gods changes. His consort becomes Mut, and he obtains a more war-like character, probably from the militaristic focus characteristic of Thebes. As the thirteenth dynasty in Thebes expelled the remnants of Hyksos rule, Amun’s creditation as a warrior flourished with the upswing of Theban power and is referred to as “lord of victory” and “lover of strength.” Nonetheless, he remains a very diversified character named “the hidden one” which hints at his origin as a sky god. One of the main focuses of his worship dealt with Amun’s concealed knowledge. However, once Amun’s increasing popularity associated him with the creator gods, he was fused into the Ogdoad of Hermopolis, where he became depicted as self-renewing snake.
     Although Amun’s origin is unknown, Amun and Min have very close associations in the Old Kingdom. However, as Amun’s prominence and association with Re strengthens, Min’s connections are removed. The majority of Egyptian gods ascribed to fertility at some point through their long existence. Amun remains a sky and wind god. As a sky god solar connections became apparent with the Book of the Dead repeatedly naming Amun the “eldest of the gods of the eastern sky,” referencing a primeval and solar fusion of Amun and Re.
     The ascension of Amun to king of the gods was long in coming. The pyramid texts of the fifth dynasty depict Amun sitting on a throne, and Middle Kingdom artwork has Amun in the position of pharaoh, ruling over the Two Lands, references to Upper and Lower Egypt. Constant allusions to his deistic dominance do not arise until the fall of the Hyksos invaders.3 In time the Greeks associated Amun with Zeus, both kings of the gods in their own rights.
     Through this ascension, Amun became a universal god of the Egyptians. His soul permeated all things as the one in whom all other gods were subsumed. Depicted as human with a bull tail and a double-plumed crown, he represented the wisdom of man with the strength and fertility of a bull as he ruled over Egypt and its gods. His other sacred animals, the ram and the goose, represented his fertility. The goose in particular because its association with water harkened back to his origin as a sky god and control over the heavenly waters. Ram-headed sphinxes decorated many of his temples as is still evident by the avenue of sphinxes at Karnak. By massing them at the entrance to his temples, worshippers had to walk through the many eyes and ears of their god to enter his sacred space, and if the worshipper failed to please him, the stone servants would destroy the doubter.
     The annual Opet celebration celebrated Amun as his barque journeyed up and down the Nile, visiting his related gods. This parade through all of Egypt kept his popularity high while reinforcing the power of his priestly servants and, more indirectly, pharaoh who served him on the physical throne of Egypt. With such a strong residency within the population and vast self-sufficient wealth in his temples, Amun could not be destroyed even with the thirty year attack on his sovereignty by Akhenaten. Two dynasties after the Amarna period, Amun’s high priest in Thebes essentially functioned as a second pharaoh in Upper Egypt. Pharaohs sent princesses to marry the high priest; the priestess became known as “God’s wife of Amun” and rivaled the position of the high priest itself in later times. The priestess became widely popular among commoners because of her generosity and sympathy for the lower classes just as Amun advocated for the common man, obtaining titles such as “vizier of the humble” and “he who comes at the voice of the poor.”
     Amun, armed with his lightning and meteorite weaponry, controlled the major trend of religious themes for the last eighteen hundred years. One of the eight gods of wind and creation, Amun, Theban King of the Gods, Lord of Creation, and Protector of the poor and weak restored his might after Akhenaten’s attempted assassination of the god. The Hidden One, ruler of the sky, held sway over more Egyptian land than any other god, but this only represents half his power, half his influence, half his wealth, and half his name.

Re

     Re, well known Egyptian god of the sun, is easily one of the most important and long-reigning gods of the Egyptian past. He assimilated or coalesced with nearly every god as attested by the innumerable mentions of his name in nearly every temple. Representing the sun at noon, Egyptians credited Re with the flow of every day life as his presence was necessary for light, agriculture, and reproduction. As one of the universal gods from the late Old Kingdom, Re’s position as the sun allowed him to interact with all aspects of creation: heavens, earth, and underworld. The king’s cult dates back to the second dynasty where the king takes the name meaning “son of Re.” From the earliest times, Re, divine father of Horus, protected the king. Re, as father of the king, impregnated the queen in the story of divine birth which later tailored the story to Amun-Re.
     Though just one of many sun gods, Re was the falcon-headed sun god of all creation. “Khepera symbolized the rising sun and Re personified the sun at noon, when it is most powerful; Aten was the personification of the setting sun.” In the heavens the sun represented both his eye and his body as he daily traversed the body of Nut, the sky god, since the Old Kingdom. On earth Re was the first king of creation and all kings descended from him. In the underworld Re travelled during the night before arising on the horizon each day. This cycle associated Re with every part of life and readily adapted him to worship with other gods. Particular association with Osiris because of travel through the underworld each night resulted in an eventual fusion of the two where the two gods became one in the night, smoothing the mythology of both of their fatherhoods of Horus.
     Because of his widespread associations, depictions of him vary by time, location, and other gods associated with particular manifestations. Pharaohs constantly built temples in his honor after the fifth dynasty. This variety demonstrates his versatility, influence, pervasiveness, and power. His symbolism includes a disc, cobra, wings, scarab, ram, falcon, bull, cat, and lion which are associated with him largely through his connections with other gods.
     Worship to the sun god expanded through the eras though Iunu, “City of the Sun,” remained Re’s center of worship; the Greeks called this city Heliopolis because of Re’s strongholds there. Pharaoh’s duties involved worship of Re at sunrise when he entered the world from his nightly travels in the netherworld. Along with this, falcon and the Mnevis bull mummifications were performed in his honor. Use of Hymns after the Middle Kingdom became an integral part of worship with a literary height in the New Kingdom. As a creator god, a myth held that humanity arose from his tears of joy at creation. The most steadfast reason for his continued worship was thankfulness since the sun brought light and life each day.

Amun-Re’s Cooronation

     These two major gods, Amun and Re, did not gain authority without reason. A local god until the twelfth dynasty with the rise of Middle Kingdom Theban pharaohs, the eighteenth dynasty raised Amun to his position as king. Amun had long been associated with Re through the heavens. The rise of Amun seems sudden compared to that of Re who, from the second dynasty onward, gradually nurses his influence, penetrating hundreds of other cults. A nearly universal god by the fifth dynasty, it took the development of a strong connection with Amun to define the strength of Re’s influence. To make the power and prestige hit home, under Ramesses III, the temples for Amun-Re controlled ten percent of Egyptian land with eighty-six thousand temple workers and priests, four-hundred thousand life stock, and eighty-three ships.
     Keeping the power that pharaohs had over the religion, especially early on, the originating town of pharaohs at key times in history dictated the course of which gods would expand through political favoritism. As readily apparent, without the rise of Thebes, Amun would not have risen.
     As the local deity of Thebes for the Middle and New Kingdoms, Amun rode the wave of pharaonic preference to secure his power before becoming independent of it much as his priests did at the end of the New Kingdom. Amenophis III used Amun as his preferred god to enforce his treaty letters with Caananite rulers, recognizing Amun as the “great god.” This preference allowed Amun’s influence to extend beyond the borders of Eygpt for a time, a rarity for Egyptian gods. Similarly, Re’s prominence grew through associations with pharaoh from early times.
     Re’s position was widely recognized as a powerful god. Temple gate writings often invoked the protection of Re in their dedications: “To be said: Oh, Doorkeepers, Oh, Doorkeepers, Oh, Guardians of their netherworld, who swallow souls and eat shadows of the glorified. Apes comes upon them, assigning them to the place of destruction. Oh, just ones, this beneficent soul of the excellent sovereign, Osiris, Ramesses [II], the beloved of Amun, like Re.”4 This stanza shows the power of the king, Ramesses II, by association with the power of Amun and Re. Each gate holds curses for those that disrespect the king, blessings for offerings, and praise to the various other gods, notably Amun and Re.
     That the gods could die was reiterated in myths, the necessity of caring for the temples, treasuring the gods’ Rens. Mythologically, Osiris died at Set’s hands. Later periods feared that Re was “decrepitly old” because he had not rested, constantly travelling. This fear lent some justification for the fusion with Amun because it allowed Re to gain extra strength from a dominating name, the king of the gods. Thus, Thebes became a focus area for Re worship and increased the importance of Amun-Re.

Amun-Re’s Culmination

     The Amun and Re absorbed and associated with many other gods, not just each other. One of the strongest indications for the late rise of Amun-Re in the canon of Egyptian religion involved the eighteenth dynasty’s organization of gods into triads, typically a father god, mother goddess, and a male child. One of the most powerful families, the Ogdoad of Hermopolis, represented nearly all the most powerful gods. Amun’s nature as god of the air and wind would have suited him for a place alongside the Ogdoad. Moreover, it was not unnatural that the priests there should have wished to connect their city with the great god of imperial Thebes who was then at the height of his glory. By the Nineteenth Dynasty Amun-Re had become so well established there that, as just has been shown, Ramesses II thought it necessary to found a temple for him.
     Further integration into the mythological past involved Amun as a creator god. Each subsequent generational pairs of gods consisted of a male and female. Amun created Shu and Tefnut who birthed Geb and Nut who completed the lineage of the king since Re-Osiris was one of their sons. Nonetheless, flexibility is permitted because although there is a multiplicity of approaches to Egyptian religion, all are correct.
     Horus never successfully absorbed Amun like so many other sky gods. However, Amun absorbed a large contingent of sky gods which were depicted as rams. This connection allowed Amun to gain widespread popularity and strong association with the ram as his sacred animal. Absorbing other gods’ attributes strengthened a god through widening his worship and power base. “Finally, the more terrible aspect of such a god became emphasized in a compound form, which approximated Amun more closely still to his less placid relatives of the more northern skies.” Amun championed integrating other gods into himself. Re, alternately, grew stronger by association while leaving the other gods largely intact.
     Gods closely associated with Amun and Re also experienced positive reinforcement. Mut, wife of Amun, became the queen of the gods in Thebes, a new position which did not develop until the Middle Kingdom. Mut had previously been a very minor deity, a familial goddess of the house that rose to pharaoh. Nonetheless, she remained an independent god associated with Amun and was never absorbed even at the height of the eighteenth dynasty’s reorganization. Pharaoh’s imagery as the living embodiment of Hours encouraged the fostering of Re’s universal worship. Re-Horakhty, “Re who is Horus of the Horizons,” gave a positive feedback loop between pharaoh and any cults associated with Re.
     Two key terms to understanding the success of both Amun and Re deal with the ability to connect to characteristics of other gods. This flexibility accounts for a great deal of Egypt’s religious resilience in later periods. Amun’s most common technique, henotheism, involves absorbing another god entirely. Henotheism, the worship of one supreme God while recognizing lower deities, allowed Amun to continually heighten his power. The end result is one god with expanded powers, symbolism, and regional influence. Syncretism is the alternative, adapting attributes and associating with other gods’ strengths and the key to Re’s widespread influence.5 Egyptians seem to have preferred syncretism.
     By the nineteenth dynasty, stele indicate that Amun and Amun-Re were inseparable, probably due to Amun’s henotheism. Re managed to remain separated because of syncretism. While temples dedicated to Amun and Re existed at Hermopolis, no temple for Amun-Re existed until the nineteenth dynasty when a large section of Amun’s temple underwent construction to alter it. The process of henotheism is difficult to understand because of the complex variability involved in associating one god with another so closely as to engulf it completely. Sometimes the starting-point is not plurality but unity, which is differentiated into three
[distinct gods]. In the sun-god, the rising sun, Khepri, the midday sun, Re, and the setting sun, Aten, are distinguished, and these modalities are joined in the name Khepri-Re-Aten. The gods Ptah, Sokar, and Osiris could be conjoined and depicted as a single being: Ptah-Sokar-Osiris. The great majority of texts regard this composite god as singular. In a few cases, where the third person plural is used of [Ptah-Sokar-Osiris], he seems to be looked upon as a plural being.
     Indeed, it seems that gods could be viewed as distinct or conjoined depending on need and context. A temple wall reads, “The pantheon is a triad who do not have their equal. Hidden is his name as Amun. He is Re in countenance. Ptah is his body.” Amun-Re-Ptah, a powerful triad, represented characteristics of all three gods but took on a single, separate identity that blended the individual entities. The triad, if composed of all males, allowed each beings characteristics to mix. Sky gods often absorb other cults to encourage larger followings. Thus, by the end of the Eleventh Dynasty, Amun associated with Re to control the sun.
     All Egyptian gods held many names. Hathor, goddess of beauty, had a new name for each day of the year. Re had over seventy-five independent of his associations with other gods. Amun had an “unknowable number” because his character as the Hidden One caused him to withhold information. Combining the known names for Amun and Re results in a third of all known names of the Egyptian gods. Just as their names, depictions varied. Late Period descriptions of Amun-Re give him four heads, seven-hundred-seventy-seven eyes, and a million ears to enhance his omniscience, omnipresence, and care to his worshipers individually.

1 Temple size and number of a god often explain favoritism of the pharaohs, not popularity among the people. Over the extended period Amun-Re ruled as king of Egyptian gods, the masses accepted his standing and supported the increase in his influence throughout Egypt.
2 While representative of justice and order, the goddess Maat also embodied justice and was responsible for weighing the heart of the judged dead. The line between the goddess and process whereby the pharaoh ruled with justice are nearly indistinguishable without context even on Egyptian sources. Represented by an ostrich feather, Maat’s popularity among the Egyptian populace was long lived and integral to mundane activities.
3 These declarations of Amun’s power come from his status as the prominent god of Thebes. When Thebes expelled the Hyksos and founded the Middle Kingdom, Egypt looked both to Theban pharaonic and religious leadership.
4 Mohamed Abdelrahiem, “Chapter 144 of the Book of the Dead from the Temple of Ramesses II at Abydos,” Studien zur Altagyptischen Kultur 34, (2006), 5-6.
5 While Henotheism means the worship of a supreme god with recognition of others, the Egyptian case follows this example to the extreme with the supreme deity becoming powerful enough to disestablish the cults of similar gods entirely.

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Agatha Tyche