God Amun is one of the main gods or deities in ancient Egypt, which had many temples in various places in Egypt, attached the names of many kings who ruled Egypt and played an essential role in ancient Egyptian civilization through their cult and history.
It is highly needed to get back to ancient Egyptian mythology. In it, we can recognize how it was created and existed in the awareness of ancient Egyptians.
In ancient Egyptian mythology were many theories assuming world’s creation, the most important one which shows the role of the god Amon was called the octagon of achmien, which was called in the ancient Egyptian language “hmnu,” which means number 8 since this theory assumes; the world was created by four pairs of gods, four frogs and four snacks representing the fundamental forces of the world which are :
1/ nun and nuniet refers to water
2/ huh and huhet refers to emptiness
3/ Kuk and kukett refers to darkness
4/ amon and amunet refers to hiddenness who brought the air to the world.
They ruled the world once upon a time, and then they decided to leave the world to ensure daily sunrise and annual Nile flood.
But they left one of them to handle the world’s issue, which was among the masters of air or hiddenness and chose from himself the location of the Luxor temple, and there was a holy compartment on which the recent temple.
While on the other side of the Nile, opposite Luxor temple was constructed the temple of Madinat habu, which was also dedicated to god Amon; every year, god Amun crossed the Nile and visited the other god in this temple.
God Amun was first represented in the snack form since snack’s nature is to renew its skin from time to another, symbolizing eternity in ancient Egypt.
The position of god Amon
At the beginning of ancient Egyptian civilization, God Amon didn’t have the same position as during the reign of the new kingdom.
In the old kingdom, the main god was the sun god Ra. Still, after chasing Hyksos from Egypt from lower Egypt, the ancient Egyptians thought that it was the favor and support of local god in Thebes god Amon, so they changed Egypt’s capital to Thebes, making god Amon the main of Egypt.
God Amon and kings
The relationship between god Amon and kings was not the same always, by the start of the new kingdom, many kings attached their names with god Amon like:
- Amenhotep 1
- Amenhotep 2
- Amenhotep 3
- Tut Ankh Amon
Strike against amon
The most famous religious strike against god Amon occurred during the reign of king Amenhotep 4, who led the first religious revolution in Egypt’s history, changing his name from Amenhotep to Akhenaten, which means the faithful to god Aten which represents the sunray, closed all temples of Amon, erasing priesthood system, declaring his new cult in his new capital “akht-aten” meaning horizon of Aten.
The image of god Amun
God amon had various presentations in ancient Egypt,
First: as cheap as sphinx avenue in front of Karnak temple to the side of river Nile.
Second: as a man with two feathers on his head, represented in temples of Luxor, Karnak and madinet habu, etc.
Third: as a snack in ancient Egyptian mythology
The ceremony of god amon
The main ceremony of god Amon occurred in ancient Egypt was after the Nile flood, which renewed the life of god Amun and gave him energy and power to stand from his place in the Karnak temple to go through sphinx avenue visiting his wife goddess mut in Luxor temple during a ceremony called “opet.”
The other one was a mortuary ceremony held every year in Luxor when god Amun crossed the Nile through his holy bark to visit the temple of Madinat habu.
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