- For the people in the Bible, see Ammon (nation). For the extinct mollusc see Ammonite.
Amun was name of a major Egyptian deity, meaning "the hidden one" (alternative spellings "Amon" and "Ammon"). He was one of the Ogdoad and was married to Ipet. In the Greek language he was known as Ammon.
Amun and Mut
He was, to begin with, the local deity of Thebes, when it was an unimportant town on the east bank of the river, about the region now occupied by the temple of Karnak. The Eleventh dynasty sprang from a family in the Hermonthite nome or perhaps at Thebes itself, and adorned the temple of Karnak with statues. Amenemhat I , the name of the founder of the Twelfth dynasty, was compounded with that of Amun and was borne by three of his successors. Several Theban kings of the later part of the Middle Kingdom adopted the same name; and when the Theban family of the Seventeenth dynasty drove out the Hyksos, Amun, as the god of the royal city, was again prominent.
It was not, however, until the rulers of the Eighteenth dynasty carried their victorious arms beyond the Egyptian frontiers in every direction that Amun began to assume the proportions of a universal god for the Egyptians, eclipsing all their other deities and asserting his power over the gods of all foreign lands. To Amun the Pharaohs attributed all their successful enterprises, and on his temples they lavished their wealth and captured spoil.
Amun is figured in human form, wearing on his head a plain deep circlet from which rise two straight parallel plumes, perhaps representing the tail feathers of a hawk. Two main types are seen: in the one he is seated on a throne, in the other he is standing, ithyphallic, holding a scourge, precisely like Min, the god of Coptos and Chemmis (Akhmim). The latter may be his original form, as a god of fertility, before whom the king ceremoniously breaks up the ground for sowing or cuts the ripe grain. His consort was sometimes called Amunet (feminine of Amun), but more usually Mut; she was human-headed, wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, and their son was Chons.
The name of Re, the sun-god, was sometimes joined to Amun, especially in his title as "king of the gods": the rule of heaven belonged to the sun-god in the Egyptian cosmos, and this identification with Re was only logical for a supreme deity. Amun was entitled "lord of the thrones of the two lands," or, more proudly still, "king of the gods." Such indeed was his unquestioned position when suddenly he was overthrown and his worship proscribed. Once a henotheist fervently worshipping one of many gods, Amenhotep IV of the Eighteenth dynasty became the monotheist Akhenaten. Discarding all the gods of Egypt, and especially persecuting Amun, he devoted himself to the purer and more sublime worship of Aten, the sun. But he failed to win the permanent adhesion of the people to his reform, or to conciliate or entirely crush the enormously powerful priesthood of Amun.
A few years after the reformer's death, the old cults were re-established and the monuments of Aten studiously defaced. Hymns were then addressed to Amun-Re, which are almost monotheistic in expression. The cult of the supreme god spread throughout Egypt and was carried by the Egyptian conquerors into other lands, such as Syria, Nubia, and Libya, and was accepted by the natives both in Nubia and in Libya, where Egyptian influence was pervasive.
After the Twentieth dynasty the centre of power was removed from Thebes, and the authority of Amun began to wane. Under the Twenty-first dynasty the secondary line of priest kings of Thebes upheld his dignity to the best of their power, and the Twenty-second favoured Thebes: but 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 effect much.
Amun (as Zeus-Ammon) continued to be the great god of Thebes in its decay, notwithstanding that a nome-capital in the north of the Delta as well as many lesser temples -- from El Hibeh in Middle Egypt to Canopus on the sea -- acknowledged Amun as their supreme divinity; he probably in some degree represented the national aspirations of Upper Egypt as opposed to Middle and Lower Egypt. He also remained the national god of Nubia, where his name was pronounced Amane. The priests of Amane at Meroe and Nobatia , in fact, regulated through his oracle the whole government of the country, choosing the king, directing his military expeditions (and even compelling him to commit suicide, according to Diodorus Siculus) until in the 3rd century BC Arkamane (Ergamenes) broke through the bondage and slew the priests.
Amun had yet another outburst of glory. There was an oracle of Ammon established for some centuries in the Libyan Desert, in the distant oasis of Siwa. Such was its reputation among the Greeks that Alexander the Great journeyed there, after the battle of Issus and during his occupation of Egypt, in order to be acknowledged the son of the god. The Egyptian Pharaohs of the Eighteenth dynasty had likewise been proclaimed mystically sons of this god, who, it was asserted, had impregnated the queen-mother; and on occasion wore the ram's horns of Amun, even as Alexander is represented with them on coins.
The Egyptian goose (chenalopex ) is figured in the Eighteenth dynasty as sacred to Amun; but his most frequent and celebrated incarnation was the woolly sheep with curved ("Amun") horns (as opposed to the oldest native breed with long horizontal twisted horns and hairy coat, sacred to Khnum). It is found as representing Amun from the time of Amenhotep III onwards.
As king of the gods, Amun was identified by the Greeks with Zeus and his consort Mut with Hera. Khnum was likewise identified with Zeus probably through his similarity to Amun; his proper animal having early become extinct, Amun horns in course of time were attributed to this god also.
See Erman, Handbook of Egyptian Religion (London, 1907); Ed. Meyer, article "Ammon" in Roscher's Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie; Pietschmann, articles "Ammon" and "Ammoneion" in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie.
Other names
- Kematef (much later in Egyptian history)
Several words derive from Amun via the Greek form Ammon: ammonia and ammonite. Ammonia, as well as being the chemical, is a genus name in the foraminifera. Both these foraminiferans (shelled Protozoa) and ammonites (extinct shelled cephalopods) have/had spiral shells resembling a ram's, and Ammon's, horns. Ammonia the chemical derives its name in a more round-about way - see end of article ammonia.
Last updated: 05-13-2005 07:56:04
