Creator

Amun

jmn

Hidden powerCreationKingship

How it changed

Rose with his city. A local Theban god of the Middle Kingdom who became the state god of an empire, fused with Ra as Amun-Ra, and accumulated a priesthood wealthy enough to rival the throne. Suppressed under Akhenaten's reforms, then restored with the Amarna period erased from the record.

Cult centre

Thebes

Best attested

Middle Kingdom onward, supreme in the New Kingdom

Family

Consort of Mut; father of Khonsu in the Theban triad.

Epithets

“The hidden one”
“King of the gods”

How to recognise the figure

A man in a flat-topped crown with two tall plumes, sometimes with blue skin; also a ram with curved horns.

Appears in

Middle Kingdom onward, elaborated in the Graeco-Roman period

The eight of Hermopolis

Four frog-headed gods and four snake-headed goddesses, standing for the qualities of the water before there was anything.

Carries

Was sceptre

Worshipped at

Waset

now Luxor

Khemenu

now El-Ashmunein

Others in this group

Thoth

Hermopolis

Ptah

Memphis

Maat

Worshipped throughout Egypt rather than centred anywhere

Atum

Heliopolis