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River and land
Hapi
ḥꜥpjThe inundationAbundance
How it changed
Not the Nile but the FLOOD, which is a different thing and the thing that actually mattered: too little and the country starved, too much and it drowned. He is shown with a body that is neither male nor female and read as abundance rather than as a person, and unusually for so important a figure he had almost no temples, because the offerings were made at the river itself.
Cult centre
Aswan and Gebel el-Silsila, at the river rather than in a city
Best attested
Old Kingdom onward
Family
None recorded. He stands outside the genealogies.
Epithets
- “Lord of the fishes”
- “Green of the two banks”
How to recognise the figure
A blue or green man with a heavy belly and pendulous breasts, wearing water plants on his head and carrying offering tables.
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