Amon of Thebes was presumably at first a god of the reproductive natural force which generates animals and plants, as were his neighbour gods, Ment of Hermonthis and Min of Koptos. The three names probably go back to the root men (=‘stand’), the allusion being to the erected phallus. At a later period Amon blends more and more with the sun-god (see above, p. 184), and thus arises Amon-Ra, who is now hailed re- peatedly in hymns as creator, dispenser of nourish- ment, etc. More and more he arrogates the functions of other gods, and is first invoked in a henotheistic sense, and then designated panthe- istically as god of the All, the other gods being his members and parts. During this period the custom originated of deriving his name from amen (‘ to be hidden’), the idea being that his true name, 7.¢. his real nature, is concealed (see above, p. 181"). He is portrayed as a man with a high feather crown.
At Thebes Amon does not usually appear alone, but in company with the goddess Mut and_their son Chunsu. There is thus constituted a Divine family, a triad, the members of which, however, always remain independent, and never blend into a trinity. It was generally held in ancient Egypt that a god, like a man, grows old and dies. In order to secure, in spite of this, the perpetual life of the god, he is supposed to generate by his wife, who is usually also his sister, a son like himself, who, when the father dies, steps into his place. He in turn generates, by her who had been his own mother, a son like himself—he becomes, as the Egyptians say, ka-mut-f, ‘husband of his mother,’ —who succeeds him on his death. Strangely
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enough, there is no word of the goddess dying. But this is probably due, not to any real immor- tality being attributed to her, but to the meacre significance of goddesses in Egyptian mythology.
Besides the triad, we find in Egyptian temples groups of four or eight, and especially of nine deities. The composition of these groups rests upon a variety of principles: at times the forms have actually a close connexion, at other times one of the gods is regarded as king, the others as his court, ete. Pre-eminent in this class is the ennead of Heliopolis, in the formation of which a mythological system co-operated, and which then exercised an influence upon other temples as well (cf. Maspero, Ht. de myth. ii. 337 ff.). In place of a single ennead some temples have two, a great and a small, while others have a still larger number.
Mut, depicted as a woman with a human head or that of a lion, had a temple of her own to the south of Karnak in Thebes (Benson-Gourlay, The Temple of Mut in Asher, London, 1899), where she passed for queen of heaven and eye of Ra, and where numerous lion-headed statues were dedicated to her or to Sechet (see below, p. 186%), particularly by Amenophis 1. and Sheshonk 1. Instead of her we occasionally meet with the grammatically formed goddess Ament by the side of Amon. She has nothing to do with the almost homonymous goddess of the under world, Amenti, ‘she who belongs to the realm of the dead.’
Chunsu appears to have been primarily a moon- god [chens=‘ pass through,’ here with reference to the motion of the stars]. He bears upon his hawk’s head a moon-crescent and sun’s disc, and the mention of him runs parallel with that of the other moon-deities (Thoth, Aah, ete.). In later times he becomes the god of healing, and falls apart into two forms, ‘Chunsu, the beautifully resting one,’ who always abides in the temple at Thebes, and ‘Chunsu, the executor of plans,’ who is sent out by the other as physician and magician. To the first of these a great temple was erected at Karnak by Ramses lI. and his successors; the latter had a small sanctuary beside it, which is mentioned as late as the Ptolemaic era (cf. Aegyp. Ztschr, xxxviii. 126).
Ment was worshipped at various places in the Thebaid ; he has a hawk’s head, solar disc, and the Amon feathers, and in the Theban period of Egyptian history he is regarded especially as the god of war, to whom the Pharaoh, as he sets out for battle, is compared. His embodiment at Erment is the Bacis (see below, p. 190*).
Min [formerly read Chem or Amst] was the god of Panopolis, Koptos, and other places; he pre- sents himself as an ithyphallic man, and is viewed as the god of procreation. Harvest and other joyous festivals are held in his honour, and he often coincides with Amon ha-mut-f, as the god who constantly reproduces himself and thus lives for ever.
Chnum or Chnuphis, the ram-headed god of the cataract region, is creator of the world, which he fashioned upon the potter’s wheel, and of human beings, whom he ‘ constructed.’ By his side appear the goddesses to be presently mentioned, Sati and Anukit. In addition, we find occasionally coupled with him the frog-headed goddess Hekt, who is frequently mentioned from the earliest times down- wards, without our being able, however, to fix her exact significance. At all events, she played a part in the resurrection dogma, which was symbolized down to the Christian-Coptic era by her sacred animal, the frog.