| Banebdjedet | |||||||
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 Banebdjedet wielding a Was-sceptre and Ankh | |||||||
| Name in hieroglyphs |
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| Major cult center | Mendes | ||||||
| Consort | Hatmehit | ||||||
| Offspring | Horus the Child | ||||||
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Banebdjedet (Banebdjed) is an ancient Egyptian ram god with a cult centre at Mendes. Khnum was the equivalent god in Upper Egypt. [1]
His wife was the goddess Hatmehit ("Foremost of the Fishes"), who was perhaps the original deity of Mendes. [1] Their offspring was "Horus the Child" and they formed the so-called "Mendesian Triad". [2]
The words for "ram" and "soul" sounded the same in Egyptian, so ram deities were at times regarded as appearances of other gods. [1]
Typically, the horned god Banebdjedet was depicted with four rams' heads to represent the four Bas of the sun god. He may also be linked to the first four gods to rule over Egypt (Osiris, Geb, Shu and Ra-Atum), with large granite shrines to each in the Mendes sanctuary. [1]
The Book of the Heavenly Cow describes the "Ram of Mendes" as being the Ba of Osiris, but this was not an exclusive association. A story dated to the New Kingdom describes him as being consulted by the "Divine Tribunal" to judge between Horus and Seth, but he proposes that Neith do it instead as an act of diplomacy. As the dispute continues, it is Banebdjedet who suggests that Seth be given the throne as he is the elder brother. [1]
In a chapel in the Ramesseum, a stela records how the god Ptah took the form of Banebdjedet, in view of gaining his virility, in order to have union with the woman who would conceive Rameses II.[ citation needed ]
Media related to Banebdjedet at Wikimedia Commons| International | |
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Anubis, also known as Inpu, Inpw, Jnpw, or Anpu in Ancient Egyptian, is the god of funerary rites, protector of graves, and guide to the underworld, in ancient Egyptian religion, usually depicted as a canine or a man with a canine head.
Osiris was the god of fertility, agriculture, the afterlife, the dead, resurrection, life, and vegetation in ancient Egyptian religion. He was classically depicted as a green-skinned deity with a pharaoh's beard, partially mummy-wrapped at the legs, wearing a distinctive atef crown, and holding a symbolic crook and flail. He was one of the first to be associated with the mummy wrap. When his brother Set cut him up into pieces after killing him, with her sister Nephthys, Osiris' wife, Isis, searched all over Egypt to find each part of Osiris. She collected all but one – Osiris’s manhood. She then wrapped his body up, enabling him to return to life. Osiris was widely worshipped until the decline of ancient Egyptian religion during the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire.
Horus, also known as Heru, Har, Her, or Hor in Ancient Egyptian, is one of the most significant ancient Egyptian deities who served many functions, most notably as the god of kingship, healing, protection, the sun, and the sky. He was worshipped from at least the late prehistoric Egypt until the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Roman Egypt. Different forms of Horus are recorded in history, and these are treated as distinct gods by Egyptologists. These various forms may be different manifestations of the same multi-layered deity in which certain attributes or syncretic relationships are emphasized, not necessarily in opposition but complementary to one another, consistent with how the Ancient Egyptians viewed the multiple facets of reality. He was most often depicted as a falcon, most likely a lanner falcon or peregrine falcon, or as a man with a falcon head.
Set is a god of deserts, storms, disorder, violence, and foreigners in ancient Egyptian religion. In Ancient Greek, the god's name is given as Sēth. Set had a positive role where he accompanies Ra on his barque to repel Apep (Apophis), the serpent of Chaos. Set had a vital role as a reconciled combatant. He was lord of the Red Land (desert), where he was the balance to Horus' role as lord of the Black Land.
Nut, also known by various other transcriptions, is the goddess of the sky, stars, cosmos, mothers, astronomy, and the universe in the ancient Egyptian religion. She was seen as a star-covered nude woman arching over the Earth, or as a cow. She was depicted wearing the water-pot sign (nw) that identifies her.
Ptah is an ancient Egyptian deity, a creator god and patron deity of craftsmen and architects. In the triad of Memphis, he is the husband of Sekhmet and the father of Nefertem. He was also regarded as the father of the sage Imhotep.
Hathor was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion who played a wide variety of roles. As a sky deity, she was the mother or consort of the sky god Horus and the sun god Ra, both of whom were connected with kingship, and thus she was the symbolic mother of their earthly representatives, the pharaohs. She was one of several goddesses who acted as the Eye of Ra, Ra's feminine counterpart, and in this form, she had a vengeful aspect that protected him from his enemies. Her beneficent side represented music, dance, joy, love, sexuality, and maternal care, and she acted as the consort of several male deities and the mother of their sons. These two aspects of the goddess exemplified the Egyptian conception of femininity. Hathor crossed boundaries between worlds, helping deceased souls in the transition to the afterlife.
Hatmehit or Hatmehyt was an Ancient Egyptian goddess associated with the city in the Nile Delta known as Djedet or Mendes.
Mendes, the Greek name of the ancient Egyptian city of Djedet, also known in ancient Egypt as Per-Banebdjedet and Anpet, is known today as Tell El-Ruba.
The Eye of Horus, also known as left wedjat eye or udjat eye, specular to the Eye of Ra, is a concept and symbol in ancient Egyptian religion that represents well-being, healing, and protection. It derives from the mythical conflict between the god Horus with his rival Set, in which Set tore out or destroyed one or both of Horus's eyes and the eye was subsequently healed or returned to Horus with the assistance of another deity, such as Thoth. Horus subsequently offered the eye to his deceased father Osiris, and its revitalizing power sustained Osiris in the afterlife. The Eye of Horus was thus equated with funerary offerings, as well as with all the offerings given to deities in temple ritual. It could also represent other concepts, such as the moon, whose waxing and waning was likened to the injury and restoration of the eye.
The Book of Gates is an ancient Egyptian funerary text dating from the New Kingdom. The Book of Gates is long and detailed, consisting of one hundred scenes. It narrates the passage of a newly deceased soul into the next world journeying with the sun god, Ra, through the underworld during the hours of the night towards his resurrection. The soul is required to pass through a series of 'gates' at each hour of the journey. Each gate is guarded by a different serpent deity that is associated with a different goddess. It is important that the deceased knows the names of each guardian. Depictions of the judgment of the dead are shown in the last three hours. The text implies that some people will pass through unharmed, but others will suffer torment in a lake of fire. At the end of Ra's journey through the underworld, he emerges anew to take his place back in the sky.
The Master of Animals, Lord of Animals, or Mistress of the Animals is a motif in ancient art showing a human between and grasping two confronted animals. The motif is very widespread in the art of the Ancient Near East and Egypt. The figure may be female or male, it may be a column or a symbol, the animals may be realistic or fantastical, and the human figure may have animal elements such as horns, an animal upper body, an animal lower body, legs, or cloven feet. Although what the motif represented to the cultures that created the works probably varies greatly, unless shown with specific divine attributes, when male the figure is typically described as a hero by interpreters.
The Book of the Earth is an Ancient Egyptian funerary text that has been called many names such as The Creation of the Sun Disk and the Book of Aker. The Book primarily appears on the tombs of Merneptah, Twosret, Ramesses III, Ramesses VI, and Ramesses VII and serves as a counterpart to the Book of Caverns.
Khenti-Amentiu, also Khentiamentiu, Khenti-Amenti, Kenti-Amentiu and many other spellings, is an ancient Egyptian deity whose name was also used as a title for Osiris and Anubis. The name means "Foremost of the Westerners" or "Chief of the Westerners", where "Westerners" refers to the dead.
Ra or Re was the ancient Egyptian deity of the Sun. By the Fifth Dynasty, in the 25th and 24th centuries BC, he had become one of the most important gods in ancient Egyptian religion, identified primarily with the noon-day sun. Ra ruled in all parts of the created world: the sky, the Earth, and the underworld. He was believed to have ruled as the first pharaoh of Ancient Egypt. He was the god of the sun, order, kings and the sky.
Deities depicted with horns or antlers are found in numerous religions across the world. Horned animals, such as bulls, goats, and rams, may be worshiped as deities or serve as inspiration for a deity's appearance in religions that venerate animal gods. Many pagan religions include horned gods in their pantheons, such as Pan in Greek mythology and Ikenga in Odinala. Some neopagan religions have reconstructed these deities into the concept of the Horned God, representing the male aspect of divinity in Wiccan belief.
Heqet, sometimes spelled Heket, is an Egyptian goddess of fertility, identified with Hathor, represented in the form of a frog.
In ancient Egyptian art, the Set animal, or sha, is the totemic animal of the god Set. Because Set was identified with the Greek monster Typhon, the animal is also commonly known as the Typhonian animal or Typhonic beast.
The gate deities of the underworld were ancient Egyptian minor deities charged with guarding the gates of the Egyptian underworld.
