deitythe hidden onethe king of the godscreation (in later periods)
The 'Hidden One', the supreme god of the later Egyptian state religion; fused with Ra to become Amun-Ra.
Statuette of Amun-Ra · Unknown (Egyptian workshop) · 25th-26th Dynasty (700-600 BCE) · State Museum of Egyptian Art, Munich (via Wikimedia Commons) · CC BY-SA 4.0
The account
Who they are
Amun is the 'Hidden One', a god who was originally a local god of Thebes but rose to become the supreme god of the Egyptian state religion in the New Kingdom and later periods [S4]S4 · Hornung, 'The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Dead' / 'Nile Religion' (academic)modern (translation & scholarship)academic. His name means 'the hidden one' — he is the invisible, the unseen, the source that is behind all things [S4]S4 · Hornung, 'The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Dead' / 'Nile Religion' (academic)modern (translation & scholarship)academic. Amun was fused with Ra to become 'Amun-Ra', the supreme creator and king of the gods [S4]S4 · Hornung, 'The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Dead' / 'Nile Religion' (academic)modern (translation & scholarship)academic. The great temple of Amun at Karnak was the largest temple complex in Egypt [S4]S4 · Hornung, 'The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Dead' / 'Nile Religion' (academic)modern (translation & scholarship)academic. Amun's 'hiddenness' made him a good candidate for fusion with other gods (Amun-Ra, Amun-Montu, etc.) [S4]S4 · Hornung, 'The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Dead' / 'Nile Religion' (academic)modern (translation & scholarship)academic.
Worth knowing
The 'Hidden One', supreme god of the later state religion [S4]S4 · Hornung, 'The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Dead' / 'Nile Religion' (academic)modern (translation & scholarship)academic.
Fused with Ra to become Amun-Ra [S4]S4 · Hornung, 'The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Dead' / 'Nile Religion' (academic)modern (translation & scholarship)academic.
His great temple was at Karnak [S4]S4 · Hornung, 'The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Dead' / 'Nile Religion' (academic)modern (translation & scholarship)academic.
Uncertainties & variants
Amun's 'hiddenness' is a theological concept, not a mythic attribute; the sources do not give him a detailed mythic biography [S4]S4 · Hornung, 'The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Dead' / 'Nile Religion' (academic)modern (translation & scholarship)academic.
Relationships (1)
Connections
Alliances & rule
ASSOCIATED_WITH→ Ra — Amun was fused with Ra to become Amun-Ra (the supreme god).[S4]
Local graph
Their corner of the divine world
Viewhierarchical — generations top → bottom, partners side by side
Overlays
FocusAmunEgyptian
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parentage
marriage ♥
far = primordials · medium = all · close = detail — scroll/pan, click a deity to focus
In the Memphite tradition (preserved in the 'Memphite Theology'), Ptah is the self-created first god. He created the world 'in his heart and with his mouth' — by thought (the heart) and by speech (the mouth), naming things into existence [S4]S4 · Hornung, 'The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Dead' / 'Nile Religion' (academic)modern (translation & scholarship)academic. This is a distinct creation account from the Heliopolitan and Hermopolitan traditions [S4]S4 · Hornung, 'The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Dead' / 'Nile Religion' (academic)modern (translation & scholarship)academic.
