On the names of Amun and the God's vist to Djamu
The purpose of these notes presented here, is to establish the reasons fot the vist of the living Amun to present offerings to his most ancient ancestor, Amun-Kamatef. We will also examine the names of Amun and discover the cosmic significance behind them.
Amun-Kamatef resided with the deceased eight creator (primeval) gods in the mound of Djamu (Medinet Habu). Djamu was a most holy location and considered to be the resting place of the original eight creator Gods.
In Ancient times it was as I3.T-T3m.T, the holy place of Djamu (Medinet Habu)
Amun in his most ancient and creative sense was known as " he who has completed his time". This statement seems to me to be a reference to the completion of the creative act; thus ushering in the period known as the First Time, Zep Tepi.
In a sense then,the living Amun can be percieved as going to Djamu to pay homage
to his own deceased aspect which is manifested in all the eight creator gods resting in this cenotaph.
New Kingdom texts tell us that the living Amun, that is Amun of RSYT-IPT (Luxor Temple), left the East bank Temple to vist the ancestors in Djamu every ten days.
At the onset of every such trip, the God would make a solemn appearance in the first court of Southern Opet where rites were performed before the God crossed the Nile to Djamu.
These rites are carried out for Amun and in his presence during " his solemn procession to Kom-Djamu, when he goes there to make a halt at the mound of Osiris.....According to the fact he is Lord of the Month for whom it is celebrated the beginning [of the decade], (when) he comes out of Opet of the South".
The ultimate purpose of Amun's vist to the cenotaph of his assembled ancestors-
Amun-Kamatef and the Gods of the Ogdoad-was the mystical meeting of the creator
with his creation and the commemeration of the coming into being of the world according to Theban Theology.
At the same time , the reigning God and King found new creative powers
Apparently, they were regenerated through a food offering copied from the funerary cult, that the God made to his dead Ancestors.
Thus the universe was created anew, this is a dominant theme throughout religion in Egypt
The German Scholar, Sethe summed up the relationship between Amun and his ancestors with the Following statement;
" In the Greek time, Thebes had influence as the birthplace of the Eight Gods, and at Medinet Habu on the West bank of this town was sought, at that time, their final resting place.
There , they shall linger as the representatives of a bygone world (period)as the deceased in their underworld from which they still practice their effectivness on the upperworld, whilst permit the river Nile to flow and the sun to Rise out of the underworld.
How (?) the eight creator Gods are in favour also with them in Medinet Habu under the form of the snake KM-3T.F ( which completed the flash of the eyes)
worshipped forefather Amun-Re as deceased.
He receives with them together, a regular sacrifice to the dead...partly out of the hand of another seperation of his own person, of the ithyphallic Amun of Luxor (Amunopet), who as the great living God opposite him, represent current world order".
Sethe: Documents of the 18th Dynasty.
NB, The German wasn't quite clear, but in the main, it makes sense.
On the Names and Nature of Amun
Jean Claude Goyon commenting on new aspects of the theology of Amun makes the following observations on the names and elements of Amun's Nature, that the God has ten ba's, ten ka's and ten names (rn)
The ten names of Amun can be found in a text located in the edifice of Tarharqa, which is itself located alonside the sacred lake within IPet-Sut.
These ten names are as follows:
Re every day,
Full moon,
Amun who resides in everything,
Nun , the ancient one,
He who wakes up healthy,
Royal living Ka,
Ram of Rams,
Horakhty,
Ba of those who are in the water,
Nehebkau.
Amun is at the same time, the origin and symbol of the cosmos, concentrating in himself all the creative features of the great Gods of Egypt.
He is Re, and he is the Moon, he is the Air, he is the water of the world (Nun)and the rebirth of Nature (RS_WD3) in its cosmic mode.
Goyon says it is probable that the number of Ka's of Amun were also ten in number since ten is a key number in Theban theology.
Normally we find groups of Eight Gods in Egypt, this was also the case at Thebes but with the addition of Amun and Amunet, we can expand the eight to ten.
If this is so, then the number of all the elements found in Amun in indeed Thirty.
The number Thirty has great importance at Thebes because Thirty is the number of the members of the two divine collges of Ipet-Sut and the number of the Gods of origins, the M'B3YT of the beginning.
All except one that represents a woman, have sexless bodies with drooping breasts and potruding bellies which resemble Hapy, the innundation God.
Each of the ten ba's wears a strange wig which looks somewhat like the fetish of
Hathor.
The ten Ba's are as follows:
1) B3-M-Wnmyt.F: Depicted as having the head of a lion with Sun Disk
2)B3-I3BT.F: Human headed with Moon Crescent and disk
3)B3-N-SW: Human Head with Hieroglyphic sign
4)B3-N-WSIR: Human head surmounted with what appaer to be three pots
5)B3-N-TFNWT: Woman with lioness head Surmounted by Grdner sign, R7, Sntr.
6)B3[-NH]- K3-NSWT-NH: human headed with KA sign < G28 which has NSW, G27 between the arms
7)B3-RW-TSY: Lions head and the hooves of a bull.
8)B3[.......]: Human head
9)B3-NHPSD.F[PR (?)]-M-NT: Crocodile head with the Red Crown
10)B3-NH[.......]- M(?)-NTR.W: Has head of two serpents framing a type of double crown.
Amun, then could be seen as the God who resides in all things, he was imagined as the Ba of all Phenomena, The principle and origin of the Universe.
The Ba can best be described as a psychic force and Amun is the force that was the creative energy which accutated creation in the form of Kamatef, the primeval serpent whose Ba resides in Djamu.
Amun is truly the primeval one of the two lands " Imn-P3wty-T3-Wy, Amun Re, Nb-Nswt-T3-Wy, the Supreme Cosmic God.
Ian Alex Blease, 009th August, 2001
