The Rise of Amen

Author: Traditional

Time Period: 5000 BCE–2500 BCE

Country or Culture: Egypt

Genre: Myth

PLOT SUMMARY

When Egyptian civilization rises in the fourth millennium BCE, a complicated religious system is already well formed. A large and diverse pantheon of deities represents benevolent and destructive aspects of nature, with major gods taking on familiar physical forms, including those of snakes, falcons, crocodiles, lions, and hippopotamuses. Priesthoods supporting particular deities spring up in population centers to guide worshippers through ceremonies in propitiating the gods.

The head of the pantheon is the sun, a predominating force in Egypt, envisioned at different times and locations as a scarab beetle (Khepri), an elderly man (Atum), or a soaring falcon (Horus). Most often, the sun is known as Ra (or Re). This god’s center of worship is in the northern community of Iunu, which Greek colonists later named Heliopolis. Other cities also support favorite deities, such as Neith in Saïs, Thoth in Hermopolis, Osiris in Busiris, Ptah in Memphis, and Sobek in Crocodilopolis.

In Waset, later known as Thebes, more than four hundred miles from the seat of power, the patron god is Amen (Amun or Amon). A lesser deity in predynastic times (before roughly 3000 BCE), Amen controls the wind. His name means “the hidden one” or “he who is concealed,” possibly because the wind can be felt but not seen. At Thebes, Amen leads a triad that also includes his consort, Amaunet, and his son, moon god Khonsu, and heads an eight-member group of gods called the Ogdoad.

Amen languishes primarily as a local god while the national government gravitates south to Memphis, Herakleopolis, Hermopolis, and Abydos. In the Eleventh and Twelfth Dynasties (ca. 2055–1773 BCE), during the period known as the Middle Kingdom, the city of Thebes rises to political prominence, as does its patron deity. Dubbed Amen-Ra to incorporate solar power, he is now elevated to the status of a creator god. His position is improved when several pharaohs are named in his honor, beginning with Amenemhat I.

Thebes and Amen-Ra suffer setbacks at the end of the Middle Kingdom. The Hyksos, a people from western Asia, conquer much of Egypt in the mid-seventeenth century BCE and rule for a century from their northern capital of Avaris. In about 1550 BCE, Ahmose I (also known as Iahmose) ushers in the New Kingdom and the Eighteenth Dynasty by driving out the Hyksos and establishing Thebes as his capital. His success initiates a nearly five-hundred-year-long period of Theban dominance marked by military expansion, conquest, and wealth.

A multifaceted national deity and king of the gods, Amen-Ra becomes supreme during this period. Though usually portrayed as a man, he incorporates the attributes of other divine figures and thus is at times depicted with the head of an ape, lion, frog, snake, ram, bull, or sphinx. His rise to power spurs the pharaohs, as semidivine representatives of the deity, to build temples throughout Egypt, particularly at Luxor and Karnak. The priesthood that develops during this time will go on to play a pivotal role in the development of Egyptian religion, culture, and politics.

SIGNIFICANCE

Although Thebes prospered for centuries following the expulsion of the Hyksos and spread the worship of Amen-Ra through settlement and conquest, the patron god’s period of dominance did not go uninterrupted. Two centuries after the restoration of Thebes as the controlling power and Amen-Ra as dominant god in Egypt, Amenhotep (or Amenophis) IV took the throne. Possibly dissatisfied with the prevailing authority of the priesthood, Amenhotep declared a new national religion centered on a single supreme and benevolent sun god, Aten (Aton), which featured personal communication between worshippers and the deity, without priests as intermediaries. To demonstrate his complete conversion to the faith, Amenhotep changed his name to Akhenaten in honor of the god. He also commanded that all signs of Amen-Ra—even the name of his own father, Amenhotep III—be chiseled off temples. Akhenaten further did away with the existing priesthood and the entire community that had grown up around the adoration of Amen-Ra. These actions were unpopular in Thebes, and Akhenaten eventually moved two hundred miles north with his family and followers, establishing his new capital at Amarna.

After Akhenaten’s death, which left the kingdom in turmoil for a short period, his young son Tutankhaten succeeded him as pharaoh. He relocated to Thebes, abandoning Amarna to the desert, and hastily changed his name to Tutankhamen to signify the return of Amen as chief god. The priesthood was fully restored, and visible signs of Aten and Akhenaten were obliterated. Religion in Egypt resumed its pre-Akhenaten mode during its years of greatest glory in the Nineteenth Dynasty (ca. 1295–1186 BCE), and Karnak was expanded to become one of the largest religious complexes ever constructed. The worship of Amen-Ra spread throughout Egypt and into other lands, and the god would remain one of the most significant mythological figures in the region for many centuries.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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