short curved horns of the Ovis Platyra ram (the
Amen ram) and may thus have two sets of horns
atop his head. He was also called “high of
plumes” and may be seen wearing two tall feath-
ers, the plumed atef crown, or the white crown of
Upper Egypt on his head.
Khnum was considered the great potter who
was responsible for creating children and their
Ka. His most common form was his depiction
in front of the potter’s wheel when he was often
depicted molding a child as a concrete represen-
tation of his creative work. This scene was
usually depicted in themamisior birth houses
of temples where Khnum was represented form-
ing the child king. There were similar represen-
tations in the fully zoomorphic form of a
walking ram (e.g., in many amulets and pec-
toral decorations), but without inscriptional
evidence, these representations are often
extremely difficult to distinguish from those of
other ram deities such as Heryshef. The sun god
was thus depicted as a ram-headed being in his
netherworld representations, and Khnum is
sometimes called Khnum Ra. In a similar man-
ner, he was also held to be the ba of Ra, as well
as the ba of the gods Geb and Ausar.
Khnum was mentioned in several ancient
Egyptian Pyramid Texts. The ancient Egyptians
also believed that he was the guardian of the
source of the Nile and thus the helper of Hapi.
Khnum’s role changed from river god to the one
who made sure that the right amount of silt was
released into the water during the inundation.
This gave him one of his titles: “Lord of the
Cataract.” In a site in Upper Egypt “Esna”
between Waset “modern Luxor” and Aswan, it
was believed that he modeled the first egg from
which the first sun was created. As a creator god,
he held the titles of “Father of the Fathers of the
Gods and Goddesses,” “Lord of Created Things
From Himself,” “Maker of Heaven and Earth,”
and “the Duat and Water and the Mountains.”
In addition to his role as a god of creation
and fertility, Khnum was a god of the sun, a
protector of the Dead, and a protector of Ra on
the solar barque. He was a popular god from
the early times through to the Greco-Roman
period. Hatshepsut was one of the rulers of
Egypt who encouraged the belief that Khnum
created her and her ka through the story of the
divine birth depicted on the walls of the second
terrace of her mortuary temple at Deir Al
Bahari (Western Waset).
Khnum’s main cult center was on the island
Elephantine at Aswan, where he had been wor-
shiped since the Early Dynastic period. The island
was the main city of the first nomes of Upper
Egypt, and its ancient name was Abu (meaning
“City of Elephants”). As easily seen from the
hieroglyphic spelling, it was the gathering point of
products from inner Africa, and the most impor-
tant trade commodity was ivory, the tusk of ele-
phants. From geological aspects, it is located at
the most northern of six rapid streams area within
the Nile at the southern border; often called the
first cataract, it is really the last, where the first
sign of annual water increase (the arrival of the
new waters, beginning of the new year) can be
observed.
In the New Kingdom, Khnum was worshiped
there as head of a triad composed of his consort
Satet (a fertility goddess of the Nile and purifier of
the dead) and daughter Anuket (a hunter goddess
of the first cataract near Aswan). There is a tem-
ple dating back to the Greco Roman period that
was dedicated to him at Esna, where he was given
two consorts, Menhit (a lion-headed war goddess,
“She Who Slaughters”) and Nebtu (a local god-
dess of the oasis). Khnum was also associated
with the war-like creator goddess Neith at Esna.
In Antinoe (Middle Egypt), he was considered as
the husband of Heqet, the frog goddess who gave
the child his first breath before being placed in the
mother’s womb.Shaza Gamal IsmailSeealsoRaFurtherReadings
Posener, G. (1962).A Dictionary of Egyptian
Civilisation. London: Methuen.
Watterson, B. (1999).The Gods of Ancient Egypt(New
ed.). London: Sutton.
Wilkinson, R. (2003).The Complete Gods and
Goddesses of Ancient Egypt. Cairo, Egypt: American
University Press.362 Khnum