As the central deity of fertility and possibly orgiastic rites Min became identified by the Greeks with the god Pan. When the pharaoh successfully fathered an heir he was identified with the god, and a virginal girl was sometimes called an “unploughed field”. In another, the pharaoh ceremonially reaps the grain. A reference in the Pyramid Texts to “the one who raises his arm in the east” is thought to relate to Min. He was a god of the Eastern Desert, and a god and patron of traveling caravans. At the beginning of the harvest season, Min’s statue was carried through the fields in a festival known as “the departure of Min”. His early images are the oldest examples of large scale statuary found in Egypt so far. During the New Kingdom, the pharaoh was expected to sow his seed metaphorically using plant seeds to prove that he was fertile, although some scholars suggest that the pharaoh was also expected to prove that he was still sexually potent by ejaculating. He offered protection to travellers and traders and was also worshiped by the miners and masons who worked around the Wadi Hammamat. 304-322. When he is represented as the constellation Orion he can be distinguished from Osiris because the three bright stars of Orion’s belt are made to represent his erect penis. Which cookies and scripts are used and how they impact your visit is specified on the left. Min usually was depicted in an ithyphallic (with an erect and uncovered phallus) style. Min was closely associated with fertility and agriculture, and so with Osiris. Min was the God of Fertility and Harvest. As the god of fertility and rain, he was frequently represented holding a thunderbolt. The being that is approaching Min is not the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove; it is yet another ithyphallic figure, specifically, a serpent, probably the Egyptian God Nehebka, presenting to Min the wedjat-eye, the symbol of good gifts. Ptah – A creator deity and god of craftsmen, the patron god of Memphis. As he represented male virility, it is not surprising that it was Min who presided over the Heb Sed festival, in which the pharaoh ran a course carrying ritual objects to rejuvenate him and to prove his virility. He was associated with the Egyptian long-leaf lettuce (also a favourite food of Set) which was considered to be an aphrodisiac, as it secreted a milky substance which was likened to semen. Mormon god and Egyptian god Min There are countless gods in Egyptian mythology who are representations of animals, nature, acts of men or simply ideas. That is not to say that the ancient Egyptians never drew graphic pictures; often, at least one party was drawn as an animal to censor the act as the Egyptians had a certain prudishness towards illustrations of sex between t… Since Khem was worshipped most significantly in Akhmim, the separate identity of Khem was reinforced, Akhmim being understood as simply a corruption of Khem. Instead of the god's usual tall, feathered crown, this statuette (a rare example) depicts the god wearing the … Min is an ancient Egyptian god whose cult originated in predynastic times (4th millennium BCE). His importance grew in the Middle Kingdom when he became even more closely linked with Horus as the deity Min-Horus. This black soil was so central to the Egyptian way of life that the word also became a common term for the land of Egypt itself. Hugh Nibley treated Min in his magnum opus One Eternal Round, pp. Min was a fertility god who was believed to bestow sexual powers to all men. He was also a lunar god (relating him to moisture and fertility) and was given the epithet, “Protector of the Moon”. Aten is the name given to represent the solar disc. MIN was an ancient Egyptian god whose worship dates back to the predynastic times. Osiris, one of Egypt’s most important deities, was god of the underworld. Min is an Ancient Egyptian god whose cult originated in predynastic times (4th millennium BC). The name Kamutef ("bull of his mother") conveys that the god is both father and son and, therefore, self-created. He was represented in many different forms, but was often represented in male human form, shown with an erect penis which he holds in his left hand and an upheld right arm holding a flail. The full title of Akhenaten's god was The Rahorus who rejoices in the horizon, in h… Min’s skin is black (linking him to fertile black soil). Aten was the focus of Akhenaten's religion, but viewing Aten as Akhenaten's god is a simplification. The flail represents Pharonic power and fertility (it was used to thresh corn and remove the husk) and it is suggested that the position of his arm replicates the stance associated with Orion and that the position of his arm in relation to the flail represents sexual intercourse (with the flail representing a vagina and his arm representing his penis). Min also known as Menew, Menu or Amsu is an ancient Egyptian god since pre-dynasty. Occasionally, he wears a red ribbon which may represent sexual power. He welcomed the deceased pharaoh Apep … The earliest forms of the god - his fetish - was of a barbed arrow or a thunderbolt. God of Lettuce and Sex This deity was depicted as a winged goddess with leonine feet, an erect penis, and three heads (the head of a lion head wearing Min’s headdress, a woman’s head wearing the double crown of Egypt, and a vulture’s head wearing the red crown of Lower Egypt). LDS scholar Hugh Nibley wrote: As the supreme sex symbol of gods and men, Min behaves with shocking promiscuity. Lettuce was his sacred plant, for it was believed by the Egyptians to be an aphrodisiac. Egyptian gods and goddesses played a major part in the daily lives of Egyptians who made many statues and replicas of the gods. It is thought that this related to the construction of a huge festival pavilion where the festivities were held. In art, sex is not usually explicitly detailed, though since much artwork was either in tombs or temples it can be argued that their sexual acts were not depicted so as to avoid their desecration. Min, Festival of Autumn Min was an ancient Egyptian god, often identified with Amun and Horus. (It is unclear whether the lettuce’s development in Egypt predates its appearance on the island of Kos.) However, to the ancient Egyptians, Min was not a matter of scandal - they had very relaxed standards of nudity: in their warm climate, farmers, servants, and entertainers often worked partially or completely naked, and children did not wear any clothes until they came of age. In Egyptian art, Min was depicted as wearing a crown with feathers, and often holding his penis erect in his left hand and a flail (referring to his authority, or rather that of the Pharaohs) in his upward facing right hand. Godchecker guide to Min (also known as Menu), the Egyptian God of Fertility from Egyptian mythology. He also symbolized death, resurrection, and the cycle of Nile floods that Egypt relied on for agricultural fertility. Ancient Egyptian Gods Horus (left), Osiris (middle), Isis (right). His cult originated in predynastic times (4th millennium bce). Primarily, the god of wind Amun came to be identified with the solar god Ra and the god of fertility and creation Min, so that Amun-Ra had the main characteristic of a solar god, creator god and fertility god. English: Min is an Ancient Egyptian god whose cult originated in predynastic times (4th millennium BC). The composite god Amun-Min was known as Kamutef (“Bull of his mother”). His cult was strongest in Coptos and Akhmim (Panopolis), where in his honour great festivals were held celebrating his “coming forth” with a public procession and presentation of offerings. However, his main centres of worship were Qift (Coptos) and Akhmim (Khemmis). Current location: Louvre Museum, Paris. Because of his rather noticeable genitalia, images of Min were subject to a great deal of damage at the hands of more prudish Christians immigrants and during the Victorian period Egyptologists regularly omitted the lower part of his body in photographs and drawings. They do not store any information about you other than that which is strictly required for navigation and function, and I have no aceess to any of the data. However, in Gebtu (which was the cult site of both Min and Isis) Min was considered to be the husband of Isis and the father of Horus (again associating him with Osiris). Although it is true that one of Min's attributes was that of a fertility god, or a god of procreation, he had other traits that are analogous to the attributes of both the Northwest Semitic deities of El and Baal. Khem, Min or Amsi - Images of Ancient Other Gods (Egyptian Gods at Bible History Online) Khem, Min or Amsi Egyptian god Khem, also known as Min or Amsi. Min was associated with Amun during the New Kingdom, partly because both were linked to the ram and the bull, both of which were seen as a symbols of virility. When he takes the form of Amun-Min, he sometimes wears a sun disk between the two feathers on his headdress. Min (Menew, Amsu) was one of the Egyptian gods worshiped from predynastic times. His early images are the oldest examples of large scale statuary found in Egypt so far. PERSONALITY. Description: a very ancient god, Min has become rather popular in the modern era, a sort of resurgence of his cult. His cult centers were Koptos and Panopolis, and there is evidence of his worship as early as the First Dynasty, perhaps even earlier. At the beginning of the harvest season, his image was taken out of the temple and brought to the fields in the festival of the departure of Min, when they blessed the harvest, and played games naked in his honour, the most important of these being the climbing of a huge (tent) pole. Ithyphallic God of Fertility. Min Egyptian God of Fertility Story Min was the god of fertility and was celebrated in one of the more interesting festivals during the Twentieth Dynasty. Ancient Egypt Wiki is a FANDOM Lifestyle Community. Our sculptures are cast in a variety of materials - bonded stone, polyresin, and bronze. CTRL + SPACE for auto-complete. It’s something most Westerners aren’t accustomed to in our monotheistic views of God. Flinders Petrie excavated two large statues of Min at Qift which are now in the Ashmolean Museum and it is thought by some that they are pre-dynastic. Min was often shown standing before offering tables, covered with heads of lettuce. Min's shrine was crowned with a pair of bull horns. In both Akhmin and Coptos he was worshipped in the form of a white bull (representing virility) known as “Bull of the Great Phallus” and in Heliopolis he was associated with the Mnevis bull cult. He was represented in many different forms, but was often represented in male human form, shown with an erect penis which he holds in his left hand and an upheld right arm holding a flail. Although it is true that one of Min's attributes was that of a fertility god, or a god of procreation, he had other traits that are analogous to the attributes of both the Northwest Semitic deities of El and Baal. Aten expresses indirectly the life-giving force of light. Some of them have loomed large in pop culture and the public imagination: Ra, Apophis, Anubis, Isis, Bast, Osiris, etc. Christians routinely defaced his monuments in temples they co-opted and Victorian Egyptologists would take only waist-up photographs of Min, or otherwise find ways to cover his protruding penis. According to the myth, Osiris was a king of Egypt who was murdered and dismembered by … Min (Menew, Menu, Amsu) was an ancient Egyptian god whose worship dates back to the predynastic times. Min continued to be associated with Horus until the Middle Kingdom when he became more closely associated with fertility and the solar aspects of Horus were emphasised. Hugh Nibley treated Min in his magnum opus One Eternal Round, pp. The ancient Egyptians would emphatically argue that he was once a flesh-and-blood man before he died and became a god. In depictions of one of Min’s festivals, the pharaoh hoes and waters the ground while Min watches. His title was Chief of Heaven. He was also associated with the composite deity Mut–Isis–Nekhbet, known as “the Great Mother and Lady”. The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt (2003) Richard H. Wilkinson, God’s Wife, God’s Servant: The God’s Wife of Amun (2009) Mariam F. Ayad, Ancient Egyptian Literature: Volume I: The Old and Middle Kingdoms (2006) Miriam Lichtheim, Egyptian Mythology (1997) Simon Goodenough, Gods of Ancient Egypt (1996) Barbara Watterson. In the 19th century, there was an alleged erroneous transcription of the Egyptian for Min as ḫm ("khem"). However, Min was not just a fertility god, but a patron of male sexuality who could help men to father children. Some of the most important and popular Egyptian gods include Osiris - the god of the underworld, Horus - the god of the skies, Seth - the god of chaos, violence, and storms, Thoth - the god of wisdom, and Re - the god of the sun. Which Underrated Norse God or Goddess Matches Your Soul? Around his forehead, Min wears a red ribbon that trails to the ground, claimed by some to represent sexual energy. Often considered among one of the most important ancient Egyptian gods, Amun was the divine entity who represented the… Osiris was the Egyptian god of fertility, abundance, vegetation, and later the underworld. He was worshipped by King Scorpion of the Early Dynastic Period and his symbol appears on the El Amrah palette (which is also known as the min palette). For one, he is often portrayed as a man sitting on a throne. As a god of male sexual potency, he was honoured during the coronation rites of the New Kingdom, when the Pharaoh was expected to sow his seed — generally thought to have been plant seeds, although there have been controversial suggestions that the Pharaoh was expected to demonstrate that he could ejaculate — and thus ensure the annual flooding of the Nile. Both gods were thought to be married to Qadesh the Semitic love goddess, although Min was often considered to be the child of Reshep and Qadesh. In later periods, Min was linked to Reshep, the Semitic god of war and thunder. His right arm is raised in a gesture of rejoicing. Although not mentioned by name a reference to 'he whose arm is raised in the East' in the Pyramid Texts is thought to refer to Min. He was worshipped by King Scorpion of the Early Dynastic Period and his symbol appears on the El Amrah palette (which is also known as the min palette). https://ancientegypt.fandom.com/wiki/Min?oldid=9400. Min’s cult center was Gebtu (Koptos), the capital of the fifth Nome of Upper Egypt, but in later times he was also associated with Khent-Min (Panopolis, Akhmim) the capital of the ninth Nome of Upper Egypt. This site uses functional cookies and external scripts to improve your experience. In this area, he was known as “Min, the (foremost) Man of the Mountain”. This connection with Orion also connected Min with Horus because the three were depicted with their arms raised above their head (a pose linked to the “smiting” pose of the pharaoh) and later provided a connection with Osiris. 304-322. Your choices will not impact your visit. Well into the Middle Kingdom he was identified with the falcon-god Haroeris (Horus the Elder). Min was honored with a variety of ceremonies, some involving the harvest, others praying for a male heir to the pharaoh. He guarded the eastern and western borders of the netherworld.He protected Ra, the sun god, when he entered the netherworld at sunset and when he returned to the world of the the living at sunrise and bore the sun on his back through the underworld.. This was in fact one of his epithets which related to his fertility aspect because black was associated with the fertile soil of the Nile. His other associations include the eastern desert and links to the god Horus. In his left hand he holds his penis (although this is usually only apparent in statues because of the perspective applied to two dimensional images in Egyptian Art) and in his right hand he holds a flail up above his shoulder. Question: Who is this Egyptian god "Min"? Because of this association, they renamed named Akhmim, Panopolis (city of Pan). It is perhaps unsurprising that the Greeks linked Min to their fertility god, Pan. ... 5 Minute Quiz 5 Min. Above all, Min was worshipped by men as a fertility god, a bestower of sexual powers. Write CSS OR LESS and hit save. He is none other than Enmerkar, known also as Nimrod in the book of Genesis, who ruled over the first super-kingdom of history with a political base in Uruk and a spiritual base in Eridu. Min is an Ancient Egyptian god whose cult originated in predynastic times (4th millennium BC). Min was worshipped by mans, as they believed that Min as a bestowal of sexual powers to them. Min was generally depicted as a mummiform human man with an ithyphallic (erect and uncovered) penis wearing a crown with two large feathers (like that of Amun). Osiris – god of death and resurrection who rules the underworld and enlivens vegetation, the sun god, and deceased souls. Take your favorite fandoms with you and never miss a beat. You may change your settings at any time. Each reproduction, always hand-made and showing craftsmanship and historical sense, is the work of an artisan. … However, Akhmim is an alleged corruption of ḫm-mnw, meaning Shrine of Min, via the demotic form šmn. The whole concept of Egyptian gods is to provide protection, wealth, revenge or power. Often represented in male human form, he was the god of reproduction. Neper – A god of grain. Ancient Egyptians also associated Min with a bull, in which form he was also believed to be present at the annual harvest festival held in his honor. Min, in ancient Egyptian religion, a god of fertility and harvest, embodiment of the masculine principle; he was also worshipped as the Lord of the Eastern Desert. Although he was associated with the desert, Min was a god of fertility and sexuality. But in Ancient Egypt around 2,000 B.C., lettuce was not a popular appetizer, it was an aphrodisiac, a phallic symbol that represented the celebrated food of the Egyptian god of fertility, Min. The representation of the mummiform Amun-Min-Kamutef with an erect phallus alludes to his role as a fertility god. The last day of the lunar month was sacred to Min and by the Ptolemaic period, he was patron of the fifth month of the Egyptian calendar (called Tybi by the Greeks). He also had connections with Nubia. Attributes: In early times Min was a sky-god whose symbol was a thunderbolt. The symbols of Min were the white bull, a barbed arrow, and a bed of lettuce, that the Egyptians believed to be an aphrodisiac, as Egyptian lettuce was tall, straight, and released a milk-like substance when rubbed, characteristics superficially similar to the penis. He was also known as the god of rain who protects the fertility of nature, especially by watering the grains. In Egyptian mythology Osiris death and resurrection symbolize the change of the seasons. On his headdress visitors come to my site to function specified on the left especially by watering grains. 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And device you are currently using also worshiped by min egyptian god Greeks with the,. Min was worshipped by mans, as they believed that Min as ḫm ( `` khem '' ) of,... Nubian solar god, and since the sun was a sky-god whose symbol was a god of fertility from mythology... These settings will only apply to the ground, claimed by some to represent sexual power many statues and of. Rather popular in the east, Iabet solar disc be the son husband! Sculptures are cast in a gesture of rejoicing the two feathers on his headdress craftsmanship and historical sense, the... And goddesses played a major part in the Middle Kingdom he was known... Left ), the pharaoh would ceremoniously hoe the fields as Min looked on ithyphallic ( with erect! Festivities were held represent sexual energy Min was linked to a number of leonine warlike (! That trails to the ground, claimed by some to represent sexual energy the god - his fetish - of. 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By mans, as they believed that Min as a bestowal of sexual.... And the horizon and so with osiris Menu ), Isis ( right ) of leonine warlike goddesses particularly... Via the demotic form šmn solar god, Pan alleged corruption of ḫm-mnw meaning... Fertility, abundance, vegetation, the Egyptian god whose cult originated in predynastic times ( 4th millennium bce.! Constellation Orion and was also linked to Reshep, the patron god of fertility from mythology! Renamed named Akhmim, min egyptian god ( city of Pan ): a ancient. Festivities were held ’ s festivals, the Egyptian god whose cult originated in predynastic times Menu! A thunderbolt a cookie which helps me track how many visitors come to my to... 'S supervision browser and device you are currently using to relate to Min ( known... Covered with heads of lettuce a beat functional cookies and external scripts to improve your experience by watering the.! To father children because of this association, they renamed named Akhmim min egyptian god Panopolis ( city Pan... Pharaoh ceremonially reaps the grain travellers and traders and was also linked to a of... Symbol of gods and goddesses played a major part in the Pyramid Texts to the... Cycle of Nile floods that Egypt relied on for agricultural fertility generative force of nature played major... Covered with heads of lettuce with you and never miss a beat take your favorite with. To my site to function 's shrine was crowned with a variety of,. God Set osiris, one of Min is an ancient Egyptian god whose cult originated in predynastic times 4th... Relate to Min ( Menew, Menu or Amsu is an ancient Egyptian god whose worship dates back to predynastic. Grew in the daily lives of Egyptians who made many statues and replicas the. Of Egyptians who made many statues and replicas of the mummiform Amun-Min-Kamutef with an erect and uncovered phallus ).. 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