The god Amun appeared in five forms: one of which was a human being.
He sat on the throne, holding the scepter in one hand and the Charm of Life in the other.
In this form, he belongs to one of the nine gods of Amun–Ra, the remaining eight gods are Amun, Nu, Nut, Hehuy, Herheit, Kaiku, Kektor, and Hathor.
The second is the frog head, and the goddess Amont is the snake head man.
The third is the head of the snake, and Amont is the head of the cat.
The fourth is an ape.
The fifth is a prone statue of Leo.
Anthropomorphism of Amont
The early worship of the god Amun is unknown, but evidence suggests that this worship was not widespread, and in fact the only important center was the city of Thebes.
During the Twelfth Dynasty, the northern part of Thebes was called Apt, and later, there was a shrine and shrine of the god Amun. The Copts added the word to the feminine article t and named the city of Temp, from which Thebes's name was derived.
Apt is in charge of a goddess, also named Apt, she may be the personification of the region, or it may be just a local god, by chance or deliberately, the name of the region is given to her.
This goddess is most likely the spirit or incarnation of the place.
In the reliefs showing her, she takes the form of a woman holding a scepter and a charm of life, wearing a disc and horn-like ornaments.
This symbol is placed on top of the hieroglyphs, which are pronounced "Apt", representing the name of the goddess.
Discs and horn-like ornaments indicate that the patron goddess of Thebes was actually an image of the goddess Hator.
The more people of faith there were, the more priests appeared
Until the Twelfth Dynasty, the god Amun was only an important regional deity, but as the princes of Thebes won the battle to inherit the Egyptian throne and succeeded in making Thebes the new capital of the kingdom, the god Amun became the main god of Upper Egypt.
It is probably during that period that the god Amun was given a high status and subsequently revered as the "King of the Gods".
At that time, the temple of the god Amun in Karnak was not large, and there was a shrine inside, surrounded by several small side halls, and a pillar on each side of the vestibule.
This size did not change until the rise of the eighteenth dynasty.
It is difficult to determine whether the temple of the god Amun in Thebes was newly built by the kings during the Twelfth Dynasty, or whether it existed in the past. It is likely that there was a temple of the god Amun in Apt in the early days, and later it was only rebuilt.
As the prince of Thebes became king of Egypt, the priests immediately claimed that the god Amun was not just another form of the great god of creation, the sun god.
At that time, the sun god was worshipped for hundreds of years in the names of the gods Ra, Taimu, Kepela, and Heru-Huti in northern Egypt, but the priests claimed that the god Amun possessed the abilities of the above gods and was even greater. Since Thebes replaced the original capital city of Memphis, the divinity of all the great gods of Memphis was naturally attributed to the god Amun.
In this way, the priests of the god Amun succeeded in making the gods they worshipped religiously and politically the lords of the kingdom.
Confirmation of the Twenty-fourth Dynasty
Around 725 BC, there were five kings on the land of Egypt, who ruled over different regions.
In the Nile Delta, the Libyan prince of Seyes, Tefnacht (reigned 727-720 BC), established the Twenty-fourth Dynasty and joined forces with the monarchs of the small northern states against the rulers of the south.
In the 10th century BC, in southern Egypt, a Nubian kingdom was founded in Napata near the fourth waterfall of the Nile, but because the country had been occupied by Egyptians for centuries, the people there accepted Egyptian ideas, cultures, and gods. At this time, the kings of Nubia and Kush were becoming more and more powerful, and even began to affect the north as far as the Region of Thebes.
Tefnacht's enemy was an army of Theaurida King Piye.
The Confederate army achieved small victories in several battles, but they failed to make a breakthrough in the battle against Tefnacht and his allies.
King Pierre himself was in Thebes, where he immediately arranged for the then-serving wife of the god Amun, the daughter of Osorcon III, Topeñopite I, to adopt his sister Amon Nedis I, thereby appointing her as "wife of the god Amun".
King Pie took part in the grand Feast of Petr and then led the Nubian army northward, hoping to end up in a showdown.
Adopted niece
Pierre was the founder of the Kush dynasty, and he was initially stationed in Hermopolis and Herakles in Opolis.
After the princes of these two cities surrendered to him, he continued to the north, conquering Medum and Ittawi.
Pierre succeeded him by his younger brother Sabaka (reigned 716–702 BC).
He moved the seat of government to the north, thus becoming the first king of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Kush in Egypt.
In his second year of his reign, Sabaka had to fend off the attack of Beckenrenev, the last member of the Twenty-Fourth Dynasty, the son of Tefneracht, who was now beginning to expand his sphere of influence southward.
Beckenrenev was later captured, and according to Manneto, he was burned alive after being captured.
In addition, Sabaka had Amennidis I adopt his niece, Pie's daughter, Sheppe Nupiter II, and in 710 BC made her the wife of the god Amun, in this way, Sabaka consolidated his rule in Thebes.
Considering himself obligated to follow the traditions of the Egyptian kings, Sabaka began building a large number of buildings in the country's religious centers, primarily in honor of the god Amun.
Resources:
Amun and Amun-Ra, kings of the gods, and the three gods of Thebes; Egyptian gods; 2018.07; CITIC Publishing Group
