Osiris
Osiris is the god of the afterlife, the underworld, rebirth in ancient Egyptian religion. He was classically depicted as a green-skinned deity with a pharaoh's beard mummy-wrapped at the legs, wearing a distinctive atef crown, holding a symbolic crook and flail. Osiris was at times considered the eldest son of the god Geb and the sky goddess Nut, as well as being brother and husband of Isis, with Horus being considered his posthumously begotten son, he was associated with the epithet Khenti-Amentiu, meaning "Foremost of the Westerners", a reference to his kingship in the land of the dead. As ruler of the dead, Osiris was sometimes called "king of the living": ancient Egyptians considered the blessed dead "the living ones". Through syncretism with Iah, he is the god of the Moon. Osiris was considered the brother of Isis, Set and Horus the Elder, father of Horus the Younger; the first evidence of the worship of Osiris was found in the middle of the Fifth dynasty of Egypt, although it is that he was worshiped much earlier.
Most information available on the myths of Osiris is derived from allusions contained in the Pyramid Texts at the end of the Fifth Dynasty New Kingdom source documents such as the Shabaka Stone and the Contending of Horus and Seth, much in narrative style from the writings of Greek authors including Plutarch and Diodorus Siculus. Osiris was the judge of the dead and the underworld agency that granted all life, including sprouting vegetation and the fertile flooding of the Nile River, he was described as "He Who is Permanently Benign and Youthful" and the "Lord of Silence". The Kings of Egypt were associated with Osiris in death – as Osiris rose from the dead so would they in union with him, inherit eternal life through a process of imitative magic. Through the hope of new life after death, Osiris began to be associated with the cycles observed in nature, in particular vegetation and the annual flooding of the Nile, through his links with the heliacal rising of Orion and Sirius at the start of the new year.
Osiris was worshipped until the decline of ancient Egyptian religion during the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Osiris is a Latin transliteration of the Ancient Greek Ὄσιρις IPA:, which in turn is the Greek adaptation of the original name in the Egyptian language. In Egyptian hieroglyphs the name appears as wsjr, which some Egyptologists instead choose to transliterate ꜣsjr or jsjrj. Since hieroglyphic writing lacks vowels, Egyptologists have vocalized the name in various ways, such as Asar, Ausir, Usir, or Usire. Several proposals have been made for the meaning of the original name. Most take wsjr as the accepted transliteration, following Adolf Erman: John Gwyn Griffiths, "bearing in mind Erman's emphasis on the fact that the name must begin with an w", proposes a derivation from wsr with an original meaning of "The Mighty One". Moreover, one of the oldest attestations of the god Osiris appears in the mastaba of the deceased Netjer-wser. Kurt Sethe proposes a compound st-jrt, meaning "seat of the eye", in a hypothetical earlier form *wst-jrt.
David Lorton takes up this same compound but explains st-jrt as signifying "product, something made", Osiris representing the product of the ritual mummification process. Wolfhart Westendorf proposes an etymology from wꜣst-jrt "she who bears the eye". Mark J. Smith makes no definitive proposals but asserts that the second element must be a form of jrj; however alternative transliterations have been proposed: Yoshi Muchiki reexamines Erman's evidence that the throne hieroglyph in the word is to be read ws and finds it unconvincing, suggesting instead that the name should be read ꜣsjr on the basis of Aramaic and Old South Arabian transcriptions, readings of the throne sign in other words, comparison with ꜣst. James P. Allen reads the word as jsjrt but revises the reading to jsjrj and derives it from js-jrj, meaning "engendering principle". Osiris is represented in his most developed form of iconography wearing the Atef crown, similar to the White crown of Upper Egypt, but with the addition of two curling ostrich feathers at each side.
He carries the crook and flail. The crook is thought to represent Osiris as a shepherd god; the symbolism of the flail is more uncertain with shepherds whip, fly-whisk, or association with the god Andjety of the ninth nome of Lower Egypt proposed. He was depicted as a pharaoh with a complexion of either green or black in mummiform; the Pyramid Texts describe early conceptions of an afterlife in terms of eternal travelling with the sun god amongst the stars. Amongst these mortuary texts, at the beginning of the 4th dynasty, is found: "An offering the king gives and Anubis". By the end of the 5th dynasty, the formula in all tombs becomes "An offering the king gives and Osiris". Osiris is the mythological father of the god Horus, whose conception is described in the Osiris myth; the myth describes Osiris as having been killed by his brother, Set
Amunet
Amunet is a primordial goddess in ancient Egyptian religion. Her name, jmnt, is a feminine noun that means "The Hidden One", she is a member of the Ogdoad of Hermopolis, who represented aspects of the primeval existence before the creation: Amunet was paired with Amun — whose name means "The Hidden One" too, with a masculine ending — within this divine group, from the earliest known documentation. Such pairing of deities is characteristic of the religious concepts of the ancient Egyptians, being the Ogdoad itself composed by four balanced couples of deities or deified primeval concepts, it seems that Amunet may have been artificially conceived by theologians as a complement to Amun, rather than being an independent deity. The Pyramid Texts mention the beneficent shadow of Amun and Amunet: O Amun and Amunet! You pair of the gods. By at least the 12th dynasty, Amaunet was superseded as Amun's partner by Mut as cults evolved or were merged following Mentuhotep II's reunification of Egypt — but she remained locally important in the region of Thebes, where Amun was worshipped.
There she was seen as a protector of the pharaoh, playing a preeminent role in rituals associed with the coronation of the pharaoh and Sed festivals. In the Festival Hall of Thutmose III, Amaunet is shown with the fertility-god Min while leading a row of deities to visit the Pharaoh in the anniversary celebration. In spite of Amaunet's stable position as a local goddess of Egypt's most important city, her cult had little widespread following outside the Theban region. At Karnak, Amun's cult center, priests were dedicated to Amaunet's service. Amaunet was depicted as a woman wearing the Deshret "Red Crown of Lower Egypt" — as in her colossal statue placed in the Record Hall of Thutmose III at Karnak during the reign of Tutankhamun — and carrying a staff of papyrus; the exact reason for this iconography is uncertain. In some late texts from Karnak she was syncretized with Neith, although she remained a distinct deity as late as the Ptolemaic Kingdom: she is carved on the exterior wall of the Festival Hall of Thutmose III in Karnak suckling pharaoh Philip III of Macedon, who appears after his own enthronement, as a divine child.
Hart, George, A Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, Routledge, 1986, ISBN 0-415-05909-7. Wilkinson, Richard H; the Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, Thames & Hudson, 2003, ISBN 0-500-05120-8
Pyramid
A pyramid is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge to a single point at the top, making the shape a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be quadrilateral, or of any polygon shape; as such, a pyramid has at least three outer triangular surfaces. The square pyramid, with a square base and four triangular outer surfaces, is a common version. A pyramid's design, with the majority of the weight closer to the ground, with the pyramidion on top, means that less material higher up on the pyramid will be pushing down from above; this distribution of weight allowed early civilizations to create stable monumental structures. Civilizations in many parts of the world have built pyramids; the largest pyramid by volume is the Great Pyramid of Cholula, in the Mexican state of Puebla. For thousands of years, the largest structures on Earth were pyramids—first the Red Pyramid in the Dashur Necropolis and the Great Pyramid of Khufu, both in Egypt—the latter is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still remaining.
The Mesopotamians built the earliest pyramidal structures, called ziggurats. In ancient times, these were brightly painted in gold/bronze. Since they were constructed of sun-dried mud-brick, little remains of them. Ziggurats were built by the Sumerians, Elamites and Assyrians for local religions; each ziggurat was part of a temple complex. The precursors of the ziggurat were raised platforms that date from the Ubaid period during the fourth millennium BC; the earliest ziggurats began near the end of the Early Dynastic Period. The latest Mesopotamian ziggurats date from the 6th century BC. Built in receding tiers upon a rectangular, oval, or square platform, the ziggurat was a pyramidal structure with a flat top. Sun-baked bricks made up the core of the ziggurat with facings of fired bricks on the outside; the facings were glazed in different colors and may have had astrological significance. Kings sometimes had their names engraved on these glazed bricks; the number of tiers ranged from two to seven.
It is assumed that they had shrines at the top, but there is no archaeological evidence for this and the only textual evidence is from Herodotus. Access to the shrine would have been by a series of ramps on one side of the ziggurat or by a spiral ramp from base to summit; the most famous pyramids are the Egyptian — huge structures built of brick or stone, some of which are among the world's largest constructions. They are shaped as a reference to the rays of the sun. Most pyramids had a polished reflective white limestone surface, to give them a shining appearance when viewed from a distance; the capstone was made of hard stone – granite or basalt – and could be plated with gold, silver, or electrum and would be reflective. After 2700 BC, the ancient Egyptians began building pyramids, until around 1700 BC; the first pyramid was erected during the Third Dynasty by the Pharaoh Djoser and his architect Imhotep. This step pyramid consisted of six stacked mastabas; the largest Egyptian pyramids are those at the Giza pyramid complex.
The Egyptian sun god Ra, considered the father of all pharaohs, was said to have created himself from a pyramid-shaped mound of earth before creating all other gods. The age of the pyramids reached its zenith at Giza in 2575–2150 BC. Ancient Egyptian pyramids were in most cases placed west of the river Nile because the divine pharaoh's soul was meant to join with the sun during its descent before continuing with the sun in its eternal round; as of 2008, some 135 pyramids have been discovered in Egypt. The Great Pyramid of Giza is one of the largest in the world, it was the tallest building in the world until Lincoln Cathedral was finished in 1311 AD. The base is over 52,600 square metres in area. While pyramids are associated with Egypt, the nation of Sudan has 220 extant pyramids, the most numerous in the world; the Great Pyramid of Giza is one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It is the only one to survive into modern times; the Ancient Egyptians covered the faces of pyramids with polished white limestone, containing great quantities of fossilized seashells.
Many of the facing stones have been removed and used for construction in Cairo. Most pyramids are located near Cairo, with only one royal pyramid being located south of Cairo, at the Abydos temple complex; the pyramid at Abydos, Egypt were commissioned by Ahmose I who founded the 18th Dynasty and the New Kingdom. The building of pyramids began in the Third Dynasty with the reign of King Djoser. Early kings such as Snefru built several pyramids, with subsequent kings adding to the number of pyramids until the end of the Middle Kingdom; the last king to build royal pyramids was Ahmose, with kings hiding their tombs in the hills, such as those in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor's West Bank. In Medinat Habu, or Deir el-Medina, smaller pyramids were built by individuals. Smaller pyramids were built by the Nubians who ruled Egypt in the Late Period, though their pyramids had steeper sides. Nubian pyramids were constructed at three sites in Sudan to serve as tombs for the kings and queens of Napata and Meroë.
The pyramids of Kush known as Nubian Pyramids, have different characteristics than the pyramids of Egypt. The Nubian pyramids were constructed at a steeper angle than Egyptian ones. Pyramids were still being built in Sudan as late as 200 AD. One of the unique structures of Igbo culture was the Nsude Pyramids, at the Nigerian town of Nsude, northern Igboland. Ten pyramidal structures were built of clay/mud; the first base section was 60 ft. in circumference and 3 ft. in he
Ancient Egyptian concept of the soul
The ancient Egyptians believed that a soul was made up of many parts. In addition to these components of the soul, there was the human body. According to ancient Egyptian creation myths, the god Atum created the world out of chaos, utilizing his own magic; because the earth was created with magic, Egyptians believed that the world was imbued with magic and so was every living thing upon it. When humans were created, that magic took the form of the soul, an eternal force which resided in and with every human being; the concept of the soul and the parts which encompass it has varied from the Old Kingdom to the New Kingdom, at times changing from one dynasty to another, from five parts to more. Most ancient Egyptian funerary texts reference numerous parts of the soul: the ẖt "physical body", the sꜥḥ "spiritual body", the rn "name, identity", the bꜣ "personality", the kꜣ "double", the jb "heart", the šwt "shadow", the sḫm "power, form", the ꜣḫ. Rosalie David, an Egyptologist at the University of Manchester, explains the many facets of the soul as follows: The Egyptians believed that the human personality had many facets - a concept, developed early in the Old Kingdom.
In life, the person was a complete entity, but if he had led a virtuous life, he could have access to a multiplicity of forms that could be used in the next world. In some instances, these forms could be employed to help those whom the deceased wished to support or, alternately, to take revenge on his enemies; the ẖt, or physical form, had to exist for the soul to have intelligence or the chance to be judged by the guardians of the underworld. Therefore, it was necessary for the body to be preserved as efficiently and as possible and for the burial chamber to be as personalized as it could be, with paintings and statuary showing scenes and triumphs from the deceased's life. In the Old Kingdom, only the pharaoh was granted mummification and, thus, a chance at an eternal and fulfilling afterlife. However, by the Middle Kingdom, all dead were afforded the opportunity. Herodotus, an ancient Greek scholar, observed that grieving families were given a choice as to the type and or quality of the mummification they preferred: "The best and most expensive kind is said to represent, the next best is somewhat inferior and cheaper, while the third is cheapest of all."Because the state of the body was tied so with the quality of the afterlife, by the time of the Middle Kingdom, not only were the burial chambers painted with depictions of favourite pastimes and great accomplishments of the dead, but there were small figurines of servants and guards included in the tombs, to serve the deceased in the afterlife.
However, an eternal existence in the afterlife was, by no means, assured. Before a person could be judged by the gods, they had to be "awakened" through a series of funerary rites designed to reanimate their mummified remains in the afterlife; the main ceremony, the opening of the mouth ceremony, is best depicted within Pharaoh Sety I's tomb. All along the walls and statuary inside the tomb are reliefs and paintings of priests performing the sacred rituals and, below the painted images, the text of the liturgy for opening of the mouth can be found; this ritual which would have been performed during internment, was meant to reanimate each section of the body: brain, limbs, etc. so that the spiritual body would be able to move in the afterlife. If all the rites and preservation rituals for the ẖt were observed and the deceased was found worthy of passing through into the afterlife, the sꜥḥ forms; this spiritual body was able to interact with the many entities extant in the afterlife. As a part of the larger construct, the ꜣḫ, the sꜥḥ was sometimes seen as an avenging spirit which would return from the underworld to seek revenge on those who had wronged the spirit in life.
A well-known example was found in a tomb from the Middle Kingdom in which a man leaves a letter to his late wife who, it can be supposed, is haunting him: What wicked thing have I done to thee that I should have come to this evil pass? What have I done to thee? But what thou hast done to me is to have laid hands on me although I had nothing wicked to thee. From the time I lived with thee as thy husband down to today, what have I done to thee that I need hide? When thou didst sicken of the illness which thou hadst, I caused a master-physician to be fetched…I spent eight months without eating and drinking like a man. I wept exceedingly together with my household in front of my street-quarter. I left no benefit undone that had to be performed for thee, and now, behold, I have spent three years alone without entering into a house, though it is not right that one like me should have to do it. This have I done for thy sake. But, thou dost not know good from bad. An important part of the Egyptian soul was thought to be heart.
The heart was believed to be formed from one drop of blood from the heart of the child's mother, taken at conception. To ancient Egyptians, the heart was the seat of emotion, thought and intention, evidenced by the many expressions in the Egyptian language which incorporate the word jb. Unlike in English, when ancient Egyptians referenced the jb they meant the physical heart as oppos
Anubis
Anubis is the Greek name of a god associated with mummification and the afterlife in ancient Egyptian religion depicted as a canine or a man with a canine head. Archeologists have identified Anubis's sacred animal as the African golden wolf. Like many ancient Egyptian deities, Anubis assumed different roles in various contexts. Depicted as a protector of graves as early as the First Dynasty, Anubis was an embalmer. By the Middle Kingdom he was replaced by Osiris in his role as lord of the underworld. One of his prominent roles was as a god, he attended the weighing scale during the "Weighing of the Heart," in which it was determined whether a soul would be allowed to enter the realm of the dead. Despite being one of the most ancient and "one of the most depicted and mentioned gods" in the Egyptian pantheon, Anubis played no role in Egyptian myths. Anubis was depicted in black, a color that symbolized regeneration, the soil of the Nile River, the discoloration of the corpse after embalming. Anubis is associated with Wepwawet, another Egyptian god portrayed with a dog's head or in canine form, but with grey or white fur.
Historians assume that the two figures were combined. Anubis' female counterpart is Anput, his daughter is the serpent goddess Kebechet. Anubis' name jnpw was pronounced, based on Coptic Anoup and the Akkadian transcription <a-na-pa> in the name <ri-a-na-pa> "Reanapa" that appears in Amarna letter EA 315. However, this transcription may be interpreted as rˁ-nfr, a name similar to that of Prince Ranefer of the Fourth Dynasty. In Egypt's Early Dynastic period, Anubis was portrayed in full animal form, with a "jackal" head and body. A "jackal" god Anubis, is depicted in stone inscriptions from the reigns of Hor-Aha and other pharaohs of the First Dynasty. Since Predynastic Egypt, when the dead were buried in shallow graves, "jackals" had been associated with cemeteries because they were scavengers which uncovered human bodies and ate their flesh. In the spirit of "fighting like with like," a "jackal" was chosen to protect the dead, because "a common problem must have been the digging up of bodies, shortly after burial, by jackals and other wild dogs which lived on the margins of the cultivation."The oldest known textual mention of Anubis is in the Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom, where he is associated with the burial of the pharaoh.
In the Old Kingdom, Anubis was the most important god of the dead. He was replaced in that role by Osiris during the Middle Kingdom. In the Roman era, which started in 30 BC, tomb paintings depict him holding the hand of deceased persons to guide them to Osiris; the parentage of Anubis varied between myths and sources. In early mythology, he was portrayed as a son of Ra. In the Coffin Texts, which were written in the First Intermediate Period, Anubis is the son of either the cow goddess Hesat or the cat-headed Bastet. Another tradition depicted him as the son of Nephthys; the Greek Plutarch stated that Anubis was the illegitimate son of Nephthys and Osiris, but that he was adopted by Osiris's wife Isis: For when Isis found out that Osiris loved her sister and had relations with her in mistaking her sister for herself, when she saw a proof of it in the form of a garland of clover that he had left to Nephthys - she was looking for a baby, because Nephthys abandoned it at once after it had been born for fear of Seth.
George Hart sees this story as an "attempt to incorporate the independent deity Anubis into the Osirian pantheon." An Egyptian papyrus from the Roman period called Anubis the "son of Isis."In the Ptolemaic period, when Egypt became a Hellenistic kingdom ruled by Greek pharaohs, Anubis was merged with the Greek god Hermes, becoming Hermanubis. The two gods were considered similar; the center of this cult was in uten-ha/Sa-ka/ Cynopolis, a place whose Greek name means "city of dogs." In Book XI of The Golden Ass by Apuleius, there is evidence that the worship of this god was continued in Rome through at least the 2nd century. Indeed, Hermanubis appears in the alchemical and hermetical literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Although the Greeks and Romans scorned Egyptian animal-headed gods as bizarre and primitive, Anubis was sometimes associated with Sirius in the heavens and Cerberus and Hades in the underworld. In his dialogues, Plato has Socrates utter oaths "by the dog", "by the dog of Egypt", "by the dog, the god of the Egyptians", both for emphasis and to appeal to Anubis as an arbiter of truth in the underworld.
In contrast to real wolves, Anubis was a protector of cemeteries. Several epithets attached to his name in Egyptian texts and inscriptions referred to that role. Khenty-imentiu, which means "foremost of the westerners" and was the name of a different canine funerary god, alluded to his protecting function because the dead were buried on the west bank of the Nile, he took other names in connection with his funerary role, such as tpy-ḏw.f "He, upon his mountain" and nb-t3-ḏsr "Lord of the sacred land", which designates him as a god of the desert necropolis. The Jumilhac papyrus recounts an
Anat
Anat, classically Anath is a major northwest Semitic goddess. In the Ugaritic Baal Cycle, ‘Anat is a violent war-goddess, a maiden, the sister and, according to a much disputed theory, the lover of the great god Ba‘al Hadad. Ba‘al is called the son of Dagan and sometimes the son of El, who addresses ‘Anat as "daughter". Either relationship is figurative. ‘Anat's titles used again and again are "virgin ‘Anat" and "sister-in-law of the peoples". In a fragmentary passage from Ugarit, Syria ‘Anat appears as a fierce and furious warrior in a battle, wading knee-deep in blood, striking off heads, cutting off hands, binding the heads to her torso and the hands in her sash, driving out the old men and townsfolk with her arrows, her heart filled with joy. "Her character in this passage anticipates her subsequent warlike role against the enemies of Baal". ’Anat boasts that she has put an end to Yam the darling of El, to the seven-headed serpent, to Arsh the darling of the gods, to Atik'Quarrelsome' the calf of El, to Ishat'Fire' the bitch of the gods, to Zabib'flame?' the daughter of El.
When Ba‘al is believed to be dead, she seeks after Ba‘al "like a cow for its calf" and finds his body and buries it with great sacrifices and weeping. ‘Anat finds Mot, Ba‘al Hadad's supposed slayer and she seizes Mot, splits him with a sword, winnows him with a sieve, burns him with fire, grinds him with millstones and scatters the remnants to the birds. Text CTA 10 tells how ‘Anat seeks after Ba‘al, out hunting, finds him, is told she will bear a steer to him. Following the birth she brings the new calf to Ba‘al on Mount Zephon. Nowhere in these texts is ‘Anat explicitly Ba‘al Hadad's consort. To judge from traditions ‘Athtart is more to be Ba‘al Hadad's consort. Complicating matters is that northwest Semitic culture permitted more than one wife and nonmonogamy is normal for deities in many pantheons. In the North Canaanite story of Aqhat, the protagonist Aqhat son of the judge Danel is given a wonderful bow and arrows, created for ‘Anat by the craftsman god Kothar-wa-Khasis but, given to Danel for his infant son as a gift.
When Aqhat grew to be a young man, the goddess ‘Anat tried to buy the bow from Aqhat, offering immortality, but Aqhat refused all offers, calling her a liar because old age and death are the lot of all men. He added to this insult by asking'what would a woman do with a bow?' Like Inanna in the Epic of Gilgamesh, ‘Anat complained to El and threatened El himself if he did not allow her to take vengeance on Aqhat. El conceded. ‘Anat launched her attendant Yatpan in hawk form against Aqhat to knock the breath out of him and to steal the bow back. Her plan succeeds, but Aqhat is killed instead of beaten and robbed. In her rage against Yatpan, Yatpan runs away and the bow and arrows fall into the sea. All is lost. ‘Anat mourned for Aqhat and for the curse that this act would bring upon the land and for the loss of the bow. The focus of the story turns to Paghat, the wise younger sister of Aqhat, she sets off to avenge her brother's death and to restore the land, devastated by drought as a direct result of the murder.
The story is incomplete. It breaks at an dramatic moment when Paghat discovers that the mercenary whom she has hired to help her avenge the death is, in fact, her brother's murderer; the parallels between the story of ‘Anat and her revenge on Mot for the killing of her brother are obvious. In the end, the seasonal myth is played out on the human level. Gibson thinks Rahmay, co-wife of El with Athirat, is the goddess ‘Anat, but he fails to take into account the primary source documents. Use of dual names of deities in Ugaritic poetry are an essential part of the verse form, that two names for the same deity are traditionally mentioned in parallel lines. In the same way, Athirat is called Elath in paired couplets; the poetic structure can be seen in early Hebrew verse forms. Anat first appears in Egypt in the 16th dynasty along with other northwest Semitic deities, she was worshiped in her aspect of a war goddess paired with the goddess `Ashtart. In the Contest Between Horus and Set, these two goddesses appear as daughters of Re and are given as allies to the god Set, identified with the Semitic god Hadad.
During the Hyksos period Anat had temples in the Hyksos capital of Avaris and in Beth-Shan as well as being worshipped in Memphis. On inscriptions from Memphis of 15th to 12th centuries BCE, Anat is called "Bin-Ptah", Daughter of Ptah, she is associated with Reshpu in some texts and sometimes identified with the native Egyptian goddess Neith. She is sometimes called "Queen of Heaven", her iconography varies. She is shown carrying one or more weapons; the name of Anat-her, a shadowy Egyptian ruler of this time, is derived from "Anat". In the New Kingdom Ramesses II made ‘Anat his personal guardian in battle and enlarged Anat's temple in Pi-Ramesses. Ramesses named his daughter Bint-Anat'Daughter of Anat', his dog appears in a carving in Beit el Wali temple with the name "Anat-in-vigor" and one of his horses was named ‘Ana-herte'Anat-is-satisfied'. In Akkadian, the form one would expect Anat to take would be Antu, earlier Antum; this would be the normal feminine form that would be taken by Anu, the Akkadian form of An'Sky', the Sumerian god of heaven
Apedemak
Apedemak or Apademak was a lion-headed warrior god worshiped by the Meroitic peoples inhabiting Nubia. A number of Meroitic temples dedicated to this deity are known from the Western Butana region: Naqa and Musawwarat es-Sufra, which seems to be his chief cult place. In the temple of Naqa built by the rulers of Meroe Apedemak was depicted as a three-headed leonine god with four arms, as a snake with a lion head. However, he is depicted as a man with a lion head. Apedemak was considered the war god of Kush; the Kushites believed that Apedemak defeated their enemies. When Kushite pharaohs carried out military campaigns, they claimed the support and companionship of Apedemak. Louis V. Žabkar. Apedemak, Lion god of Meroe: a study in Egyptian-Meroitic syncretism. Warminster, Eng.: Aris & Phillips. ISBN 978-0856680274. OCLC 2543227. "Ancient Sudan~ Nubia: Religion: Apedemac". Www.ancientsudan.org. Retrieved 2018-09-05
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