January 23, 2008

• Khnemu

  

  Soul_Meets_Body767 asked about “making way for Khnum” which I noted as a holy day for yesterday. Unfortunately, aside from the name of this holiday, I don’t have any information about how it was celebrated. Khnum or Khnemu (Khnoumis-Greek) was depicted in the form of a ram in the early New Kingdom. Later he was seen as a man with a ram’s head, his long wavy horns adorned with plumes, a disk and a uraeus (rearing cobra). At Elephantine (Abu), he was the guardian of the source of the Nile and was thought to cause the inundation. It is said in the third dynasty that a great drought struck Egypt due to neglect of this god. When the country had nearly been destroyed by famine, king Tcheser went to Khnemu’s temple and made offerings (most likely of fish and barley). Khnemu appeared and promised a yearly inundation of the Nile waters from his two caverns, providing proper worship was restored to him.

  Khnemu and his consort Satis and their divine child, Anuket, made up the Elephantine Triad. Sometimes his consort is given Heqt (Heket), the frog-goddess. With Heqt (who later became merged with Hathor) he assisted at birthing ceremonies. More importantly, he was a creator god, shaping the sun within the cosmic egg. His name literally means, “the molder.” He shaped the child on his potters wheel and then implanted it in the womb of an expectant mother. As a wind god, he bestowed upon the infant the “air of life.” The gods were also created in this way. Khnemu was known as the “Father of fathers” and ”Mother of mothers.” It seems likely to me that his festival, “making way for Khnum,” may have had something to do with the reproductive aspect of his godhood.

  It is thought he may have originally been a goddess and was sometimes addressed as Neith. But while ideas about this god changed over time, he held an exalted position among the Egyptians and continued to appear on Gnostic talismans for two to three centuries after the birth of Christ. Within himself, he was thought to unite the bas (one part of the Egyptian soul concept) of Ra, Shu, Geb, and Osiris, and was portrayed with four rams’ heads upon a human body. In this way, he represented fire, air, earth, and water. He is also known as Khnemu Khenti Nethemtchem Ankhet (Khnemu, Lord of the House of Sweet Life), Khnemu Khenti Per-Ankh (Khnemu, Governor of the House of Life), Khnemu Khenti-Taui (Khnemu, Governor of the Two Lands {upper and lower Egypt}), Khnemu Neb (Khnemu, Lord), Khnemu Neb-Ta-Ankhtet (Khnemu, Lord of the Land of Life), and Khnemu Nehep (Khnemu the Creator).

  Okay…. now I kid you not on this one…. Khnemu has been linked via Geb to the Chaos Goose, also called the Great Cackler because it was the first creature to break the primordial silence. As the Chaos Goose, Geb would lay an egg, the sun, every morning. As the daughter of Geb, Isis was sometimes called the “egg of the goose.” See… not as funny as it sounds… though still… it kind of is. Just the idea of a Chaos Goose is funny.

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  January 23

  One Tooth Rhee Day is a Korean feast day honoring the mythical inventor of the odd custom of having bureaucrats wear four hats to give contradictory orders to workers.

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  Braciaca Dydd, the Day of Braciaca, begins at sundown and continues until January 24th.

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  The Day of Hathor occurs on the 9th day of Pamenot.

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  The Theta-Centaurids meteor shower is a little known southern hemisphere shower, beginning on the twenty-third of January and ending March twelfth. The best viewing occurs on February first.

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  • 8:54 pm
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