Name ▲▼ | Origin ▲▼ | Description ▲▼ |
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Goddess name "BAAL (lord)" | Western Semitic / Canaanite / northern Israel, Lebanon / later Egypt | vegetation deity and national god. Baal may have originated in pre-agricultural times as god of storms and Rain. He is the son of DAGAN and in turn is the father of seven storm gods, the Baalim of the Vetus Testamentum, and seven midwife goddesses, the SASURATUM. He is considered to have been worshiped from at least the nineteenth century BC. Later he became a vegetation god concerned with fertility of the land. From the mid-sixteenth century BC in the Egyptian New kingdom, Baal enjoyed a significant cult following, but the legend of his demise and restoration was never equated with that of OSIRIS. In the Greco-Roman period, Baal became åśśimilated in the Palestine region with ZEUS and JUPITER, but as a Punic deity [Carthage] he was allied with SATURNUS, the god of seed-sowing.... |
Spirit name "Ba (2)" | Egypt / Lower | Ram god. A fertility deity from early in Egyptian religion invoked particularly at Mendes. In a later cult, the name ba comes to represent the spirituality of a deity, often represented in an animal, e.g. the bull, or the mortal manifestation of a god as pharaoh.... |
God name "Banebdjedet" | Egypt | Ba of the Lord of Mendes a fertility god and originally a ram with horns shaped like cork-screws, later he was often thought of as a he-goat. According to Herodotus his followers did not sacrifice goats. Egypt |
God name "Benu" | Egypt / Upper | Transmuted bird-like form of a Sun god. A deity mentioned in Pyramid Texts (circa twenty-fifth century BC) and linked with the Sun god of Heliopolis, ATUM. He is also said to have been self-created from the primeval ocean and is sometimes a symbol of rebirth in the afterlife. Benu may have augmented the Greek clåśśical tradition of the Phoenix. He appears in the Old kingdom as a yellow wagtail but later becomes a heron, wearing the conical white crown of Upper Egypt with two slender feathers pointing backwards from its crest.... |
God name "HERYSAF (he who is upon his lake)" | Egypt | Primeval deity åśśociated both with Osiris and Re. Herysaf is a ram god said to have emerged from the primeval ocean, possibly recreated in the form of a sacred lake at Hnes, the capital of Lower Egypt for a time at the beginning of the third millennium (during the First Intermediate Period). The god is depicted with a human torso and the head of a ram wearing the atef crown of Lower Egypt. Herysaf began as a local deity but took on national importance as the soul (ba) of RE, and of OSIRIS. Herysaf's sanctuary was enlarged by Rameses II and the god is said to have protected the life of the last Egyptian pharaoh when the Persian and later Macedonian dominations began. He eventually became syncretized with HERAKLES in Greco-Roman culture and Hnes became known as Herakleopolis ... |
God name "Harakhte or Harakhtes" | Egypt | The Sun God and mythical first pharaoh, son of Isis and Osiris. Represented as falcon headed god he was later absorbed by Ra. Egypt |
God name "Haru-pa-khart" | Egypt | Harpocrates God of the rising Sun. Horus the Child, son of Isis and Osiris, originally a god of youth and vigor, later taking on the aspects of the Sun-god. At Mendes he was the son of Hat-mehit. Egypt |
Goddess name "Heket aka Heqet" | Egypt | Hekit, Heget, goddess of childbirth and midwives. Later, as a fertility goddess, åśśociated with the flooding of the nile, and with the germination of corn, she became åśśociated with the last stages of childbirth. Egypt |
Goddess name "Inanna" | Mesopotamia | Inana, the original "Holy Virgin," as the Sumerians called her, is the first known divinity åśśociated with the planet Venus. This Sumerian goddess became identified with the Semitic goddesses Ishtar and later Astarte, Egyptian Isis, Greek Aphrodite, Etruscan Turan and the Roman Venus. Mesopotamia |
God name "Khnum" | Egypt | Khnemu, one of the earliest Egyptian gods, originally the god of the source of the Nile River. Since the annual flooding of the Nile brought with it silt and clay, and its water brought life to its surrounds, he was thought to be the creator of human children, which he made at a potter's wheel, from clay, and placed in their mothers' wombs. He was later described as having molded the other gods, and he had the titles Divine Potter and Lord of created things from himself. Egypt |
Goddess name "Maat" | Egypt | Minor goddess of cosmic order. Epitomizing the harmonious laws of the cosmic order. She is recognized from the middle of the third millennium, and probably earlier, closely åśśociated with the creator deities and particularly the Sun god. In later times she was described as the daughter of Re. Her only known sanctuary is in the complex of Karnak at Thebes. Maat is depicted either in human form wearing an ostrich plume on her head or by an ostrich feather alone. The rulers of Egypt believed that they governed under her aegis and frequently had themselves described as beloved of Maat. Maat was also integral to the success of a soul påśśing through the Hall of the Two Truths, where the heart was weighed, to reach Paradise.... |
Goddess name "Neith" | Egypt | Net, Neit, Nit, creator goddess and of war, the hunt and domestic arts. In later times she was also thought to have been an androgynous demiurge - a creation deity - who had both male and female attributes. Egypt |
Goddess name "Nekmet Awai" | Egypt | Goddess of justice. Locally known from Hermopolis, she later became syncretized with the goddess HATHOR.... |
Goddess name "Onuris [Greek]" | Egypt | God of hunting and war. Onuris is first known from This, near Abydos in Upper Egypt. In later times his main cult center was at Samannud in the Nile delta. His consort is the lion goddess Mekhit. Onuris is generally depicted in human form as a bearded figure wearing a crown with four plumes and wielding a spear or occasionally holding a rope. He is sometimes accompanied by Mekhit in iconography. Seen as a hunter who caught and slew the enemies of RE, the Egyptian Sun god, some legends place him close to the battle between HORUS and SETH. In clåśśical times, Onuris became largely syncretized with the Greek war god ARES. Also Anhuret (Egyptian).... |
God name "S e ab" | Egypt | Minor god of wine and oil presses. Known from circa 3000 BC until the end of Egyptian history, circa AD 400. In later iconography he is depicted as a lion, but more generally is in human form. Sezmu had a definite cult following in the fertile Faiyum region of the Nile valley, but was probably represented in most sanctuaries, particularly where ritual unguents were made and stored. He is recognized in both benign and malevolent roles. In the latter he is reputed to squeeze human heads like grapes, but in beneficent mood he provides aromatic oils and ointments.... |
God name "Taautos" | Phoenicia | God who later devolved into the Egyptian Thoth. Phoenicia |