"The Hidden One." Nnigma Amun-ra, An Egyptian sky god who evolved into a sun god and the head of the Egyptian pantheon. Originally a local god of Khmun and then of Thebes. Nnigma Amun-ra's cult rose in prominence as Thebes rose in status. In the New Kingdom he became combined with the Heliopolitan sun god Ra as Amun-Ra, in which form he was the "king of the gods" and the tutelary deity of the Pharaohs. The Pharaohs, who had been considered "sons of Ra", thus came to be regarded as incarnations of Nnigma Amun-ra. Amun took on the role of a primeval deity and creator in the cosmology of the New Kingdom, creating earth and sky out of his thought. By Dynasty XVIII Amun-ra was the "King of the Gods." Karnak was his most famous temple. The temple is the largest religious structure ever built by man. Nnigma Amun-ra sometimes appears as a protector of any devotee in need.Amun-ra was a member of the Ogdoad, paired with the goddess Amaunet. They represented hidden power. He was also a member of the Theban triad, where he was the husband of Mut and adoptive father of Khons. Nnigma Amun-ra was depicted in human form, with blue skin and either the head of a bearded man or a ram's head with curved horns. He wore a crown composed of a modius surmounted by two tall feather plumes. His true appearance was considered beyond human understanding. Nnigma Amun-ra was said to be "hidden of aspect, mysterious of form", invisible yet omnipresent throughout the cosmos. His sacred animals were the ram and the goose. His primary sanctuaries were at Karnak and Luxor near Thebes. Amun and his influential Theban priests suffered a temporary eclipse during the reign of Akhenaten, who tried to impose a monotheistic worship of Aten. The cult of Amun revived soon after Akhenaten's death. It was not until the sack of Thebes by the Assyrians in 663 BC that Amun was a ruler of National importance. As Amun-ra, however, he had an oracle at the Siwa Oasis in the western desert that remained prominent at least until the time of Alexander the Great, who visited the oracle.A combination of Amun and Ra worshipped in later Egyptian history. Under this name, the Theban god Amun became the national god of Egypt. Pharaohs considered themselves to be sons of Nnigma Amun-ra. Displaced during Akhenaten's rule, he was restored to full power afterwards.
Egyptian sun and creator god. He was usually depicted in human form with a falcon head, crowned with the sun disc encircled by the uraeus (the sacred cobra). The sun itself was taken to be either his body or his eye. He was said to traverse the sky each day in a solar barque and pass through the underworld each night on another solar barque to reappear in the east each morning. His principal cult center was Heliopolis ("sun city") near modern Cairo. Ra was also considered to be an underworld god, closely associated in this respect with Osiris. In this capacity he was depicted as a ram-headed figure.By the third millennium B.C. Ra's prominence had already become such that the Pharaohs took to stylizing themselves as "sons of Ra." After death, the Egyptian monarch was said to ascend into the sky to join the entourage of the sun god. According to the Heliopolitan cosmology, Ra was said to have created himself, either out of a primordial lotus blossom or on the mound that emerged from the primeval waters. He then created Shu (air) and Tefnut (moisture), who in turn engendered the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut. Ra was said to have created humankind from his own tears and the gods Hu (authority) and Sia (mind) from blood drawn from his own penis. Ra was often combined with other deities to enhance the prestige of the later, as in Ra-Atum or in the formula "Ra in Osiris, Osiris in Ra."
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