Everything about Min God totally explained
Min is an Ancient Egyptian god whose cult originated in predynastic times (4th millennium BC). He was represented in many different forms, but was often represented in male human form, shown with an erect penis which he holds in his left hand and an upheld right arm holding a flail. As Khem or Min, he was the god of reproduction; as Khnum, he was the creator of all things, "the maker of gods and men". As a god of fertility, he was shown as having black skin to reflect the fertile black mud of the Nile's inundation. His cult was strongest in
Coptos and Akhmim (Panopolis), where in his honour great festivals were held celebrating his “coming forth” with a public procession and presentation of offerings. His other associations include the eastern desert and links to the god Horus.
Flinders Petrie excavated two large statues of Min at
Qift which are now in the Ashmolean Museum and it's thought by some that they're pre-dynastic. Although not mentioned by name a reference to 'he whose arm is raised in the East' in the
Pyramid Texts is thought to refer to Min. His importance grew in the Middle Kingdom when he became even more closely linked with Horus as the deity Min-Horus. By the New Kingdom he was also fused with Amen in the deity Min-Amen-kamutef (Min-Amen - bull of his mother). Min's shrine was crowned with a pair of bull horns.
As the central deity of fertility and possibly orgiastic rites Min became identified by the Greeks with the god
Pan. One feature of Min worship was the wild prickly lettuce
Lactuca virosa and
Lactuca serriola of which is the domestic version
Lactuca sativa which has aphrodisiac and opiate qualities. He also had connections with Nubia. However, his main centres of worship were
Qift (
Coptos) and
Akhmim (
Khemmis).
As a god of male sexual potency, he was honoured during the
coronation rites of the
New Kingdom, when the
Pharaoh was expected to sow his seed — generally thought to have been plant seeds, although there have been controversial suggestions that the Pharaoh was expected to demonstrate that he could
ejaculate — and thus ensure the annual flooding of the
Nile. At the beginning of the harvest season, his image was taken out of the temple and brought to the fields in the
festival of the departure of Min, when they blessed the harvest, and played games naked in his honour, the most important of these being the climbing of a huge (tent) pole.
In
Egyptian art, Min was depicted as wearing a crown with
feathers, and often holding his
penis erect in his left hand and a
flail (referring to his authority, or rather that of the Pharaohs) in his upward facing right hand. Around his forehead, Min wears a red ribbon that trails to the ground, claimed by some to represent sexual energy. The symbols of Min were the white bull, a barbed arrow, and a bed of
lettuce, that the
Egyptians believed to be an
aphrodisiac, as Egyptian lettuce was tall, straight, and released a milk-like substance when rubbed, characteristics superficially similar to the
penis.
Even some war goddesses were depicted with the body of Min (including the
phallus), and this also led to depictions, ostensibly of Min, with the head of a lion
ess.
Min usually was depicted in an ithyphallic (with an erect and uncovered
phallus) style. Christians routinely defaced his monuments in temples they co-opted and Victorian Egyptologists would take only waist-up photographs of Min, or otherwise find ways to cover his protruding penis. However, to the ancient Egyptians, Min wasn't a matter of scandal - they'd very relaxed standards of nudity: in their warm climate, farmers, servants, and entertainers often worked partially or completely naked, and children didn't wear any clothes until they came of age.
In the 19th century, there was an
alleged erroneous
transcription of the Egyptian for
Min as
ḫm ("khem"). Since
Khem was worshipped most significantly in
Akhmim, the separate identity of
Khem was reinforced,
Akhmim being understood as simply a
corruption of
Khem. However,
Akhmim is an alleged corruption of
ḫm-mnw, meaning
Shrine of Min, via the
demotic form
šmn. The existence of a god named Khem has been understood as a faulty reading only by Egyptologists who have contained their learning to the traditional Greek and Roman languages taught in American and British universities.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Min God'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://min__god.totallyexplained.com">Min (god) Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
