Saturday, July 21, 2012

Egyptian gods and goddess I

AAH
Also known as AA, AH

A picture showing the legend of AAH taken from our Egyptian mythology archives. Illustration by Chas Saunders. Read the story below or search the index for more Egyptian Gods, Egyptian Goddesses, heroes, demons and monsters!

Old Moon God. A shadowy figure who appears to work behind the scenes pulling strings.

He's best pals with KHONSU, OSIRIS and THOTH, but seems strangely superior to them. Perhaps because he rules the 360-day moon calender which governs the year.


AAH is best known for gambling away five days of moonlight in a dice game. Because RA had laid a curse upon Sky Goddess NUT, she could not give birth to a child on any day of any year. So the sympathetic THOTH gambled with AAH and won five days worth of moonlight. (And as any cosmological person will know, moonlight is not measured in litres or kilograms, but hours and days.)

THOTH took this moonlight, divided it into five days and inserted it into the month of July. Because these extra days were not covered by RA's curse, NUT discovered she could give birth during that time.

So ISIS, OSIRIS, HORUS, SET and NEPHTHYS are all July babies. And the year has remained 365 days ever since.
 
 

AKEN

The Ferryman. He's the husband of AMENT, the Underworld hospitality Goddess, and carries the souls of the dead to her in his little papyrus boat.

He dresses in nautical fashion but spends most of his time sleeping at the wheel. Hobnobbing with the dead must have a slumberous effect.                
 
 
Whenever a soul comes along asking for passage, they have a terrible time trying to wake him up. It's depressing to realise that public transport is subject to delay even in the afterlife.
 
 

ANAT

War Goddess and love of SET.

She was imported from Mesopotamia where she had been associated with BAAL under the name of ANATH. She got herself into a spot of bother in stealing a sacred bowl which had to be sorted out by EL. So we presume she decided it was time to move on.
 
Egypt welcomed her as a warrior Goddess and she didn't waste much time in setting up a liasion with SET.