ABSTRACT
THE early history of the god Amen is somewhat obscure, and his origin is unknown. The name Amen means "hidden (one)," a title which might be applied to many gods. A god
Amen and his consort Ament or Amenit are mentioned in the Pyramid Texts (UNAS, line 558), where they are grouped with Nau and Nen, and
with the two Lion gods Shu and Tefnut. This Amen was regarded as an ancient nature-god by the priests of Heliopolis under the Vth dynasty, and it is possible that many of his attributes were transferred at a very early period to Amen, the great god of Thebes. Though recent excavations have shown that a cult of Amen existed at Thebes under the Ancient Empire, it is doubtful if it possessed any more than a local importance until the XIIth dynasty. When the princes of Thebes conquered their rivals in the north and obtained the sovereignty of Egypt, their god Amen and his priesthood became a great power in the land, and an entirely new temple was built by them, in his honour, at Karnak on the right bank of the Nile. The temple was quite small, and resembled in form and arrangement some of the small Nubian temples; it consisted of a shrine, with a few small chambers grouped about it, and a forecourt, with a colonnade on two sides of it. Amen was not the oldest god worshipped there, and his sanctuary seems to have absorbed the shrine of the ancient goddess Apit. The name of Thebes is derived from T -Ape, the Coptic name of the shrine of the goddess Apit, and the city was not known as Nut Amen (the No Amon of the Bible, Nahum 3,8), i.e., the" city of Amen," until a very much later date.
