Khnum, Ancient Egyptian God

Khnum is a truly ancient god of fertility and water, long pre-Dynastic. He was a river god who became more associated with the silt from the inundation than with the river itself. He is the great potter who molds a person and their ka. The rather damaged wall relief on the right shows Khnum shaping a king on his potter's table. His cult was popular before it was eclipsed by the cult of Re. The transition appears in Old Kingdom king names. Khufu (he of the Great Pyramid) was named Khnum-Khufu. His son and grandson were Khaf-Re and Menkau-Re.

Khnum is shown as a ram-headed man. The ram's horns are spiral and grow horizontally out from his head. The domestic ram that had such horns died out, but Khnum's horns remained the same for a long time. Much later works show Khnum with horns curving down and in toward his face, like domestic rams of the time. Sometimes Khnum also has a small pair of cow's horns in his headdress, to hold the solar disk. Drives artists crazy, trying to work in all the right details and symbols!