Deity · Egyptian · c. 2000 BCE
Amun
Also called Amen, Amun-Ra · also recorded as Amún, Amon Ra, Ammon (per Wikidata)
His name means 'the hidden' — a god defined by being concealed, who nonetheless became the supreme state deity of the New Kingdom.
Well sourced
Amun's rise is political as much as theological. A minor Theban god becomes, once Thebes becomes the capital, the head of the pantheon and is fused with the sun as Amun-Ra. His priesthood grew wealthy enough to rival the throne, which is the usual explanation for Akhenaten's attempt to abolish him in favour of the Aten. The attempt failed within a generation and Amun's name was recut on the monuments it had been chiselled out of.
Identity
Where does the name come from?
Where it was actually worshipped
Thebes, at Karnak — the largest temple complex ever built, and the seat from which the god effectively governed Upper Egypt.
A figure with temples and a figure that only ever existed on a page are different kinds of thing, and the difference is easy to lose once both are entries in a list.
At a glance
Vitals
Vitals
Also known as
- Named there as
- Amen
- Rank
- The Hidden One
- Pantheon
- Egyptian
- Order
- Egyptian pantheon
- Base of operations
- Thebes, at Karnak — the largest temple complex ever built, and the seat from which the god effectively governed Upper Egypt.
- Era
- c. 2000 BCE
- Traditions
- Egyptian
Traits
- Domain
- Hiddenness, breath and wind, the kingship at Thebes
- Traditional form
- A man in a tall plumed crown; also a ram
1 site
Where was it worshipped?
Attested cult sites, located against the Pleiades gazetteer of the ancient world where it reaches and against Wikidata everywhere else. An absence here is not evidence that no cult existed: a good number of figures never had one, and the entry above says so where that is the case.
The Theban complex: Amun's precinct, Mut's walled enclosure to the south, and Khonsu's temple within.
25.718, 32.658 · Pleiades 786050
4 attributed
What is it said to do?
Where these powers cluster
The 4 offices attributed to Amun, grouped by kind. Segment width is the share of powers falling in each category.
A bar dominated by one colour means a specialist; an even spread means a figure the sources credit with almost anything.
- divination1
- martial2
- material1
2 texts
Which texts say so, and where do they disagree?
When these texts were written
Each dot is one of the 2 texts that names Amun, placed at that text's approximate date.
A wide spread means the figure was carried across many centuries and traditions; a tight cluster means a single period produced the whole record.
2 texts spanning roughly 770 years
Where the texts differ
- Name: given as Amen, Zeus (Ammon)
The hidden one, joined to Ra as Amen-Ra and supreme at Thebes through the New Kingdom. Budge notes in his own edition that Amen, Mut and Khonsu have nothing whatever to do with the Book of the Dead — they belong to the temple hymns and inscriptions instead.
Book II gives the Theban god under the Greek name and reports the ram: the story that the god showed himself to Heracles covered in a ram's fleece, and that rams are therefore not sacrificed at Thebes except once a year. An outsider recording a taboo he does not share is a different class of evidence from a hymn.
Connections
What is it connected to?
Placement
Where does it sit in the hierarchies?
Answered from the sources
Common questions
Which texts mention Amun?
Is Amun the same as Zeus?
What rank is Amun?
How else is Amun spelled?
What is Amun said to do?
How old is Amun?
Nearest in the corpus
If Amun is what you came for, these are next
Chosen by proximity rather than by popularity: the same pantheon first, then the same rank, then the same kind of figure.
Khepri
The Morning Sun · Egyptian
The sun at dawn, in the form of a scarab beetle rolling it up over the horizon — one of the three daily aspects of the sun, and a pun on the word for coming into being.
Anubis
Guide of the Dead · Egyptian
Embalmer and psychopomp, who leads the dead to the scales — the office Western tradition eventually gives to Michael and to Azrael.
Horus
Falcon King · Egyptian
Son of Osiris, who contends eighty years with Set for the throne. Every living pharaoh was understood to be his incarnation.
Isis
Great of Magic · Egyptian
The great magician who reassembles Osiris and tricks Ra into surrendering his secret name. Her cult eventually reached as far as Roman Britain.
Nephthys
Lady of the House · Egyptian
Set's wife who sides with her sister Isis against him, and mourns Osiris at the head of the bier.
Osiris
Lord of the Dead · Egyptian
Murdered by Set, reassembled by Isis, and installed as judge of the dead. He is the earliest fully developed dying-and-rising sovereign we have.
The books behind Amun
Every claim on this profile is attributed to one of these. They are public domain, listed oldest first, and each links to a full text where one is freely available.
Egyptian Hymns, Stelae & Temple Inscriptions
Various; tr. E. A. Wallis Budge and others · c. 2000 BCE - 300 BCE · Egyptian
Read Egyptian Hymns, Stelae & Temple Inscriptions in full ↗Cover: Public domain · Jean-Pierre Dalbéra from Paris, France · Wikimedia file page
The Histories, Book II
Herodotus; tr. G. C. Macaulay · c. 430 BCE · Ancient Greek
Read The Histories, Book II in full ↗Cover: Public domain · Unknown · Wikimedia file page
Corpus last revised 29 August 2026. A reference site’s credibility rests on being maintained, so this is the date the sourced records last changed — not the date the page was rebuilt.