Saturday, August 9, 2014

ATEMU "The Closer of the Gates"

Tum or Atemu i.e., "the closer," was the great god of Annu, and the head of the great company of the gods of that place. It would seem that he usurped the position of Ra in Egyptian mythology, or at any rate that the priests of Annu succeeded in causing their local god, either separately or joined with Ra, to be accepted as the leader of the divine group. He represented the evening or night sun, and as such he is called in the XVth chapter of the Book of the Dead "divine god," "self-created," "maker of the gods," "creator of men," who stretched out the heavens," "the lightener of the tuat with his two eyes," etc.'

The "cool breezes of the north wind," for which every dead man prayed, were supposed to proceed from him. He is, as M. Lefébure has pointed out, always depicted in the form of a man; he wears the crowns and holds both the sceptre and emblem of life On a mummy case at Turin he is depicted in the boat of the Sun, in company with the god Khepera; between them are the beetle and sun's disk In later times the Egyptians called the feminine form of Tmu Temt.

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