Kings often added epithets after their names, which the
Egyptians considered to be among the criteria the individual must meet to
warrant divine worship (political titles were placed before the name). Some of
these simply describe the king's acceptance by a god : "Ramses beloved of
Atum" (which later was transformed into "Ramses who is venerated as
Atum"; the king has progressed from the role of interpreter between man
and god to the earthly representative of the god)'! The Egyptians used these
epithets, describing the divine character of some aspect of the king until the
Saiticperiod, on the colossi, standard bearers, and statue groups I have
already described , to convey the divinity of their kings. And, as I have
pointed out above, concerning the other religious symbols, the epithets
establish the king as the earthly representative of a god, sometimes even a new
god created for the first time with a rather limited following; they also are
used to transform the political power of the god to religious importance. And
gradually the idea that the anagraphic names convey, i.e., of a king accepted
by a god, was transformed to the point that the king selects some god to become
his divine manifestation. Thus, the well-known "Ramses whom Re has
loved/elected" becomes "Re whom Ramses has loved/elected."
Consequently, we can identify Anat when she is described as "Anat of Ramses"
as a divine form of Ramses himself in the shape of the goddess. (Dietrich
Wildung, Egyptian Saints: Deification in Pharaonic Egypt [New York:
University Press, 1977], 25, 27, emphasis added)
The author is referencing
the following from an inscription from the time of Ramses II (died 1213 BC)
which is located at the Brooklyn Museum:
What is depicted in the
middle of the inscription fragment is the Canaanite goddess, ‘Anat. She is
depicted as Osiris but is clearly named in the middle inscription as “‘Anat,
Lady (of) heaven (and) of Ramesessu Meri-Amun.”
