Wednesday, July 24, 2024

Deitrich WIldung on an instance of "Anat of Ramses" "as a divine form of Ramses himself in the shape of the goddess"

  

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.”

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