Dedun

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title: "Dedun" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["egyptian-gods", "fortune-gods", "lion-gods", "nubian-gods", "tutelary-gods"] description: "Ancient Nubian deity" topic_path: "geography/egypt" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedun" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Ancient Nubian deity ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox deity"]

Field	Value
type	Nubian
image	Atum.svg
caption	Dedun in his few depictions such as the temple of Thutmose III in Semna was depicted with generic iconography similar to how Atum was sometimes depicted
god_of	God of incense, wealth, and prosperity
venerated_in	Nubian mythology
symbol	Incense
cult_center	Napata
hiero	d:d-M42-n-G7
::

| type = Nubian | image = Atum.svg | caption = Dedun in his few depictions such as the temple of Thutmose III in Semna was depicted with generic iconography similar to how Atum was sometimes depicted | god_of = God of incense, wealth, and prosperity | venerated_in = Nubian mythology | symbol = Incense | cult_center = Napata | hiero = d:d-M42-n-G7 Dedun (or Dedwen) was a Kushite or Nehasi (C-Group culture) god worshipped during ancient times in ancient Egypt and Sudan and attested as early as 2400 BC. There is much uncertainty about their original nature, especially since he was depicted as a lion, a role that usually was assigned to the son of another deity. Nothing is known of the earlier Kushite mythology from which the deity arose, however. The earliest known information in Egyptian writings about Dedun indicates that he already had become a god of incense by the time of the writings. Since at that historical point, incense was an extremely expensive luxury commodity, and Nubia was the source of much of it, he was quite an important deity. The wealth that the trade in incense delivered to Nubia led to his being identified by them as the god of prosperity and of wealth in particular.

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/LD-Semna-West-ThutmosisIII-Detail_(cropped).jpg" caption="Dedun (left) crowning Thutmose III (kneeling). Relief from the temple of Thutmose III in Semna"] ::

Although he is mentioned in the Pyramid Texts of ancient Egypt as being a Nubian deity, there is no evidence that Dedun was worshipped by the Egyptians or that he was worshipped in any location north of Swenet (contemporary Aswan), which was considered the most southerly city of Ancient Egypt. Nevertheless, in the Middle Kingdom of Egypt, during the Egyptian rule over Kush, Dedun was said by the Egyptians to be the protector of deceased Nubian rulers and their god of incense, thereby associated with funerary rites.

Atlanersa, a Kushite ruler of the Napatan kingdom of Nubia, is known to have started a temple dedicated to the syncretic god Osiris-Dedun at Jebel Barkal.

References

References

1. Lichtheim, Miriam. (1975). "Ancient Egyptian Literature, vol 1". University of California Press.

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::