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Mehen

Ancient Egyptian deity

Ancient Egyptian deity

FieldValue
typeegyptian
nameMehen
imageBook of Gates Barque of Ra cropped.jpg
captionMehen surrounding Ra, in the form of a man with a ram head, on his Solar Barque
hieromH:n-I12

In Egyptian mythology, the name Mehen (), meaning 'coiled one', referred to a mythological snake-god and to a board game.

Snake god

The earliest known references to Mehen occur in the Coffin Texts. Mehen is a protective deity who is depicted as a snake which coils around the sun god Ra during his journey through the night, for instance in the Amduat.

In the German-Egyptian dictionary by R. Hannig, it is said that the Mehen (mḥn) or the Mehenet (mḥnt) snake is equivalent to the Ouroboros.

Relationship between snake-god and Mehen game

The precise relationship between the deity and the Mehen game is unknown. For instance, it is unknown whether the game derives from the mythological character or the character derives from the game.

It is known that the object known as mehen depicts a game rather than a religious fetish as demonstrated in tomb paintings, game boards, and equipment. The rules and method of playing the game are unknown, although rules have been created in modern times based on assessments of how it may have been played.

References

References

  1. [http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/naqada/gameboard.html Discussion of the game by] [[University College London]]
  2. The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt by R. Wilkinson {{ISBN. 0-500-05120-8
  3. The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife by Erik Hornung {{ISBN. 0-8014-8515-0
  4. Hannig, R. 1995. Die Sprache der Pharaonen: Großes Handwörterbuch Ägyptisch-Deutsch
Info: 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.

egyptian-gods legendary-serpents snake-gods
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