At the apex of his worship, Egyptian religion approached monotheism. The other gods became mere symbols of his power, or manifestations of Amun-Re. In essence, he became the one and only supreme deity. He was one of the eight Heh gods of the Ogdoad of Hermopolis, where his original consort was Amaunet Ament.
His worship may have originated at Hermopolis, but another possibility was that he functioned early on as a less prominent god at Thebes, where he eventually flourished.
The Nubians, however, believed that he originated at Gebel Barkal, located in the modern north of the Sudan. His importance during this and later periods is evidenced by the grander and extravagance of these temples. They were enlarged and enriched over the centuries by rulers of Egypt who were eager to express their devotion to Amun-Re.
In fact, his growth to that of a national god mirrored the growth of Thebes in importance. This growth was accelerated when Amenemhet I took control of the thrown at Thebes, and founded the 12th Dynasty. However, the apex of his worship probably occurred during the New Kingdom onward at Thebes, where the important Opet festival was dedicated to Amun.
In this capacity, Amun was recognized for his procreative function. Later, Amun was more closely associated with the Ram, a symbol of fertility. At various times he also sometimes appears as a man with the head of a frog, the head of a uraeus, the head of a crocodile, or as an ape. However, when depicted as a king, he wears the crown of two plumes, a symbol borrowed from Min , and often sits on a throne.
In this form, he is one of nine deities who compose the company of gods of Amen-Ra. In the Greek period and somewhat earlier, in order to ascribe many attributes to Amun-Re, he was sometimes depicted in bronze with the bearded head of a man, the body of a beetle with the wings of a hawk, the legs of a man and the toes and claws of a lion.
He was further provided with four hands and arms and four wings. In his most mature form, Amun-Re became a hidden, secret god. However, modern context seems to negate this possibility. In reality, however, and according to mythology, both his name and physical appearance were unknown, thus indicating his unknowable essence.
Stated differently, Amun was unknown because he represented absolute holiness, and in this regard, he was different then any other Egyptian deity. So holy was he that he remained independent of the created universe. He was associated with the air as an invisible force, which facilitated his growth as a supreme deity.
He was the Egyptian creator deity par excellence, and according to Egyptian myth, was self-created. It was believed that he could regenerate himself by becoming a snake and shedding his skin. At the same time, he remained apart from creation, totally different from it, and fully independent from it.
Re was the common Egyptian term for the sun, thus making him visible. Hence, Amun-Re combined within himself the two opposites of divinity, the hidden and the revealed. As Amun, he was secret, hidden and mysterious, but as Re, he was visible and revealed. The secret, or hidden attribute of Amun enabled him to be easily synchronized and associated with other deities.
His association with Re grew in importance when Amenemhet I moved the capital of Egypt to Itjtawy at the apex of the Nile Delta, where the relationship was probably expedient both theologically and politically. However, this association with Re actually grew as Thebes itself gained importance. However, it should be noted that with all of this synchronization, Amun was not absorbed to create a a new god.
Instead, there was a unity of divine power with these other gods. The ancient theology made Amun-Re the physical father of the king. Hence, the Pharaoh and Amun-Re enjoyed a symbiotic relationship, with the king deriving power from Amun-Re. In return, the king supported the temples and the worship of Amun. In theory, Amun-Re could even take the form of the king in order to impregnate the chief royal wife with the successor to the throne first documented during the reign of Hatshepsut during the New Kingdom.
Furthermore, according to official state theology during the New Kingdom, Egypt was actually ruled by Amun-Re through the pharaohs, with the god revealing his will through oracles. In reality, the god did in fact threaten the monarchy, for the cult of Amun-Re became so powerful that its priesthood grew very large and influential, and at one point, priests of the deity actually came to rule Egypt during the 21st Dynasty.
At other times, Amun-Re created difficulties for the king, such as in the case of Akhenaten, who sought to change the basic structure of Egyptian religion. In this instance, Amun-Re eventually proved more powerful then the king, for though Akhenaten desperately tried to change the nature of Egyptian religion, for such efforts he himself became the scorn of later pharaohs. Image Source Image Source Source.
Whilst remaining hypostatic deities, Amun represented the essential and hidden, whilst in Ra he represented revealed divinity. Amun was self created, without mother and father, and during the New Kingdom he became the greatest expression of transcendental deity in Egyptian theology. He was not considered to be immanent within creation nor was creation seen as an extension of himself.
Amun-Ra did not physically engender the universe. His position as King of Gods developed to the point of virtual monotheism where other Gods became manifestations of him. With Osiris , Amun-Ra is the most widely recorded of the Egyptian gods. He was also widely worshipped in the neighboring regions of Libya and Nubia. Amun created himself alone. His first wife was Wosret , but he later married Amunet and Mut.
With Mut he is a father of the Moon god Khonsu. The local patron deity of Thebes, Amun, therefore became nationally important. The pharaohs of that new dynasty attributed all their successful enterprises to Amun and they lavished much of their wealth and captured spoil on the construction of temples dedicated to Amun.
The cultural advances achieved by the pharaohs of this dynasty brought Egypt into a cultural renaissance, restoring trade and advancing architectural design to a level that would not be achieved by any other culture for a thousand years. As the Egyptians considered themselves oppressed during the period of the Hyksos rule, the victory accomplished by pharaohs worshiping Amun was seen as a champion of the less fortunate. Consequently, Amun was viewed as upholding the rights of justice for the poor.
By aiding those who traveled in his name, he became the Protector of the road. Votive stela from the artisans village at Deir el-Medina record:. You are Amun, the Lord of the silent, who comes at the voice of the poor; when I call to you in my distress You come and rescue me…Though the servant was disposed to do evil, the Lord is disposed to forgive.
The Lord of Thebes spends not a whole day in anger; His wrath passes in a moment; none remains. His breath comes back to us in mercy..
May your ka be kind; may you forgive; It shall not happen again. Much later, because of the evidence of the adoration given to Amun in many regions during the height of his cult, Greek travelers to Egypt would report that Amun—who they determined to be the ruler of the Egyptian pantheon—was similar to the leader of the Classical Greek pantheon, Zeus , and therefore they became identified by the Greeks as the same deity.
Praises of Amun on stelae are strikingly similar in language to those later used in the reign of Akhenaton, in particular the Hymn to the Aten :. When thou settest in the western mountain, then they sleep in the manner of death.. The fashioner of that which the soil produces,…a mother of profit to gods and men; a patient craftsmen, greatly wearying himself as their maker..
The sole Lord, who reaches the end of the lands every day, as one who sees them that tread thereon.. Every land chatters at his rising every day, in order to praise him. Subsequently, when Egypt conquered Kush, they identified the chief deity of the Kushites as Amun. Since rams were considered a symbol of virility due to their rutting behavior, Amun also became thought of as a fertility deity, and so started to absorb the identity of Min , becoming Amun-Min.
This association with virility led to Amun-Min gaining the epithet Kamutef, meaning Bull of his mother, in which form he was found depicted on the walls of Karnak, ithyphallic, and with a scourge, as Min was. As the cult of Amun grew in importance, Amun became identified with the chief deity who was worshipped in other areas during that period, Ra-Herakhty, the merged identities of Ra and Horus.
This identification led to another merger of identities, with Amun becoming Amun-Ra. Ra-Herakhty had been a solar deity and this nature became ascribed to Amun-Ra as well, Amun becoming considered the hidden aspect of the sun during the night, in contrast to Ra-Herakhty as the visible aspect during the day.
Amun clearly meant the one who is hidden. This complexity over the sun led to a gradual movement toward the support of a more pure form of deity. During the later part of the eighteenth dynasty, the pharaoh Akhenaten also known as Amenhotep IV disliked the power of the temple of Amun and advanced the worship of the Aten, a deity whose power was manifested in the sun disk, both literally and symbolically.
He defaced the symbols of many of the old deities and based his religious practices upon the deity, the Aten. He moved his capitol away from Thebes, but this abrupt change was very unpopular with the priests of Amun, who now found themselves without any of their former power.
The religion of Egypt was inexorably tied to the leadership of the country, the pharaoh being the leader of both. The pharaoh was the highest priest in the temple of the capital and the next lower level of religious leaders were important advisers to the pharaoh, many being administrators of the bureaucracy that ran the country.
When Akhenaten died, the priests of Amun reasserted themselves. His name was struck from Egyptian records, all of his religious and governmental changes were undone, and the capital was returned to Thebes.
Charles offre a Desmond una grossa somma di denaro. Charles Widmore Article November 12, Related Article Titles Sayid Jarrah. John Locke Lost. Ben Linus. Penny Widmore. Alex Rousseau. Richard also said that Ben would always be "one of us". Ben and a young Ethan were sent on a mission, by Charles, to kill Rousseau.
Ben approached her beach camp and into her tent while she was sleeping, but surprisingly found a cooing baby in the tent as well. Instead of killing Rousseau he takes baby Alex away from her and shoots the sand to enforce the point that he is serious in taking her.
Ben threatens Rousseau to never follow him or come looking for him if she wants her baby to live. When Ben returns, Charles expects that "that woman" has been killed but Ben informs him there were "complications" and that she is "no threat to us, she is insane Charles, besides you didn't tell me she had a child. What was it I supposed to do? Widmore explains how everything he has done is to protect the island.
Ben stands firm, asking if that [killing a child] is what Jacob wanted, and when Widmore doesn't reply, Ben hands Alex towards him and says "here you do it Ben winning the confrontation.
Sometime after the Purge, Charles Widmore was exiled and escorted to the mainland via the Galaga , the same submarine that had brought Ben to the Island. Ben stated the reason was Charles' leaving the Island frequently and having a daughter with an "outsider".
It is implied that Widmore had stopped following Jacob's orders. Ben then assumed leadership of the Others. In Charles Widmore purchased the journal of the first mate of the Black Rock , presumably to help try to find the island. He funded Daniel Faraday 's research, perhaps as far back as Widmore's search for the Island lead him to send a freighter , the Kahana , and mercenaries to take back the Island from Benjamin Linus.
Widmore purchased a fake plane and bodies from a mass grave in China; an employee carrying records of this information was killed, presumably by someone working for Ben. Tom convinced Michael to board the freighter as a spy. Michael later attempted to detonate a bomb given to him by the Others.
When it failed to explode, Michael was contacted by Ben, who told him that although Widmore deserves to die, the innocent people on the freighter do not. A parachutist from the freighter, Naomi Dorrit , convinced the survivors that she worked for Penny Widmore and that the freighter was looking to rescue Desmond. Taking her to the Barracks , Keamy demanded that Ben enter his custody or Alex would die.
Ben attempted to bluff that he did not care about Alex, but the attempt failed and Keamy shot Alex in the head. Ben then unleashed the Smoke Monster on the mercenaries, providing a distraction to escape.
After regrouping, Keamy and the mercenaries returned to the island, where Ben surrendered himself. However, this was part of a trap, and the Others proceeded to kill the mercenaries. Keamy escaped and followed Ben to the Orchid , where Ben fatally stabbed him to death despite knowing that Keamy had a dead man's trigger connected to explosives on the freighter. The ship subsequently exploded, killing Michael and nearly everyone else onboard. Ben then turned the frozen wheel , moving the island and teleporting himself into the Tunisian desert.
Ben uses Sayid 's grief to further his agenda. Shortly after the destruction of the freighter, Widmore was allegedly visited by Jacob himself.
Jacob told Widmore about the Man in Black and how he must be prevented from leaving the Island. He informed Widmore about the candidates and the fact that Desmond's exposure to huge amounts of electromagnetism made him a " failsafe " in the event that the candidates died. Finally, Jacob apparently gave Widmore information on how to return to the Island. This conversation was never shown, although Widmore claims it happened and because his information fills in key holes in Widmore's story, it can be assumed to be truthful.
After leaving the Island, Sayid finally reconnected with Nadia but was devastated when she was hit by a car in the crosswalk. The driver happened to be an associate of Charles Widmore, Ishmael Bakir. Sayid, overcome with grief and anger, became a hitman for Ben. Ben found Widmore in London, and told him that he was going to kill Widmore's daughter Penny.
During this conversation Widmore told Ben, "That island's mine, Benjamin. It always was. It will be again. Sayid keeps shooting Nadia 's killer although there are no more bullets. Being one of the Oceanic Six , Sayid is in Iraq mourning the death of his wife Nadia and he confronts Ben, whom at first he thinks is a reporter.
Ben states that he is in Iraq to find the man who murdered Nadia. Ben lies about how he had gotten off the Island and informs Sayid that the man who killed Nadia works for Charles Widmore.
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