The Amun Cult and Its Development in Nubia

This chapter examines the origins of the god Amun, of his name, his ram-headed form, and their connections to Nubia, which seem to have been overestimated. Amun appears to be the major deity worshipped in Nubia after the Egyptian conquest of the New Kingdom. Considered to be a national and universal god, he became the protector of Kushite kingship, spread through the religious conversion of the Kushite elite to Egyptian religious beliefs. Amun is a solarized deity figured as a man (occasionally ithyphallic) with a two-feather headdress primarily as the god of Karnak, and as a ram-headed deity as that of Jebel Barkal. He may also appear as a bull, a goose, and more questionably as a crocodile or a cobra. His main sacred cities were Napata, Pnubs, Kawa, Sanam, and Tara. He is occasionally accompanied by Mut, Khonsu, Satis, and Anukis.