Amaunet

Also Known As: also Amunet, Amonet; Egyptian Imnt, the feminine form of Amun’s name, usually rendered “the Hidden One”
Region/Culture: North Africa
Mythos: Egyptian Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Gods and Deities
Mythical Attributes: She is hiddenness itself in female form, paired with Amun among the primeval powers that existed before the world was made.
Role in Mythos: In the Pyramid Texts she and Amun are one of the divine couples called the two sources of the gods, and at Thebes she became Amun’s consort in the rites of kingship.
Relation to Humans: Kings of the New Kingdom had themselves carved being embraced by her and crowned in her presence, and at Karnak she kept her own priests. Ordinary people met her mostly through that temple, where she received offerings beside Amun long after another goddess had become his wife.

Before there was a sky to hold up or ground to stand on, there was water without edges and a darkness that had never been lit. The Egyptians did not leave that darkness empty. They filled it with eight beings, four pairs, male and female, and one of the pairs was named for the plain fact that nothing in the water could be seen. He was Amun, the Hidden. She was Amaunet, the Hidden One, the same word with a feminine ending.

Her oldest appearance is a single line cut into stone around 2350 BCE. In the pyramid of King Unas at Saqqara, Utterance 301 of the Pyramid Texts sets out offerings for pairs of primeval gods. Nun and Naunet come first, then Amun together with Amaunet, and both couples are hailed as the two sources of the gods who protect the gods with their shade. That is the whole of her Old Kingdom record. It is enough to show that she is old, older than most of the goddesses who later outshone her, and that she was never imagined alone. From the first line she is half of a pair.

Later theology gave that pair a home. At Hermopolis in Middle Egypt the eight became the Ogdoad, the embodiment of the unformed world before creation, each couple standing for one quality of the dark water: its depth, its endlessness, its darkness, its hiddenness. Amun and Amaunet held the last. The German Egyptologist Kurt Sethe argued in 1929 that the two names may first have been epithets of the air god Shu and his sister Tefnut, a reading that has its supporters and its doubters. No tale survives in which Amaunet speaks or acts on her own. She exists as a condition, the part of the primeval flood that could not be looked into, and it is difficult to write a biography of a condition.

Then her husband became the most powerful god in Egypt. Amun’s cult rose at Thebes from the Eleventh Dynasty, and as he grew into Amun-Re, king of the gods, the question of his wife became a matter of state. In the Theban triad the place went to Mut, with the moon god Khonsu as their son. Amaunet was not erased. She stayed at Thebes as the partner who had been there before creation, and the queen Hatshepsut, around 1470 BCE, seems to have taken a particular interest in her.

The Warsaw Egyptologist Katarzyna Kapiec, examining the Theban monuments, found that Amaunet’s first appearances in temple decoration come from two of Hatshepsut’s buildings: her temple at Deir el-Bahari and the red quartzite shrine at Karnak known as the Chapelle Rouge. There she stands in offering and coronation scenes as Amun’s spouse, and in a set of scenes that occur only under Hatshepsut and Thutmose III she embraces the ruler directly, the goddess of the first darkness taking hold of the living king. A text on the Chapelle Rouge suggests Hatshepsut may have founded a festival for her. Some of these scenes identify her with Neith, the old goddess of Sais, or with Nut, the sky.

The cult was staffed. In the Metropolitan Museum of Art sits a clay funerary cone from the Eighteenth Dynasty, a finger of fired pottery about eighteen centimetres long, stamped with the name of a man called Mahu. The seal gives his titles: second prophet of Amunet, and first prophet of queen Merytamun. Cones like it were pressed into the facade above a Theban tomb, a row of round stamped ends catching the western sun. Mahu served a goddess whose whole nature was to be unseen, and tended the offerings carried to her through the cool of the sanctuary. It was a real office, with a real man in it.

At Karnak she still stands in stone. Against the north wall of the Hall of Annals of Thutmose III, Tutankhamun set up a great statue of Amun, which George Legrain found broken and reassembled in 1912. Beside it is a statue of Amaunet. Between 2019 and 2021 the French and Egyptian team of the Centre Franco-Égyptien d’Étude des Temples de Karnak restored both, rebuilding part of the Annals wall behind them. The goddess who began as a line of text about shade now casts one.

Her power was the power of what came first. As one of the sources of the gods she stood behind every other deity, and her shade, in the Pyramid Texts, is protection. As Amun’s partner in the royal scenes she confirmed kings, and an embrace from the primeval darkness was a fine credential for a ruler whose claim needed shoring up, which Hatshepsut’s did. Her limit was the same fact that made her great. Hiddenness does not tell stories, and a goddess defined by being unseen was easy to overlook. Mut took the marriage, Neith and Nut lent her their faces, and the handbooks give Amaunet a crown and a staff but no adventures. What she kept was her place at the beginning, where no one else could take it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Amaunet in Egyptian mythology?

Amaunet is an ancient Egyptian primeval goddess, the female partner of Amun. Her name is the feminine form of Amun’s and means the Hidden One. She was one of the eight beings of the Ogdoad of Hermopolis, who embodied the dark, formless waters before creation.

Was Amaunet the wife of Amun?

Yes, Amaunet was Amun’s original partner, paired with him as far back as the Pyramid Texts of King Unas. When Amun became the chief god of Thebes, Mut became his wife in the Theban triad with Khonsu. Amaunet still appeared beside Amun at Thebes in offering and coronation scenes, especially under Hatshepsut and Thutmose III.

What is the earliest mention of Amaunet?

The earliest mention of Amaunet is Utterance 301 of the Pyramid Texts, carved in the pyramid of Unas at Saqqara around 2350 BCE. It names Amun together with Amaunet, after Nun and Naunet, and calls both couples the two sources of the gods who protect the gods with their shade.

Did Amaunet have priests?

Amaunet had her own priests at Thebes. A funerary cone in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, dated to the Eighteenth Dynasty, belonged to a man named Mahu who was second prophet of Amunet and first prophet of queen Merytamun.

Where can a statue of Amaunet be seen today?

A statue of Amaunet stands in the temple of Amun at Karnak, beside Tutankhamun’s statue of Amun against the north wall of the Hall of Annals of Thutmose III. Both statues were restored between 2019 and 2021 by the Centre Franco-Égyptien d’Étude des Temples de Karnak.