Arensnuphis

Also Known As: Greek form of the Egyptian Iry-hemes-nefer, read by Egyptian scribes as “the good companion”; also written Arsenuphis and Harsenuphis; merged with Shu as Arensnuphis-Shu
Region/Culture: North Africa
Mythos: Nubian Mythology, Egyptian Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Gods and Deities
Mythical Attributes: He is a benign Kushite god of the Meroitic period whose Egyptian name made him “the good companion”, and whose temple inscriptions call him the companion of Isis.
Role in Mythos: He was one of the native gods of Kush, first shown at Musawwarat es-Sufra in the third century BCE, who was then taken into the frontier temples of Egypt and identified with Onuris and Shu.
Relation to Humans: The kings of Kush and the Ptolemaic and Roman rulers of Egypt had themselves carved bringing him offerings, and a Kushite king and a Greek pharaoh built his temple on Philae together. How ordinary people approached him is not recorded.

On the island of Philae, a short walk from the great temple of Isis, there was a small building for a god from the south. It stood close to the kiosk of Nectanebo I, on the remains of something older, and by the standards of that island it was modest. The river ran round it on every side. Inside, the inscriptions called its owner the companion of Isis, and very little else.

The Greeks wrote his name as Arensnuphis. He came from Kush, the kingdom up the Nile beyond Egypt’s southern frontier, in what is now Sudan, and he belonged to its later age. In the Meroitic period, from about 300 BCE to about 350 CE, the gods of Kush began to appear on temple walls under their own names and in their own shapes, beside the gods the kingdom had long borrowed from Egypt. George Hart places Arensnuphis in the southern temples of the Graeco-Roman era, contemporary with the Meroitic civilisation that flourished between the fifth and sixth cataracts of the Nile.

The first time anyone carved him, as far as the evidence reaches, was out in the Butana steppe. Between about 235 and 218 BCE the Meroitic king Arnekhamani built a temple at Musawwarat es-Sufra for Apedemak, the lion god of Kush, a sandstone room in a basin of low hills and thorn scrub far from the river. The archaeologists who work the site record that Apedemak, Sebiumeker and Arensnuphis are shown there for the first time. Before that wall, the record is blank. Where he was worshipped before he reached stone, and for how long, nobody can say.

His name is its own small riddle. Egyptian scribes wrote it Iry-hemes-nefer, which they could read as “the good companion”. That is an Egyptian interpretation, and it may say more about how Egyptian ears heard the god than about what his own people called him. Hart is dry about it: the rendering gives little clue to his nature beyond the fact that he was benign. A god whose name amounts to “nice fellow” does not arrive with a biography.

He arrives with a hat. In most images he is a man wearing a crown of tall plumes, the feathers standing straight up from the head. He could also take the shape of a lion. The reliefs show him in the posture every temple god spends most of eternity in: standing still while a king brings him something. In the birth house at Philae, Ptolemy XII offers him wine, and he receives it in company with Thoth of Pnubs and Amun-Ra, the cup lifted toward a row of calm, crowned figures who do not look down.

The temple on Philae is where his story becomes history. It goes back at least to Ptolemy IV Philopator, around 220 BCE, and blocks from its southern enclosure wall show that it was a joint enterprise with the Meroitic king Arqamani, whom the Greeks called Ergamenes. That alone makes it worth a second look. A Greek king of Egypt and a king of Kush put up a temple together, on the border between their two countries, for a Kushite god. Later rulers kept adding to it. Ptolemy V, Ptolemy VI or VIII, and the Roman emperor Tiberius all enlarged or decorated it in turn. Arensnuphis had a cult association on the island, and he is not attested any further north. Philae was as far into Egypt as he went.

Arqamani also built at Dakka, a temple about a hundred kilometres south of Aswan that the Greeks called Pselchis, and Arensnuphis is shown there among its principal gods. The work there, too, passed between Kushite and Ptolemaic hands. In one of its corridors the emperor Caligula offers the hieroglyph for millions of years to Arensnuphis, Thoth of Pnubs and Tefnut. Dakka is now dry, lifted out of the path of Lake Nasser in the 1960s and set down again at El-Seboua. He travelled one step further, and a very long way. On a wall of the small temple of Dendur, which once stood south of the First Cataract and now stands in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Arensnuphis accompanies the deified local brothers Peteese and Pihor while the emperor Augustus worships them. A Kushite god, a pair of deified Nubian brothers and a Roman emperor now share a room in New York.

No myth of his own survives. There is no birth story, no battle and no death. What the Egyptian priests did instead was fit him into stories they already had. They equated him with Onuris and with Shu, and sometimes merged him outright into a single god, Arensnuphis-Shu. Both identifications carry a story with them. Onuris was a warrior and hunter who, like Arensnuphis, wore a crown of tall plumes, and his name means “the one who leads back the distant one”. He went south into Nubia to find a lioness and brought her home to Egypt as his consort. Shu did the same for his sister Tefnut, who had fled into Nubia and was raging through its deserts as a lioness. The hunter comes back up the valley with the heat still on the sand and the goddess walking beside him, tamed, and Egypt has its Eye of the Sun again. On Philae itself a neighbouring cult honoured Hathor in exactly that role, as the Sun’s Eye brought back from Nubia. For a god from the south who was already known as a companion, the fit was close.

His power was the power of that word. He was the one who stood beside, and the one who could be trusted to be benign, and that is why rulers on both sides of the border could claim him. His limits were the limits of the frontier. He was never a god of Egypt proper, and the evidence for him thins to nothing north of Philae. When Christianity came to the island, some of its minor sanctuaries were turned into churches, and the temple of Arensnuphis was among them. The companion of Isis kept his walls and lost his house.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Arensnuphis?

Arensnuphis is a Kushite god of the Meroitic period who was also worshipped in the southern temples of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt. He is first shown in the Lion Temple at Musawwarat es-Sufra in Sudan, built between about 235 and 218 BCE. His inscriptions at Philae call him the companion of Isis.

What does the name Arensnuphis mean?

Arensnuphis is the Greek form of the Egyptian name Iry-hemes-nefer, which Egyptian scribes read as “the good companion”. This is an Egyptian interpretation of the god’s name. George Hart notes that it reveals little about Arensnuphis beyond the fact that he was a benign deity.

What does Arensnuphis look like?

Arensnuphis is most often shown as a man wearing a crown of tall plumes. He could also be depicted as a lion. Temple reliefs show him receiving offerings from kings and emperors, including Ptolemy XII, Caligula and Augustus.

Where was Arensnuphis worshipped?

Arensnuphis was first depicted at Musawwarat es-Sufra in the Kushite kingdom. His best-known temple is on the island of Philae, begun around 220 BCE as a joint project of Ptolemy IV Philopator and the Meroitic king Arqamani. He also appears in the temple of Dakka and on a wall of the temple of Dendur, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Which Egyptian gods was Arensnuphis identified with?

The Egyptians identified Arensnuphis with Onuris and with Shu, and sometimes merged him into a single god called Arensnuphis-Shu. Onuris and Shu were both linked to the myth of a lioness goddess brought back to Egypt from Nubia. No myth told about Arensnuphis himself survives.