21-Relief of King Offering to Deities

Two symmetrical vignettes show the king making offerings to the ram-headed Khnum on the left and the god Mandulis on the right. Both deities have solar associations. Khnum is the ba or spiritual essence of the sun god Re, and Mandulis is the sun god of Lower Nubia.¹ The brown sandstone is typical of Aswan and Lower Nubia, both major cult centers for the gods. Khnum, whose major cult center was the island of Elephantine, is adorned with an Atef-crown composed of two corkscrew ram horns with feathers and two rearing solar uraei. He wears a tripartite wig, a broad collar, wristlets, and a beaded corselet with straps and holds the was-scepter signifying dominion. The king is similarly attired but wears a simple corselet and the Red Crown of Lower Egypt with a long sash at the back. The king offers a small figure of the goddess Ma’at to the god, the goddess of truth and order. The column above shows the hieroglyphs for “city.”

To the right, Mandulis wears similar dress as the god Khnum. On his head is a short, plaited wig with a fillet and uraeus. The type of crown he wore is no longer visible.² The king, wearing the Blue Crown, offers Mandulis two ritual nw-pots. He is otherwise similarly attired as the adjacent king. The hieroglyphic signs above are too few to allow a secure translation.

MH

1. Leitz and Budde 2002-2003, vol. 3: 356; vol. 4: 28; Wilkinson 2003, 114, 194. ↩︎

2. Similar iconography: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Mandulis#/media/File:Egypte_Mandulis.JPG. ↩︎