Lettuce garden
Lattichgarten (also lettuce plant ) is an ancient Egyptian term from ancient Egyptian mythology and describes a field of lettuce plants . Already in the Old Kingdom , the lettuce garden or the lettuce plant was the attribute of the deity Min, along with the god's shadow .
The lettuce plant contains a whitish milky sap with bitter substances that help the plant to defend itself against predators and pests. This symbolism was transferred to the deity Min, since Min, as the god of fertility, stood by the respective king in the context of the renewal celebrations .
As a further characteristic, the white milky sap symbolized Min's role as the breadwinner of the family and later merged as a new appearance with Amun-Re-Kamutef , Min-Amun , Min-Kamutef and Kamutef .
In the New Kingdom the processional trains stopped at the station temples where the traditional rites were performed. One of the cult objects in the course of the celebrations of the Min-Fest was the lettuce garden .
See also
literature
- Herbert Ricke : The Kamutef Shrine Hatshepsut and Thutmoses' III. in Karnak - report of an excavation in front of the mother temple district - . Swiss Institute for Egyptian Building Research and Antiquity, Cairo 1954