Mnevis

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Mer-who in hieroglyphics
mostly
U7
D21 		G36
D21 		E1

Mer-who
Mr-wr
Greek Mnevis

Mnevis ( ancient Greek ), ancient Egyptian : Mer-wer , is the ancient Egyptian bull of Heliopolis , as which it is documented since the pyramid texts of the Old Kingdom . However, the name "Mer-wer" has only been attested since the New Kingdom .

presentation

In Egyptian representations, as according to ancient sources, Mnevis appears as a black bull with a strong neck and larger than average testicles. It often wears the sun disk between its horns . Other images also show Mnevis as a man with a beef head.

In mythology

Mnevis was considered a sun bull and was close to the deities worshiped in Heliopolis. He was the Herald of Re and associated with Atum , to whom he lets truth rise . In some texts he is identified with this and Atum himself is referred to as the bull of Heliopolis . In the New Kingdom, the goddess Hesat was his mother.

Cult and cult places

A living bull was worshiped in Heliopolis. If he died, he was buried and another bull was chosen. In addition, a fetish, in this case a pole with a bull's head, was worshiped as a mnevis. Burials of the Mnevis bulls have been archaeologically documented since the reign of Ramses II . The burial place of the Mnevis bulls was north of Heliopolis. In Greco-Roman times he found worship in Dendera . He was also mentioned in so-called "Zauberpapyri" and until the 5th century AD his name was mentioned in magic spells in Italy.

Since Mnevis was close to the sun god Re, he was also venerated during the reign of Akhenaten , who built a tomb for him in Akhet-Aton in the “royal valley” there. The cult of Mnevis is in many ways related to the cult of Apis in Memphis .

See also

literature

  • Hans Bonnet : Mnevis. In: Hans Bonnet: Lexicon of the Egyptian religious history. 3rd unchanged edition, Nikol, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-937872-08-6 , pp. 468-470.
  • Martin Fitzenreiter (ed.): Animal cults in Pharaonic Egypt and in a cultural comparison (= Internet contributions to Egyptology and Sudan archeology. IBAES. Vol. 4). Golden House Publications, London 2005, ISBN 0-9550256-2-1 .
  • Bulls, holy ones. In: Wolfgang Helck , Eberhard Otto : Small Lexicon of Egyptology. 4th, revised edition, Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1999, ISBN 3-447-04027-0 , p. 298 f.
  • Erik Hornung : The One and the Many. Egyptian ideas of God. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1971, ISBN 0-3-534-05051- , pp. 34-40, 276.
  • Mohamed Moursi: Corpus of the Mnevis steles and studies on the cult of the Mnevis bulls in Heliopolis. In: Studies on Ancient Egyptian Culture . Vol. 10, 1983, pp. 247-267.
  • Eberhard Otto : Contributions to the history of bull cults in Egypt (= studies on the history and antiquity of Egypt. Bd. 13, ZDB -ID 502520-5 ). Hinrichs Verlag, Leipzig 1938, pp. 34-40 (at the same time: Göttingen, University, dissertation, 1937).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hans Bonnet: Lexicon of the Egyptian religious history. 2000, p. 469.