Note 133 — Chapter XVIII · DISCOVERIES AT ABOU SIMBEL.

Amen of the blue complexion is the most ancient type of this god. Here he represents divine royalty, in which character his title is: “Lord of the Heaven, of the earth, of the waters and of the mountains.” “Dans ce rôle de roi du monde, Amon a les chairs peintes en bleu pour indiquer sa nature céleste; et lorsqu’il porte le titre de Seigneur des Trônes, il est représenté assis, la couronne en tête: d’ordinaire il est debout.”—“Étude des Monuments de Karnak.” De Rougé. “Mélanges d’Archeologie,” vol. i, 1873.

There were almost as many varieties of Amen in Egypt as there are varieties of the Madonna in Italy or Spain. There was an Amen of Thebes, an Amen of Elephantine, an Amen of Coptos, an Amen of Chemmis (Panopolis), an Amen of the Resurrection, Amen of the Dew, Amen of the Sun (Amen-Ra), Amen Self-created, etc. Amen and Khem were doubtless identical. It is an interesting fact that our English words, chemical, chemist, chemistry, etc., which the dictionaries derive from the Arabic al-kimia, may be traced back a step farther to the Panopolitan name of this most ancient god of the Egyptians, Khem (Gr. Pan; Latin, Priapus), the deity of plants and herbs and of the creative principle. A cultivated Egyptian would, doubtless, have regarded all these Amens as merely local or symbolical types of a single deity.