Note 44 — Chapter IX · THEBES TO ASSUAN.

Knum was one of the primordial gods of the Egyptian cosmogony; the divine potter; he who fashioned man from the clay and breathed into him the breath of life. He is sometimes represented in the act of fashioning the first man, or that mysterious egg from which not only man but the universe proceeded, by means of the ordinary potter’s wheel. Sometimes also he is depicted in his boat, moving upon the face of the waters at the dawn of creation. About the time of the twentieth dynasty, Knum became identified with Ra. He also was identified with Amen, and was worshiped in the great oasis in the Greek period as Amen-Knum. He is likewise known as “The Soul of the Gods,” and in this character, as well as in his solar character, he is represented with the head of a ram, or in the form of a ram. Another of his titles is “The Maker of Gods and Men.” Knum was also one of the gods of the cataract, and chief of the Triad worshipped at Elephantine. An inscription at Philæ styles him “Maker of all that is, Creator of all beings, First existent, the Father of fathers, the Mother of mothers.”