Worship

Although Min was venerated throughout Egypt, two cities were particularly associated with the god. The oldest site is that called by the Greeks Coptos and the Egyptians Gebtu (the modern Qift, between Qena and Luxor) at the western end of the Wadi Hammamat which led to the mining regions of the eastern desert - and hence represented Min’s role as a tutelary deity of that area. The original god of

Gebtu may have been the ithyphallic Rahes who is called ‘regent of the land of the South’ in the Pyramid Texts, and it was this god that was represented with Min in falcon form on the 5th Upper Egyptian nome sign, though the creatures were later identified as Horus and Min. Archaeological evidence of the worship of Min dating to the Middle Kingdom has been found at Coptos as well as in the foundation deposits of a New Kingdom temple, though the surviving ruins are of Graeco-Roman date. The other major site associated with Min was Khent-Min or ‘Shrine of Min’ which the Greeks called Panopolis (the modern Akhmim, near Sohag), and the emblem of the nome standard in this area was the Min emblem itself. Khent-Min was the home of the high priest of Min Yuya, who was the father-in-law of Amenophis III and father of Tutankhamun’s successor Ay, who built a rock-cut chapel to the god in that area. Min’s role as a god of fertility was of understandable importance in an agriculturally dependent area such as ancient Egypt, so we find scenes such as a relief of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu where the king is

¦n cutting wheat before Min; and the god’s If festival, ‘the coming forth of Min’, which was brated at the beginning of the harvest season, ainong the most important religious-cultural festivals in Egypt. Amulets of Min .rfrom an unusually early date with one in gold known from a 12th-dynasty burial at Abydos. amulets of the god date to the Late Period, ‘ver, and may have been utilized by men for the of the god’s procreative powers.