Khons

Moon-god, whose name means ‘wanderer’, typically represented as a mummiform human figure (occasionally hawk-headed) holding

Votive stele, the upper register of which depicts a seated figure of the god Khons receiving a libation and offerings. IHih Dynasty, c.1550- 1295 nc, limestone, //. 3H. t an. (kiI297)

Sceptre and Hail and wearing the. stDEi. otx of vou rii with a headdress consisting of a horizontal crescent moon surmounted by a full moon. Like riioiTi (another lunar deity), he was also portrayed as a (A nocepiiai. u.s baboon. He appears to have originally been associated with childbirth, and in the Theban region he was considered to be the son of amun and MU'i. In the 20th Dyna. sty (1186-1069 uu) a temple of Khons was built within the precincts of the temple of Amun at k arnar. At KO. M OMBO, however, he was regarded as the son of the deities. sober and hahior.

One manifestarion of’Khons, known as ‘the provider’, was credited with the ability to drive out evil spirits. The Bentresh Stele (now in the Louvre) is an inscription composed in the fourth century isc bur purporting to dale to the reign of Rameses n (1279-1213 bc;). It claims that the pharaoh sent a statue of Khons to a Syrian ruler in order to facilitate the cure of an ailing foreign princess called Bentresh.

P. Di:rc;i I i, ‘Mythes et dieux lunaires en

Soiin'es' i/n'eiiUili’s S: La liuie, mythexet /7/« (Paris, 1962), 19-68.

G.  Posi'iNiCR, ‘Une reinterpretation tardive du nom du dieu Khonsou’, Z. iS 93 (1966), 115-19.

H.  Brun. n'ER, ‘Chons’, Lexikmi dcr Agyplologie i, cd. W. Helck, L. Otto and W. Westendorf (Wiesbaden, 1975), 960-3.

Khufu (Cheops) (2589-2566 nc)

Second ruler of the 4th Dvnastv, whose name is an abbreviation of the phrase Khmim-kiiefiii (‘kJi. NLM protects me’), lie was the son of. sm;-FKkU (2613-2589 nc) and the builder of the Great Pyramid at giza. His own burial chamber was found to contain only an empty sarcophagus, but part of the funerary equipment of his mother, iii;Tt;mi;Ri;.s i, survived in a MASTABA tomb near his pyramid. Despite the fame of his funerary complex, the only surviv-

Ivnry slutuette of Khufu, iphoxc Horns name is imeribed on ihc right side of the throne; his cartouche, inscribed on the other side, is partly broken. This is the only surviving representation of the builder of the Great Pyramid at Giza. 4th Dynasty, c.2570 tic, from Abydos, ii. 7.5 cm (CAIRO jr3()l43)

Ing complete I'cpresentation of Khufu himself is a small ivory statuette of a ruler wearing the red crown of Lower Lgypt and seated on a throne carved with Khufu’s ITorus-name, which was excavated from the temple of Khentimentiu at.-VBVDOS by Flinders Petrie, and is now in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. Several rock-car ed texts at remote quarrying sites such as iiatnub and Wadi Ahighara suggest that his reign, not unexpectedly, was marked by considerable quarrying and mining activii).

In later tradition he was reputed to have been a tyrannical ruler, although these traditions cannot be substantiated by contemporary evidence and perhaps relate simply to the imposing scale of his pvramid.

W M. F. Pr. i Rir:, _ ii (London, 1903), 30, pis 13-14,

Z. II. vw Ass, ‘The Khufu statuette: is it an Old Kingdom sculpture?’, Melanges Gamal Moukhtar ((Cairo, 1985), 379-94.

I. E. S. F. DWAitDs, The pyramids of Egypt, 5th ed. (Harmondsworth, 1993), 98-121.

Khyan (Seuserenra, r. l600 oc;)

A 15th-Dynasty hyk. sos ruler of Lower Egypt, whose ‘throne name’ was Seuserenra. Unlike the other TTyksos pharaohs, who commissioned very few architectural or sculptural monuments, Khyan was responsible for the decoration of religious structures at GKBKLEIN (along with his successor Aauserra apkpi) and Bubastis ('nii. i. b. asta). 7’he international inlluence of Khyan is perhaps indicated bv the discovery of a number of objects bearing his name at sites outside Egypt, including scarabs and seal impressions in the Levant, a travertine vase lid at Knossos, i)arl of an obsidian vessel at the 1 littite capital of llaltusas (Boghazkoy). Although the two latter items were presumably prestige gifts or trade goods, it is possible that the seals indicate a degree of Hyksos control over southern Palestine. The granite lion bearing Khyan’s name that was found built into a house wall at Baghdad and is now in the collection of the British Museum is usually assumed to have been removed from Egypt some time after the Hyksos period.

R. Givhon, ‘A scaling of Khyan from the Shephela of southern Palestine’, J’6',4 51 (1965), 202-4,

W, C. 11 WES, ‘Egypt from the death of. Ammenemes in to Seqenenre ir’, Cambridge Ancient History ii/1, cd. I. E. S. Edwards ct al.,

3rd ed. (Cambridge, 1973), 42-76.