AS: "One word: Khnum."



Khnum is a name


What do we know about Khnum (xnmw) and his role in the afterlife beliefs of the Horus Medjedju from Dyn 4?


I don't know, do you?


Khufu was a traditional Horus king - the living embodiment of the god Horus, his Horus name adopted at his accession and subsequently used throughout his reign. Khufu's Horus name was Horus Medjedju (Hrw mDdw), "used, for example, on royal decrees and in formal rock inscriptions in preference to the other names." (Strudwick 2005: 14)

An estate that served the royal funerary cult was named: 'Established is Khufu on the throne of Horus' (mn xwfw Hrw st Hrw). The name of this estate clearly identifies Khufu as a traditional Horus king.

Khafkhufu was a priest of 'Horus, strong of arm' (Hrw qmA) or 'Horus with a raised arm'

A son of Khufu, Hordedef (Hrw-dd=f), who was later renowned as a sage, has Horus (Hrw) incorporated into his name. His mastaba tomb (G 7210 - 7220) is next to the tomb of Khufu's eldest son, Kawab in the first row of double mastaba tombs in the Eastern Cemetery.


Khufu's full birth name however, was Khnum-Khufu, which means the names of Khufu, Khnum-Khufu, Khnum, and Khufu are found at Giza - mason's marks, seals etc. - as Khufu's funerary complex was at Giza, that's not surprising.


So Khnum was incorporated into the birth name of Khufu - anything else?



Dyn 5

A scene of Sahura standing before Nekhbet and Khnum - a text above Khnum reads: "he who dwells in the 'House of protection' the lord of Her-wer (Antinoe), he who dwells in the cataract city, lord of the house of Khnum."
between both deities: "May all protection and life be around (literally behind) him, may he be healthy for ever."


'He who dwells in the cataract city' is interesting. Red granite was a prestigious stone used for example in Khufu's sarcophagus chamber - it was difficult to work, and came from a considerable distance away - from Abw, ancient Egypt’s southern border town - Khnum's neck of the woods. The stone blocks were probably cut from the huge boulders found on the banks of the cataract - so here we have some kind of connection with Khnum, the life giving waters of the river, and Khufu's sarcophagus and chamber.



What do we know about Khnum from the PTs:

Khnum made a jqht.
He built the king
He was one of the two pillars in the Big Enclosure at Iunu.
He made boats - one of his boats was in the Winding Canal and another in the Canal of the Goose.
One Dyn 6 king, Pepi I, was Khnum's son
Khnum made a ladder for the king. One of the ladders was called 'Shape of Contentment'.
Perhaps he made another ladder on the back of Osiris called 'Salve of Contentment' so that Unis could climb up to the sky and escort the Sun in the sky.

All very facinating.

So Khnum is your key "one word" evidence that the shafts were "engineered to direct the cosmic waters of the Abyss, via the Winding Waterway, into the elevated burial chamber of Khufu, as a mandatory element of his rebirth into the netherworld and his daily resurrection as Re, the sun god"?


CT