Amun
(also spelt Amon, Amoun, Amen, and rarely
Imenand, and spelt in Greek as Ammon,
and Hammon) was the name of a deity, in
Egyptian mythology, who gradually rose
to become one of the most important, before
disappearing back into the shadows. Originally,
he was simply nothing more than a deification
of the concept of air, and thus wind,
one of the four fundamental concepts held
to have composed the primordial universe,
in the Ogdoad cosmogeny, whose cult was
strongest in Heliopolis. His name reflects
this function, since it means the hidden
one, reflecting the invisibility of the
air, and of the wind. Like all other members
of the Ogdoad, his male aspect was usually
depicted as a frog, or frog-headed. Symbolically,
invisibility was represented by the colour
blue, since it was the colour of the sky,
seen through the air, and so this was
the colour usually given to Amun's image.
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