Amunet

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For the Stargate character, see Amonet (Stargate).

Amunet
in hieroglyphs

In Egyptian mythology, Amunet (also spelled Amonet, Amaunet, Amentet, Amentit, Imentet, Imentit, and Ament) was the female form of the originally androgynous god Amun. Amun/Amunet originally was the deification of the primordial concept of air, in the Ogdoad cosmogony, Amun's name meaning (one who) is hidden, and Amunet's simply being the female form. Like all females in the Ogdoad, Amunet was depicted either as a snake or as a snake-headed woman. This is a significant fact because the female Goddesses in the Ogdoad were generally depicted with the head of a frog. She is depicted with the head of a snake because of her androgynous nature.

When Amun became regarded with greater importance, and his identity increasingly overlapped with that of Atum, Amaunet, as his female form, became increasingly identified with Iusaaset, Atum's shadow. By becoming identified as Iusaaset, Amaunet was regarded as the mother of creation, and was seen as owning the tree from which life emerged, an acacia tree said to reside on the desert's edge. The androgeneity of Amun/Amaunet lead to Amaunet being said to be the mother who is father, implying that she is a creator Goddess, needing no male half to procreate. The name hidden one was also sometimes used to refer to the underworld, and so Amaunet grew increasingly associated with providing a welcome to the newly dead, since the tree she was associated with was said to be near Heliopolis, the place that bread was provided for the surrounding population, during winter.

As Amun was increasingly identified as a significant god, rather than mere concept, so Amaunet became increasingly identified as a distinct female goddess, eventually being said to be Amun's wife. As Amaunet still was the goddess of air, she was sometimes depicted as a winged goddess, or as a woman with a hawk, or ostrich feather, on her head. She is also depicted with one of the hieroglyphs for the concept "West" on her head, which the hawk and/or ostrich feather rest. Her name actually means "She of the West", as she is regarded as a personification of the direction West. When she was later displaced as Amun's consort by Mut, she was said, as representing the air, to have become the lesbian consort of Iabet, the moon itself, and was depicted as such on tombs, coffins, and sarcophaguses.