AMON-GENERATOR, MENDES
The image of the god depicted in this plate is very numerous on the religious buildings of Thebes and the rest of Egypt. It occupies the sanctuary of Karnac, the most magnificent of the monuments of the ancient capital; the homage and adoration of which this image is the object, prove that it represents one of the greatest Egyptian divinities.
His flesh is blue in colour, and his headdress is surmounted by two long feathers painted in various colours, like that of the god Amon-Re (pl. 1.); a long strip escapes from this same headdress and hangs down to the feet of both divinities; and these similarities are completed by the resemblance of their hieroglyphic legends; that of the god who is the subject of this article, signifies, the god Amon (Ⲁⲙⲛ ⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ.) lord of the regions of the world , and differs from that of the Demiurge Amon-Râ or Amon-Re, only by the absence of the last syllable RA.
The plates numbered 1 and 4, therefore, offer the representation of one and the same divinity, Amon , Amen , Amoun or Ammon , considered from two different points of view. The Demiurge, the eternal Light, the first Being who brought to light the force of hidden causes, was called Amon-Ra or Amon-Rê ( Amon-Sun. ); and this first creator, the demiurgic spirit, proceeding to the generation of beings, was called Amon , and more particularly Mendes : this plate represents the generating Demiurge, characterized in a special way, and which allows no uncertainty.
Stephen of Byzantium speaks in these terms of the statue of the god that was worshipped at Panopolis: "There exists," he says, "a large simulacrum of the god,22 habens veretrum erectum . He holds in his right hand a whip to stimulate the Moon; this image is said to be that of Pan." This is an exact and very detailed description of the Ammon-Generator, shown on our plate.
We see here the image of the great divinity that the Greeks confused with their Pan , because the Egyptians had chosen for his emblem the goat, an animal which, according to Horapollo, was the symbol of generation and fertility. This sacred goat, nourished in one of the principal cities of Lower Egypt, bore the name of Mendes , which has also been attributed to the god himself.
Amon-Mendes , or the generating spirit of the Universe, was supposed to stimulate the Moon with the whip placed in his hand, because, according to Egyptian doctrine, the Moon god spread and disseminated in the air the germs of the generation of beings, and presided over the souls which were successively to communicate to them movement and life. Chapels of Amon-Generator , the Egyptian Pan, existed in all parts of Egypt, and the members of the priestly caste were first initiated into his mysteries.
The great monuments of Egypt offer very numerous bas-reliefs in which the kings of all periods are depicted presenting their wishes and their offerings to Amon-Generator ; at Medinet-Abou, for example, we see successively the Pharaoh Ramses-Mei-Amoun going in a palanquin to the temple of the God, accompanying on foot his statue carried by twenty-four priests, and, bringing it back to the temple, paying him homage with the first fruits of the harvest.
