AMON-RA
It is among the rich decorations of a mummy's coffin, forming part of the Royal Egyptian Museum of Turin, that we found the divinity represented on this plate. The insignia which surmount his headdress, a sort of vase flanked by two green ostrich feathers, the goat's horns surmounted by the disk, and two uraeus, were, as we shall see later, common to several Egyptian divinities; the characteristic feature of this sacred image consists in the four ram's heads, two of which are turned to the right, and the other two to the left. The blue headdress which is supposed to cover them, here takes a very particular form. The body of the god, who holds in his hands the scepter of benevolence and the emblem of life, is entirely green in colour, and the hieroglyphic inscription ⲁⲙⲛ-ⲣⲏ ⲛⲏⲃ (ⲛ) ⲧⲡⲉ Amon-Ra lord of heaven , tells us that this singular image relates to the greatest of the divinities of Egypt.
This four-headed Amon of rams is found to be reproduced on monuments of various kinds. It is sculpted on the chest of the Egyptian Torso of the Borgia Museum, a fragment of a statue of the finest workmanship and of great interest, since it is covered with a host of full-length images of Egyptian divinities, most of them accompanied by explanatory captions. The god Amon is represented seated, holding the sceptres of instigator and moderator, in the middle of a disk supported by raised arms , symbol of supplication and offerings : four wings starting from the shoulders of the god bring this image closer to that of Amon-Ra Panthea , published in our plate 5.
This image is still recognized on a particular type of funerary monuments that we have called hypocephali , because they are often placed under the heads of human mummies. These are disks, either in bronze or in canvas cartonnage, engraved or painted, and covered with symbolic paintings accompanied by legends. Amon with four ram's heads seated, and holding the two scepters already indicated, always occupies the center. The emblematic scenes with which these hypocephali are covered, are all relative to religious cosmography; by their form, these8monuments recall that of the material world; and the place of the great cosmogonic being from which everything proceeded was naturally marked at the very center of this symbolic composition.
It remains to go back to the hidden meaning of the four ram's heads which characterize this form of Amon-Ra; and the monuments fully satisfy us in this regard.
In Egyptian texts, in sacred writing, the ram is very frequently used in place of the bird with a human head , and of a bird of the class of waders, quite similar to the crane . These three characters express the general idea soul or spirit ; but each of them presents this idea with a particular nuance: the RAM designates a divine soul or spirit of the first order ; the CRANE a divine soul in tranquility , and the HUMAN-HEADED BIRD , a human soul, united to the body or which has been separated from it ; these three symbolic characters are then accompanied by the image of a censer , which is either the letter Β , initial of the word BAI , which, according to Horapollo, meant soul in the Egyptian language, or the emblem of the adoration and respect which these divine essences deserve. Finally, the divinities considered as the soul or the guiding spirit of the universe, or of one of its subdivisions, are always represented with a ram's head. The four heads of this animal, which the image of Amon-Ra bears, therefore present to us this god as uniting in himself the four principal souls or spirits which govern the world.
This conclusion, drawn from general facts, is clearly confirmed by the irrefutable authority of the monuments. The circular zodiac of Dendera shows us, in fact, in the lower band, that which represents the thirty-six decans, four ram's heads grouped and surmounted by the disk supported by two horns: it is the image of the second decan of Pisces; the little legend which surmounts it simply signifies the star or constellation of spirits or souls , and this decan is situated between the south and the east , the particular region of Amon-Chnouphis . The same legend is also read above the same decan, represented, like the Amon-Ra, engraved on our plate, by a man with four ram heads , on one of the astronomical tables , copied in the temples of Egypt: finally a bas-relief of the temple of Esné will teach us which are the four spirits represented by this symbolic image, which were supposed to be united in Ammon-Ra, of which each of them was only an emanation.
