Unut

:"For the town in Armenia, see Hunut."Unut, alt. Wenut, is a prehistoric Egyptian goddess.

Origin and appearance

Originally, she had the form of a snake and was called "The swift one". She came from the fifteenth Upper Egyptian province and was worshipped with Thoth at its capital Hermopolis. Later she was depicted with a woman's body and a hare's head. [Erik Hornung, "Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many", Cornell University Press 1996, ISBN 0801483840, p.82] She was taken into the cult of Horus and later of Re.

Importance

Her name can be represented with five different hieroglyphs, but she appears rarely in literature and inscriptions. An exceptional sculpture of her has been found by American archaeologists and is probably the only one of its kind found so far. Her name was taken in to the highest royal position just once in the long Egyptian history. The only king bearing her name was Unas from dynasty five.

References