Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu i ( Egyptian: ''ꜥnḫ-f-n-ḫnsw''), otherwise known as Ankh-af-na-Khonsu, was a

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...

of the ancient Egyptian god Montu who lived in Thebes during the 25th and 26th Dynasty (c. 725 BCE). He was the son of Bes-en-Mut I and Ta-neshet. Among practitioners of the Western esoteric tradition and religious philosophy of

Thelema Thelema () is a Western esotericism, Western esoteric and occult social or spiritual philosophy and a new religious movement founded in the early 1900s by Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), an English writer, mystic, occultist, and ceremonial ma ...

, founded by the English occultist and

ceremonial magic Ceremonial magic (also known as magick, ritual magic, high magic or learned magic) encompasses a wide variety of rituals of Magic (supernatural), magic. The works included are characterized by ceremony and numerous requisite accessories t ...

ian

Aleister Crowley Aleister Crowley ( ; born Edward Alexander Crowley; 12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947) was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, novelist, mountaineer, and painter. He founded the religion of Thelema, identifying himself as the pr ...

, he is best known under the name of ''Ankh-af-na-khonsu'' and as the dedicant of the Stele of Revealing, a wooden offering stele made to ensure his continued existence in the netherworld, now located in the

Egyptian Museum The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, commonly known as the Egyptian Museum (, Egyptian Arabic: ) (also called the Cairo Museum), located in Cairo, Egypt, houses the largest collection of Ancient Egypt, Egyptian antiquities in the world. It hou ...

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

Meaning of the name

The name Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu (''ꜥnḫ-f-n-ḫnsw'') translates as "He lives for Khonsu"; the name is particularly common during the Third Intermediate and Late Periods.

The Stele

The Stele of Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu (

A 9422, formerly

Bulaq Boulaq ( from "guard, customs post"), is a district of Cairo, in Egypt. It neighbours Downtown Cairo, Azbakeya, and the River Nile. History The westward shift of the Nile, especially between 1050 and 1350, made land available on its eastern si ...

666) is a painted, wooden offering

stele A stele ( ) or stela ( )The plural in English is sometimes stelai ( ) based on direct transliteration of the Greek, sometimes stelae or stelæ ( ) based on the inflection of Greek nouns in Latin, and sometimes anglicized to steles ( ) or stela ...

. The stele is a fairly typical example of a Theban offering stele from the late Third Intermediate Period, dating to the late 25th Dynasty/early 26th Dynasty. It was originally discovered in 1854 as part of a large burial of priests of Montu at Deir el-Bahari in

Luxor Luxor is a city in Upper Egypt. Luxor had a population of 263,109 in 2020, with an area of approximately and is the capital of the Luxor Governorate. It is among the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited c ...

, Ottoman Egypt, and included the coffin of the dedicant, Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu i. A translation of the text of the stela can be found at Stele of Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu.

In Thelema

used the "magical" name "Ankh-f-n-khonsu" (from the "Stele 666" translation prepared in 1904 for Crowley by the German Egyptologist Émile Brugsch) to sign " The Comment" of ''

The Book of the Law ''Liber AL vel Legis'' (), commonly known as ''The Book of the Law'', is the central sacred text of Thelema. The book is often referred to simply as ''Liber AL'', ''Liber Legis'' or just ''AL'', though technically the latter two refer only to ...

'', and also used it sometimes when referring to himself as the prophet of

and the Aeon of Horus. Kenneth Grant wrote that "Crowley claimed to have been a re-embodiment of the magical current represented by the priesthood to which Ankh-af-na-Khonsu belonged".Grant, Kenneth (1977). ''Nightside of Eden'', p. 133, n. 9. London: Frederick Muller Limited.

Notes

Sources

*Thelemapedia. (2004).
Ankh-af-na-khonsu
'. Retrieved April 14, 2006.

References

*Crowley, Aleister. ''