Kek is the deification of the concept of primordial darkness (') in the
ancient Egyptian Ogdoad cosmogony of
Hermopolis
Hermopolis ( grc, Ἑρμούπολις ''Hermoúpolis'' "the City of Hermes", also ''Hermopolis Magna'', ''Hermoû pólis megálẽ'', egy, ḫmnw , Egyptological pronunciation: "Khemenu"; cop, Ϣⲙⲟⲩⲛ ''Shmun''; ar, الأشموني ...
.
The Ogdoad consisted of four pairs of deities, four male gods paired with their female counterparts. Kek's female counterpart was Kauket. Kek and Kauket in some aspects also represent night and day, and were called "raiser up of the light" and the "raiser up of the night", respectively.
The name is written as ''kk'' or ''kkwy'' with a variant of the
sky hieroglyph in ligature with the
staff (
N2) associated with the word for "darkness" ''kkw''.
History
In the oldest representations, ''Kekui'' is given the
head of a serpent, and ''Kekuit'' the head of either a frog or a cat. In one scene, they are identified with
Ka and Kait; in this scene, Ka-Kekui has the head of a frog surmounted by a beetle and Kait-Kekuit has the head of a serpent surmounted by a disk.
In the
Greco-Roman period
The Greco-Roman civilization (; also Greco-Roman culture; spelled Graeco-Roman in the Commonwealth), as understood by modern scholars and writers, includes the geographical regions and countries that culturally—and so historically—were dir ...
, Kek's male form was depicted as a frog-headed man, and the female form as a serpent-headed woman, as were all four dualistic concepts in the
Ogdoad.
In popular culture
In relation to the
2016 United States presidential election
The 2016 United States presidential election was the 58th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. The Republican ticket of businessman Donald Trump and Indiana governor Mike Pence defeated the Democratic ticket ...
, individuals associated with online message boards, such as
4chan
4chan is an anonymous English-language imageboard website. Launched by Christopher "moot" Poole in October 2003, the site hosts boards dedicated to a wide variety of topics, from anime and manga to video games, cooking, weapons, television, ...
, noted a similarity between Kek and the character
Pepe the Frog
Pepe the Frog () is an Internet meme consisting of a green anthropomorphic frog with a humanoid body. Pepe originated in a 2005 comic by Matt Furie called ''Boy's Club''. It became an Internet meme when its popularity steadily grew across Myspa ...
. This, combined with the frequent use of the term "kek" as a popular Korean
onomatopoetic
Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', ''m ...
stand-in for the internet slang "
lol
LOL, or lol, is an initialism for laughing out loud and a popular element of Internet slang. It was first used almost exclusively on Usenet, but has since become widespread in other forms of computer-mediated communication and even face-to ...
", which was often paired with images of Pepe, resulted in a resurgence of interest in the ancient deity.
See also
*
Heqet
Heqet ( Egyptian ', also ' "Heqtit"), sometimes spelled Heket, is an Egyptian goddess of fertility, identified with Hathor, represented in the form of a frog.
To the Egyptians, the frog was an ancient symbol of fertility, related to the annu ...
*
Erebus
In Greek mythology, Erebus (; grc, Ἔρεβος, Érebos, "deep darkness, shadow".), or Erebos, is the personification of darkness and one of the primordial deities. Hesiod's ''Theogony'' identifies him as one of the first five beings in exis ...
References
External links
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{{Ancient Egyptian religion footer
Egyptian deities
Creator deities
Night deities
Darkness
Egyptian demons
Legendary amphibians
Personifications