Maahes (also spelled in Greek: Maches, Michos, Miysis, Mios, and Maeches) (

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

: Μαχές, Μιχός, Μίυσις, Μίος, or Μάιχες) was an ancient

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 ...

ian

lion The lion (''Panthera leo'') is a large Felidae, cat of the genus ''Panthera'', native to Sub-Saharan Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body (biology), body; a short, rounded head; round ears; and a dark, hairy tuft at the ...

-headed

god In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

of war, whose name means "he who is true beside her". He was seen as the son of the Creator god Ptah, as well as the feline goddess ( Bast in

Lower Egypt Lower Egypt ( ') is the northernmost region of Egypt, which consists of the fertile Nile Delta between Upper Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, from El Aiyat, south of modern-day Cairo, and Dahshur. Historically, the Nile River split into sev ...

Sekhmet In Egyptian mythology, Sekhmet ( or Sachmis , from ; ) is a warrior goddess as well as goddess of medicine. Sekhmet is also a solar deity, sometimes given the epithet "the Eye of Ra, eye of Ra". She is often associated with the goddesses Hatho ...

Upper Egypt Upper Egypt ( ', shortened to , , locally: ) is the southern portion of Egypt and is composed of the Nile River valley south of the delta and the 30th parallel North. It thus consists of the entire Nile River valley from Cairo south to Lake N ...

) whose nature he shared. Maahes was a deity associated with war, protection, and

weather Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloud cover, cloudy. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmo ...

, as well as that of knives, lotuses, and devouring captives. His cult was centred in Taremu and Per-Bast, the cult centres of Sekhmet and Bast respectively.

Name

The name of Maahes begins with the hieroglyphs for the male ''lion'', although in isolation it also means ''(one who can) see in front''. Some of the titles of Maahes were ''Lord of Slaughter'', ''Wielder of the Knife'', and ''The Scarlet Lord''.

Origin

The first recorded reference to Maahes is from the New Kingdom. Some Egyptologists have suggested that Maahes was of foreign origin; indeed there is some evidence that he may have been identical with the lion-god Apedemak worshipped in

Nubia Nubia (, Nobiin language, Nobiin: , ) is a region along the Nile river encompassing the area between the confluence of the Blue Nile, Blue and White Nile, White Niles (in Khartoum in central Sudan), and the Cataracts of the Nile, first cataract ...

and Egypt's Western Desert. Maahes was considered the son of Ra with the feline goddess Bastet, or of another feline goddess,

. He was sometimes identified with another son of Sekhmet, Nefertum. Maahes was said to fight Ra's archenemy, the serpent

Apep Apophis (; ), also known as Apep () or Aphoph (, ) Erman, Adolf, and Hermann Grapow, eds. 1926–1953. ''Wörterbuch der aegyptischen Sprache im Auftrage der deutschen Akademien''. 6 vols. Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs'schen Buchhandlungen. (Re ...

, during Ra's nightly voyage.Wilkinson, Richard H. (2003). ''The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt''. Thames & Hudson. pp. 178–179 Considered to have powerful attributes, feline deities were associated with the

pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian language, Egyptian: ''wikt:pr ꜥꜣ, pr ꜥꜣ''; Meroitic language, Meroitic: 𐦲𐦤𐦧, ; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') was the title of the monarch of ancient Egypt from the First Dynasty of Egypt, First Dynasty ( ...

s, and became patrons of Egypt. The male lion

hieroglyph Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs ( ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined ideographic, logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 1,000 distinct characters. ...

was used in words such as "prince", "mashead", "strength", and "power".

Depictions

Maahes was pictured as a man with the head of a male lion, sometimes holding a knife and a bouquet of lotus flowers, referring to his connection with Nefertum, who was symbolized by the lotus.

Sacred animals

Tame lions were kept in a temple dedicated to Maahes in Taremu, where Bast/Sekhmet were worshipped, his temple was adjacent to that of Bast. The ancient Greek historian Aelian wrote: ''"In Egypt, they worship lions, and there is a city called after them. (...) The lions have temples and numerous spaces in which to roam; the flesh of oxen is supplied to them daily (...) and the lions eat to the accompaniment of song in the Egyptian language"'', thus the Greek name of the city '' Leontopolis'' was derived.

References

External links