Heryshaf
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In Egyptian mythology, Heryshaf, or Hershef ( "He who is on His Lake"), transcribed in Greek as Harsaphes or Arsaphes () was an ancient ram deity whose cult was centered in ancient Heracleopolis Magna. He was identified with Ra and Osiris in ancient Egyptian religion, as well as Dionysus or Heracles in the interpretatio graeca. The identification with Heracles may be related to the fact that in later times his name was sometimes reanalysed as ḥrj-šf.t "He who is over strength". One of his titles was "Ruler of the Riverbanks". Heryshaf was a creator and fertility god who was born from the primo
Key facts
- Deity.type
- Egyptian
- Deity.name
- Heryshaf
- Deity.image
- File:Heryshaf.svg
- Deity.caption
- Heryshaf
- Deity.hiero
- Hr:Z1-S:Z1*N21-f
- Deity.cult_center
- Heracleopolis Magna
- Deity.Greek_equivalent
- HeraclesDionysos
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Image
- Heryshaf.svg
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- Commons category
- Heryshaf
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Article
4 sectionsContents
- Temple at Heracleopolis Magna
- High Priests of Heryshaf
- References
- External links
In Egyptian mythology, Heryshaf, or Hershef ( "He who is on His Lake"), transcribed in Greek as Harsaphes or Arsaphes () was an ancient ram deity whose cult was centered in ancient Heracleopolis Magna. He was identified with Ra and Osiris in ancient Egyptian religion, as well as Dionysus or Heracles in the interpretatio graeca. The identification with Heracles may be related to the fact that in later times his name was sometimes reanalysed as ḥrj-šf.t "He who is over strength". One of his titles was "Ruler of the Riverbanks". Heryshaf was a creator and fertility god who was born from the primordial waters. He was pictured as a ram or a man with a ram's head.
==Temple at Heracleopolis Magna== The site goes back to the Early Dynastic Period or the Old Kingdom of Egypt. The precise founding date of Herakleopolis is not known, but an entry on the Palermo Stone reporting king Den's visit to the sacred lake of Heryshef at Nenj-neswt, suggests that the town had already been founded by the 1st Dynasty. The site was called nn-nswt in Demotic which was pronounced ǝhnes in Coptic, Heracleopolis (Magna) during the Hellenistic period and the Roman Empire and Ihnasiyya in Egyptian Arabic.