ḫntj-jmntjw

Egyptian

Etymology

ḫntj (“foremost”) +‎ jmntjw (“westerners, i.e. the dead”), plural of jmntj (“western(er)”).

The word is first attested in the tombs of First Dynasty kings Den (dn) and Qaa (qꜣ-ꜥ), where it is associated with the dead kings. However, there is no certain evidence that it referred to a separate deity (rather than being an epithet for other deities) until the second half of the Fifth Dynasty.

Pronunciation

(modern Egyptological) IPA^(key): /xɛnti imɛntiuː/
- Conventional anglicization: khenti-amentiu

Proper noun

m

Foremost of the Westerners, an epithet used for various gods of the dead such as Osiris and Anubis
Khentiamentiu, a god of the dead and patron god of the necropolis at Abydos

Alternative forms

Alternative hieroglyphic writings of ḫntj-jmntjw

ḫnt-jmntjw

References

Allen, James (2010) Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, revised second edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 92, 365
Smith, Mark (2017) Following Osiris: Perspectives on the Osirian Afterlife from Four Millenia, pages 65 et seq.

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