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Amenkhau, justified

Fig. 1 - The god Amun – [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amun_mirror.svg)

Fig. 1 - The god Amun – Wikimedia Commons

The name of Amenkhau consists of two components. The first part of his name, Amen, refers to a god and is written with hieroglyphs that represent respectively a reed plant, a side view of a draughts-board and a (wavy) line, representing a line of water. Already appearing in the Old Kingdom as a minor god, Amen, or Amun, grew out to become one of the most important gods of ancient Egypt. R.H. Wilkinson, The complete Gods and Goddesses of ancient Egypt (London, 2003), 92. . Amun became especially popular during the New Kingdom, with a huge temple dedicated to him at Thebes and many smaller temples all over Egypt. At the end of the New Kingdom and throughout the Third Intermediate Period (1069-664 BC) (when this figurine was made) the priests of the Karnak temple, which was mainly dedicated to Amun, gained so much importance, they were in fact ruling over the South of the country. Amun was venerated as a creator god and a solar god, often in combination with another sun god called Re, creating the composite god Amun-Re (Fig. 1).

The second part of the name of Amenkhau consists of a sign representing the sound ‘kha’, which depicts the rising sun behind a hill. Behind this three strokes are visible, which indicate plurality. Therefore, we don’t read ‘kha’, but instead we read the plural of ‘kha’, which is ‘khau’. Like many ancient Egyptian names, the name of Amenkhau can be read as a full sentence. Translated, Amenkhau means ‘Amen has appeared’.

The last two signs of the inscription could be read as ‘maa-kheru’, which literally means ‘true of voice’, but is often translated by Egyptologists as ‘justified’. This is often added behind the name of the deceased, to indicate that the person has lived an honest life. The ancient Egyptians believed that after death, the soul of the deceased started a long journey with the afterlife as the end goal. One of the challenges the deceased has to face during this journey is a trial, during which the god of the underworld, Osiris, determines if the deceased has lived an honest life.