New Kingdom Faience Amulet of Khnum

This beautiful amulet is in the form of a statuette of the god Khnum. He is represented with a human body and the head of a ram. Khnum was a creator god who created individuals by forming them on his potter’s wheel. He is often shown creating the king and his ka (his double, or life force), especially in the eighteenth dynasty (ca. 1550-1070 B.C.) other Egyptian creation myths concerned the creation of the world, and people in general. Khnum, however, was concerned with the creation of the individual people. The various creation myths of ancient Egypt originated in various parts of the country before Egypt was united into one entity. The Egyptians kept all of them because they believed the more viewpoints that one could hold, the better that one could have an understanding of it. – (PF.4422)