The book in question is “Gods, Goddesses, and Mythology”, vol.4, by C. Scott Littleton.
abele’s cite is a one line definition from a big list of names:
Ok, I think I see where the confusion is coming from. The first part of this quote is incorrect on its face. The ram-headed guy was originally Khnum, as I cited above, but Khnum got mashed up with a bunch of other gods. It’s complicated. The second part of that quote about Atum being a sun god is true, for the later dynasty periods, but … it’s complicated.
The Short Answer:
Atum was not specifically associated with rams. When Atum got rolled into Re’s cult, as Atum-Re, he took on aspects of Re. Re was not originally associated with rams but when Re got rolled into Amun’s cult, he took up the ram associations of Amun. Amun, incidentally, was not originally associated with rams either, but he borrowed that aspect when his cult rolled over Khnum’s cult.
The confusion with Atum as a a ram comes his Old Kingdom mashup with Re, followed by Re taking on the ram form following his (Re’s) mashup with Amun in the New Kingdom and later periods. But it’s no more correct to say that the ram is a symbol of Atum than it is to call it a symbol of Osiris, since by the post-New Kingdom images of ramheaded scarabs, Atum was really, standing in for Osiris (while still also representing the solar god, Amun-Re).
The Longer Answer:
Originally, there were something like 1500 Egyptian gods. Over time, as the political fortunes of Egypt evolved, and the Egyptian people came to think of themselves as as one nation, they syncretised their gods down to a more managable number. By the late dynastic period, when the images of the ram headed sun god were prominent, Amun-Re had become almost a monotheistic god with the other gods seen as aspects of himself. I say almost because a similar process had been happening on the female side and Isis emerged as the catch-all mother goddess figure. (Interestingly, over the next millenia as the New Kingdom collapsed and Egypt is conquered by the Greeks & Romans, Isis would continue to gain in prominence while Amun sort of faded. But then Isis is a very ancient god, associated in New Kingdom times with the even more ancient Hathor, where as Amun was specifically connected to the New Kingdom itself.)
Atum, a pre-dynastic creator god, came, in the Old Kingdom, to be associated with Re, the sun god, also a creator. Re and Atum became conflated, giving Atum aspects of the solar god - specifically the god of the afternoon sun (and not incidentally, strengthening Re’s position as the main sun god.)
Atum continued to operate as genetive force of the pharoahs and as such was depicted as a human. He also became associated with the solar bull, Mnevis, and was depicted as a black bull with the sun between his horns, carrying the sun across the sky. The solar bull image eventually was replaced by a solar barque, with the Sun god floating serenly throught he heavens.
Re also became conflated with Khepri, an ancient solar/creator god based on the scarab. And he rolled over the Horus cult, becoming as Re-Horakhte, the Lord of the Two Horizons (ie, the lord of all the falcon/sun disk could see.)
Meanwhile, Osiris, who will figure in our story later, was the lord of the underworld. The original funereal texts, the Pyramid texts, only allowed pharoahs to reach the afterlife. In the earliest texts, there’s a dialog between Atum & Osiris, in which Atum talks about how he created everything and one day he will un create it, leaving only himself and Osiris as eternal beings. (It’s not a threat, it’s just, like with Shiva, part of the job). The Pyramid texts were supplanted by the Middle Kingdom Coffin Texts, by which time everyone who could afford a coffin could hope to attain the afterlife. More about Osiris and funereal texts later.
Also meanwhile, Khnum was a creator of another kind - he was the lord of the Nile and it’s fertile mud, but Khnum faded in importance, ending up as the Chief Potter, patron of clay workers.
Amun was originally just the patron god of the city of Thebes, but when the Theban dynasties chased out the Hyksos invaders and founded the New Kingdom, Amon took on national importance.
Amun and Khnum became conflated, giving Amun the association with rams (because the word of ‘ram’ sounded like the word for ‘ba’, Khnum was depicted as the ba of Amun). Also, not incidentally, this gave Amun an opportunity to claim to be a creator god himself. (Amun is kind of boring, originally, the patron god of the city of Memphis and “The Hidden One”, an air god who makes the breezes go.)
In the New Kingdom, Amon and Re became conflated, with Amon taking on aspects of Re and Khnum (among others.) And remember, Re is also Atum, Horus & Khepri.
Atum = a man dressed like pharoah, or a serpent, or solar bull,
Khnum = ram
Re = the noon sun and the sun in general
Khepri = scarab, the morning sun
Horus = falcon, the sun god
Amun = 2 vertical plumes,
Re + Horus = Ra harakhty, the lord of the two horizons (ie the daytime sky)
Re + Atum = Atum-Re, a solar / creation god in general, specifically, an elderly figure representing the afternoon sun
Re+Atum+Khepri = the whole power of the sun, a man with a scarab where his head should be.
Khepri + Atum = scarab with a ram’s head, the rising sun and setting sun, ie, the power of all of existence. Ram’s Head scarab amulets were popular in the very late post-dynastic times.
Amun + Khnum = a ramheaded god with twin plumes
Amon + Re = any of the above, but in the new kingdom, a ramheaded solar god
The point I’m trying to get to here - if it’s the New Kingdom, and you’re looking at a ram-headed solar god, you’re looking at Amun-Re - that is, Amun’s aspect Re, wearing the face Amun borrowed from Khnum, and sometimes the body of a scarab which Re borrowed from Khepri.
By the time the late New Kingdom god of Amun-Re had become powerful … and I haven’t talked about it, but just to be clear, the rising fortunes and mashups of the gods is in no small part due to the changing political scene over the course of millenia. There was a brief interlude in here where the Pharoah Akhenaten tossed out all the gods and worshiped just one god, the Aten, the sundisk. Akhenaten acknowledged all the other gods as being merely aspects of the Aten, and considered the Aten alone worhty of worship. This period of religious upheaval caused massive political problems for the adherents of the powerful and wealthy Amun cult. When Akhenaten died, the Amun cult got hold of his yound heir, Tutankhaten, and his bride, Akhenaten’s daughter Ankhsenpaaten, and forced them to switch back to the Amun cult, ruling as Tutankhamun and Ankhsenamun. From that point on, the Amun cult increasingly maneuvered Amun into the same position as Aten had been placed in. They stepped up efforts to syncretized all the other gods into being aspects of Amun and Amun increasingly was looked on as an almost monotheistic figure.
Which bring us back to the Osiris. Amun-Re was the solar god, with all the aspects of everyone Amun and Re had acquired for themselves. But these aspects were about the living world. Osiris had remained firmly in control of the Underworld. That was about to change.
A new set of funereal texts were prepared for the late New Kingdom era. These texts, called the Book of Gates and the later Book of Caverns, declared that when the solar god disappeared for the night, he was travelling through the underworld. The sun god’s journey through the underworld each night was metaphorically the journey a soul took through the afterworld before arriving safely at the blessed final destination (called Duat).
In these texts, the sun god is represented as a ramheaded figure with the solar disk between his horns. The sun god, is, you recall, Amun-Re. The ramheaded figure is shown being pulled on his solar barque through the underworld. Atum is specifically represented in these texts as a pharonic fighting off the serpent Apep or lecturing other gods about protecting the sun god from demons. The story of the Gates and Caverns texts is that when the sun god travels in the underworld, he becomes the underworld god. Then in the morning, he’s reborn as the sun god. In the Book of Gates and the Book of the Caverns, Amun-Re becomes Osiris and then becomes Amun-Re again.
It’s an elegant solution and fits in nicely both with the solar god’s journey and Osiris’s death & resurrection story.
It’s not entierly incorrect to identify Atum with the ramheaded solar god - but he’s that only because of his association with Re, and Re’s association with Amun. As you’ll recall, Atum was specifically identified with the aspect of the settting sun and protrayed as an eldery man while Khepri, the scarab, was the aspect of the rising sun. Gradually, as the solar-god/underworld god identity gain popularity, figures began appearing which combined the ramheaded solar god of Amun-Re with the scarab.
There’s an image in the Cavern texts where it shows the evolution of the solar god as he goes through the hours of the day, from the ramheaded figure on the boat through human form, the falcon form, then scarab, then a fetal form as the sun is about to be reborn. Also, from the post-New Kingdom era, ramheaded scarab amulets are common. They’re short had for saying that all the power of all creation, living and dead, rising and setting, night and day, is found in this one figure.
Also, in the cavern texts, Atum’s ba is depicted - this is the ramheaded bird that abele’s cite mentions. It’s not a symbol for Atum at all, just a representation of his soul. Ba’s are always birds with a human head or a symbol of somesort showing who’s ba it is. Again, it’s natural to identify the setting sun symbol with the aspect of the setting sun of Re, but it’s overgeneralizing to refer to this as a normal representation of Atum.
As the aspect of the setting sun, it’s naturaly to identify Atum with the ramshead figure who appears in the underworld, but technically, he’s not. The ram’s head figure is Amun-Re appearing as Osiris in the underworld. It might be called Atum or Khepri or Re, but in the New Kingdom, that all equals Amun. Which is how the ram’s head gets stuck on a solar god.
If you want to look at this stuff, the osirisnet.net project is pretty cool. It’s got photos and 3d recreations of some of the best remaining tombs and monuments.
Tombs of Ancient Egypt
Here’s a close up of the section of the tomb of Nefertari - an important new kingdom queen.
http://www.osirisnet.net/tombes/pharaons/nefertari/e_nefertari_03.htm
If you scroll down, you’ll see the section for the left wall, showing Amun as a
Pharonic figure. Further down, in the section on the west wall (south) is an image of the ramsheaded solar god, identified as Re, mummified and with green flesh like dead Osiris.
Sidenote: In that image, Isis is on the right. She’s got a sort of throne like object on her head. Isis in later imagery came to wear the cow horns and sundisk of Hathor. But originally she represnted The Throne. Also, Pharoah is an Egyptian word meaning something like “great house” it was a metaphor, like we use Whitehouse or Downing Street, to refer to the occupant. Isis was literaly the Seat of Power in the Great House. Moving on.
Here’s another neat image from the tomb of Ramesses I - that’s Re in the barque. Beneath that is Atum himself, staving off the evil serpent Apep.
http://www.osirisnet.net/tombes/pharaons/ramses1/e_ramses_1_droite.htm (click on View 5)
Atum again, same link as above, view 30 - Atum is exhorting other deities to repel Apep.
And further down the page, Atum with Horus & Neith - view 40
In the end of the Book of gates, Atum is depicted as Atum-Re-Khephri, with a scarab head, - view 39
http://www.osirisnet.net/tombes/pharaons/ramses1/e_ramses_1_gauche.htm
(these are all in popups so I can’t link the images directly.
Click on the view link to see the image clearly. Really great photographs at this site.)
I actually have a longer version of this, with more cites and diversions, but I’m too exhausted to go on.
