From The Alpha and the Omega - Volume III
by Jim A. Cornwell, Copyright © July 20, 2002, all rights reserved "Volume III - Gods/Goddesses of Ancient Egypt"

MIHOS (Maahes, Mahes, Gr. Miysis, Mysis)

To return to the Apep (Protected Re from), Bast (mother of Mihos), or List of Netjeru.

    Mihos or Maahes was the ancient Egyptian lion-god of war and a guardian and a lord of the horizon, due to his leonine form, lions were connected to the horizon by the Egyptian mind.
    He is portrayed as a man with the head of a lion, sometimes wearing the Atef crown (Upper Egypt) or the solar disk and uraeus on his head.
    He is sometimes portayed as a lion devouring as the one who attacks and mauls captive enemies.    Maahes was thought to be the guardian of magical rites and sacred places such as the door to the astral plane, and with his eye and hand guard the gates of night.    Since lions were bred in the god's temples, he was called "Wielder of the Knife," "The Scarlet Lord" referring to his bloody sacrifices, "Helper of the Wise Ones," "Lord of Slaughter," "Manifester of Will," "The Initiator," and "Avenger of Wrongs."
    The hieroglyph for a lion is .
    Thought to be the son of either Bast, called by the Greeks Miysis and Ptah at Per-Bast (Bubastis) or the son of Sekhmet and either Ptah or the sun god Ra.
    He first appeared as a deity in the story "The Taking of Joppa," in which Thutmosis III is referred to as "Maahes, son of Sekhmet."    He is often confused with Sekhmet, and their children, because at times he is shown holding a khopesh (knife or sword) or two, which he protected the innocent, despite being "Lord of the Massacre."
    He is a war-god, and associated with Horus and Nefertem, whose floral head-dress Maahes sometimes wears.
    His local roots were at Nay-ta-hut/Leontopolis (modern Tell el-Muqdam) in nome 11 of Lower Egypt, which was situated in the east part of the ruins, and suffered the fate of many similar buildings in the delta.    Most of its stone blocks have been removed and reused, leaving even the date of the structure uncertain.
    The Pharaoh Osorkon III (Dynasty XXII) erected a temple to him at in Per-Bast (Bubastis, his main temple), the town sacred to the god's mother, while Nay-ta-hut (Leontopolis) housed a necropolis for lions, his sacred animal.
    Mihos' name is also found in papyri of the late New Kingdom.    Maahes was a god who seems to have first appeared in the New Kingdom, and is thought to have been a deity of foreign origin.
    His cult centre was at Leontopolis in Lower Egypt, but he was worshiped around Upper Egypt, and in Nubia.    Maahes was depicted in the temple of Debod, which was moved to Madrid, Spain, before the Aswan Dam building would have flooded and destroyed it.    Other major cult centres for Maahes included Djeba (Utes-Hor, Behde, Edfu), Iunet (Dendera), Meroe (the royal city of the Meroitic rulers of Nubia) and the Bahriya and Siua Oases.

    Other sources claim he was believed to help Ra and be one of Osiris' executioners, and a defender of the solar barque against the attack of the water snake-demon Apep and his followers, while in the solar barque each night, a god who protected the pharaoh while he was in battle.
    By Greek times, he was attributed as being a god of storms and winds.    He also had links to perfumes and oils.    In Egypt, they worship lions, and there is a city called after them... the lions have temples and numerous spaces in which to roam; the flesh of oxen is supplied to them daily... and the lions eat to the accompaniment of song in the Egyptian language.
    He is a god of sight, sun god of the Nile Delta, and god of midsummer, who was invoked to bring forth the souls of men, gods, and underworld spirits for divination or to discover the truth of a matter.
    He was also thought to be the personification of the summer heat, just as the Eye of Ra - different lioness goddesses - were thought to represent the burning heat of the sun.
    As with the meaning of his name, "See in Front" - "to see" (it was also the start of the word for "lion") "in front of" - seemed to be related to seeing, because his name was followed by the picture of the eye.    Yet the sound was also used in the Egyptian word for truth and order - ma'at.    His name might have even meant "Truth Before Ma'at," among other things, maybe including a pun on the word for lion.    Maahes punished those who violated Ma'at while the other deities set it right.
    He was linked to Nefertem and Shesmu, both being lion-headed deities who were also related to perfumes and oils.    Nefertem and Maahes were probably especially confused by the Egyptians due to their respective mothers, Sekhmet and Bast.    He was also connected with the war-god Onuris as well as with the sky god Shu.    There are suggestions that he might have been an assimilation of the Nubian lion-god Apedemak.

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    This file was created on June 18, 2005.

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