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Amentet, Goddess of the Dead, Personification of the West

by Caroline Seawright
June 25, 2002
Updated: December 3, 2012

Amentet (Ament, Amentit, Imentet, Imentit) was the Egyptian goddess and f riend
of the dead, and the personif ication of the Land of the West, Amenty - imnty. It
was she who welcomed the deceased to their new dwelling place in the
netherworld. She was also a goddess who helped with the rebirthing process,
and thus a goddess of f ertility and rebirth, who regenerated the deceased with
f ood and water.
Image © Hans Ollermann
She was depicted as a beautif ul woman as wearing the hieroglyph of the west - -
on her head, carrying a sceptre and the ankh of lif e in her hands. She is
occasionally seen as a winged goddess, when linked to the goddesses Isis and Nephthys. T he
standard of the west is usually a half circle sitting on top of two poles of uneven length, the longer
of which is tied to her head by a headband. Of ten a hawk or an ostrich f eather is seen sitting on top
of the standard. T his hieroglyph was used in words such as 'west' and words relating to the west
such as, 'western' as well as 'right' and 'right hand'. Occasionally, she is shown wearing just the
hawk on her head. She was believed to live in a tree at the edge of the desert, a place where she
could watch the gates to the underworld. She was of ten shown not only in
tombs, but on cof f ins, being a goddess of the dead.

T his f eather, the normal ornament of Libyans, who wore it f ixed in their hair, was
also the sign f or the word 'Western' and was naturally suitable to Amentet, who
was originally the goddess of the Libyan province to the west of Lower Egypt.

-- The Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology (1994), p. 41

T he word 'Amentet', as used by the Egyptians, was applied to the west bank of
the Nile - Egyptian cemeteries and f unerary places were all on the west. To the
Egyptians, west was a direction linked to death. Amentet was also the name of
the underworld - the place where Ra travelled during the night. T he place where
the sun set was also called by this name, being the entrance to the land of the
dead according to Egyptian belief . Amentet - 'She of the West' - was theref or the goddess of not
only the land of the dead, but also of the entry to the underworld, and of the west itself .

Amenti or Amentet was originally the place where the sun set, but subsequently
the name was applied to the cemeteries and tombs which were usually built or
hewn in the stony plateaus and mountains on the western bank of the Nile. Some
believe that Amenti was, at f irst, the name of a small district, without either
f unereal or mythological signif ication. T he Christian Egyptians or Copts used the
word Amend to translate the Greek word Hades, to which they attributed all the
ideas which their heathen ancestors had associated with the Amenti of The Book
of the Dead.

-- E. A. Wallis Budge (2011), The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Papyrus of Ani in
the British Museum, p. cxxxiii
'Amentet' could also read as 'hidden place' when referring to the underworld. It
was also the place where Ra's journey through the 12 night hours of the Duat
began. In the 11th Hour of the Duat, Amentet appears alongside two other deities
called Herit (hryt) and Sebekhti (sbkhty), at the gate called Shetat-Besu. Amentet
wears the crown of Upper Egypt, Herit wears the crown of Lower Egypt, and the
god Sebekhti holds an ankh and a sceptre. Together, the three deities were
believed to preside over the entrance to the vestibule of the world of light.

Standing at the entry to the land of the dead, Amentet of f ers f ood and drink to
the deceased, regenerating them. T his is connected to regeneration of the dead
- the rebirth of the souls in the af terlif e. T hus she is also a f ertility goddess,
who was of ten represented by other f ertility-related goddesses such as Hathor,
Isis and Nit, Mut, and Nut. She was also connected with Nephthys and Ma'at. As
the goddess Hathor-Amentet she was a solar goddess of the west, who was
believed to regenerate and welcome the newly deceased, and in this f orm she
was paired with Ra-Horakhty. She was sometimes depicted with Iabet, the
goddess of the east.

At the gates of the World, at the entrance of the desert, one of ten sees the
dead being welcomed by a goddess who half -emerges f rom the f oliage of the
tree she has chosen to live in to of f er him bread and water. If he drinks and eats
he becomes the 'f riend of the gods' and f ollows af ter them, and can never
return.

-- The Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology (1994), p. 41

T here may have been a male version of Amentet. In The Book of the Earth of
Ramses VI, there are two male deities who are shown to welcome the sun - iabtht
and amntht . Amenteth may have been the male
personification of the west, and maybe a husband or companion of Amentet.

Amentet was worshiped in the western areas of the Delta, and at Mennef er
(Hikuptah, Memphis), Abtu (Abydos) and in the Ipet-Resyt (Luxor)/Ipet-Isut
(Karnak) region of Egypt, but no temples were dedicated to her. T he goddess
Hathor eventually supplanted her during the New Kingdom.

Image © Eliot Elisofon

© Caroline 'Kunoichi' Seawright 2002 - present