Khenti-Amentiu

ancient Egyptian deity whose name was also used as a title for Osiris and Anubis. The name means "Foremost of the Westerners" or "Chief of the Westerners", where "Westerners" refers to the dead.^[1]

First Dynasty pharaohs Den and Qa'a, naming each of their predecessors with the title "Horus Khenti-Amentiu", starting with "Horus Khenti-Amentiu Narmer". A temple dating to predynastic times was also founded in Abydos for this god. Toby Wilkinson suggests that, even at this early stage, Khenti-Amentiu's name may have been simply an epithet of Osiris.^[2]

afterlife. In the Fifth Dynasty (c. 2494–2345 BC), many gods started to appear in the formula, including Osiris, whose name does not appear in any texts before the start of the dynasty, and Khenti-Amentiu. In the course of the late Old Kingdom, the Khenti-Amentiu title becomes more clearly connected with Osiris.^[3]

hieroglyph that appears in Khenti-Amentiu's name in the Early Dynastic Period is traditionally seen as a determinative to indicate the god's form, but Terence DuQuesne argued that the jackal glyph represents the name of Anubis and that Khenti-Amentiu was originally an epithet or manifestation of Anubis. If this is the case, Khenti-Amentiu would have only begun to be treated as an independent deity in the Fifth Dynasty, around the same time that Osiris' name first appears. Most inscriptions from that time show Osiris and Khenti-Amentiu were already closely connected. Harold M. Hays asserted that the Pyramid Texts, whose earliest known copy only dates to the end of the Fifth Dynasty, apply the title Khenti-Amentiu to Anubis and not to Osiris, and that the Pyramid Texts reflect the beliefs of an earlier era, when Khenti-Amentiu was not fully independent of Anubis.^[3]

First Intermediate Period (c. 2181–2055 BC), Khenti-Amentiu's temple in Abydos was explicitly dedicated to Osiris and became his major cult center.^[2]