Khonsu, the night traveller: the moon god of Thebes and Karnak

The name Khonsu is usually interpreted as «the traveller» or «he who crosses», a clear image of the Moon that moves across the sky each night and changes its appearance each month. At Thebes, the great religious capital of New Kingdom Egypt, Khonsu became the son of the divine couple formed by Amun and Mut, and his cult reached an importance that the oldest texts did not suggest.

An ancient and fearsome god

Khonsu already appears in the Pyramid Texts, the funerary inscriptions carved in the burial chambers of the kings at the end of the Old Kingdom, around the twenty-fourth century BC. In the so-called Cannibal Hymn, found in the pyramid of Unas, Khonsu is a ferocious figure who helps the dead king capture and slaughter the gods in order to absorb their power. This violent aspect contrasts with the youthful image the god would have later.

In the course of the Middle and New Kingdoms, in fact, Khonsu took on a more benevolent character. At Thebes he was placed in the triad with Amun, king of the gods, and Mut, the mother goddess, in the role of the son. The great Theban festivals, such as Opet, saw the sacred barques of the triad carried in procession along the Nile and between the temples of Karnak and Luxor.

The youth with the crescent moon

Khonsu's iconography is easy to recognise. The god is depicted as a youth, often in mummiform shape, with the side-lock typical of Egyptian children, the lunar disc and crescent on his head, and in his hands the sceptre, crook and flail, symbols of kingship. Sometimes he appears with a falcon's head topped by the lunar disc, an image that brings him close to Horus.

Within the precinct of Karnak stands the temple of Khonsu, built mainly under Ramesses III and completed by his successors, among them the high priest Herihor, who had his own image carved there with almost royal titles. It is considered one of the most complete examples of a New Kingdom Egyptian temple, with pylon, courtyard, hypostyle hall and sanctuary arranged in sequence.

The Bentresh stela

Khonsu's reputation as a god able to drive away evils is documented by a remarkable text, the Bentresh stela, now in the Louvre. The story is set in the time of Ramesses II: a princess of the distant land of Bakhtan is possessed by a spirit, and the pharaoh sends a statue of Khonsu which, according to the narrative, frees her. The stela was however composed many centuries later, probably in the Persian or Ptolemaic period, perhaps to increase the prestige of the cult.

In that late period Khonsu was also worshipped elsewhere, for example at Kom Ombo, where he formed a triad with Sobek and Hathor. His story shows a feature shared by many lunar deities: the Moon, which waxes and wanes without ever disappearing entirely, becomes an image of a power that protects and renews. Khonsu, the traveller of the night, remains one of the most elegant faces of this idea in ancient Egypt.