Khnum Sightings

In this story, we see how much Ra loves the royal family: He sent four goddesses to a woman, Ruddedet, to help give birth to three future kings. The goddesses pretended it was Halloween and dressed up as dancing maids, while Khnum tagged along as their servant. Now, once Ruddedet gives birth, Khnum makes sure the infants will thrive.

In this story, Hatshepsut, pharaoh of Egypt, recalls a conversation between her dad, Amun, and Khnum. Amun tells Khnum to craft a perfect baby; Khnum creates a "male child," which makes sense, since Hatshepsut was a female king. Khnum boasts that he put more effort into her than he did when creating the gods.

The guilty soul in this prayer pleads with his heart not to dish on what he did during his life. He calls his heart the soul of his body and says it represents Khnum within him, as the god took the time to craft every organ. Who wouldn't love to have a god of creation in his own body?

This poem from Khnum's temple at Esna dishes all the goods on the god. It calls him "the god of the potter's wheel" who "has fashioned gods and men." Khnum's also called "creator of creators," showing his role as a god of creation. So many jobs, so little time.

Through hieroglyphs, we find out that during the reign of the pharaoh Djoser, there was a seven-year drought that bummed out the entire population. The king's adviser, Imhotep, came to the rescue, telling Djoser to pray to Khnum. In a dream, Khnum gave the pharaoh a step-by-step guide to ending the drought; as a result, he let the Nile waters rise.

In this book, the heroine deciphers hieroglyphs to find that they're talking about Khnum. The ram god might hold a secret that the main characters use to unravel a mystery.