A stele commemorating the burial of a Bakha bearing the iconography of Hathor

Similar image of a bull on the bottom of the obverse of the Narmer Palette from the Predynastic period

In Egyptian mythology, Bakha (also spelt Bakh, Buchis, and Bukhis) was the manifestation of the a deification of Ka (power/life-force) of the war god Menthu, ^[1] worshipped in the region of Hermonthis. The Predynastic Period of Egypt (prior to 3100 BC is traditionally the period between the Early Neolithic and the beginning of the Pharaonic monarchy beginning with King Ancient Egyptian religion encompasses the various religious beliefs and rituals practiced in Ancient Egypt from the predynastic period until the adoption of Christianity The modern town of Armant (ancient Egyptian Iuny; Coptic: Erment; known in Greek as Hermonthis The name is simply Ba-Kha, which is a reference to the Ba and Akh (Akh is sometimes referred to as Khu), the components into which the Ka was split, after death (a characteristic of war). As Ka is also the Egyptian word for cattle, Bakha was said to manifest in a living bull, which, since Bakha was an aspect of a war-god, was said to be a wild bull, since these are aggressive when slightly provoked. Egyptian is an Afro-Asiatic language most closely related to the Berber, Semitic, Somali and Beja languages Cattle, colloquially referred to as cows, are domesticated Ungulates a member of the Subfamily Bovinae of the family Cattle, colloquially referred to as cows, are domesticated Ungulates a member of the Subfamily Bovinae of the family

A wild bull was chosen and said to be the Bukhis incarnation of Menthu, in which role it was worshipped as such. Over time, the criteria for choosing the bull became more rigid, fixing themselves on what had been simply the general appearance of bulls in the region, being a white body and black face.

When these bulls, or their mothers, died, they were mummified, and placed in a special cemetery known as the Bucheum. A mummy is a Corpse whose Skin and Flesh have been preserved by either intentional or Incidental exposure to Chemicals extreme The mothers of these bulls were considered aspects of Hathor, the mother of these deities. In Egyptian mythology, Hathor (Pronounced Hah-Thor ( Egyptian for house of Horus) was originally a personification of the Milky Way

Eventually, the Bakha was identified as a form of the Apis, and consequently became considered an incarnation of Osiris. Osiris ( Greek language, also Usiris; the Egyptian language name is variously transliterated Asar, Aser, Ausar, Ausir The last burial of a Buchis bull in the Bucheum at Hermonthis occurred in 340 A. D. ^[2][3] The worship of the bull in this form lasted until about 362 AD, when it was destroyed by rising Christian fundamentalism, in the Roman empire. Fundamentalist Christianity, also known as Christian Fundamentalism or Fundamentalist Evangelicalism, is a movement that arose mainly within British and The Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial

References

1. ^ W. Max Muller, Egyptian Mythology, Kessinger Publishing 2004, p. 160
2. ^ David Frankfurter, Religion in Roman Egypt: Assimilation and Resistance, Princeton University Press 1998, p. 72
3. ^ M. W. Daly, Carl F. Petry, The Cambridge History of Egypt, Cambridge University Press 1998, p. 28

See also

• Mnewer
• Apis
• Bull (mythology)
• Hermonthis

External links

• Sacred bulls
• The last funerary stela of a Buchis bull