Apedemak was the lion-headed warrior god of the Kushite south, the martial and fertile power of Meroe whose temples stood at Naqa and Musawwarat es-Sufra. A distinctively African deity with no Egyptian counterpart, he embodied the ferocity of the lion turned against the enemies of his people and the increase of their herds. His cult reached down the Nile into Lower Nubia, where his solar-leonine nature merged with that of Mandulis, the great god of the Blemmyes. He is included as the southern, warrior-lion pole of the frontier religion that the Beja's classical ancestors shared with Meroitic Kush; sources differ on how far his worship penetrated the desert proper as against the riverine temples.