Banebdjedet

Banebdjedet is four rams' heads on one body, and the reason is a pun: ba means soul, and in the Delta it also means ram, so the ram of Mendes can be made to hold the four bas of the sun god at once. He gets one genuinely memorable scene in literature. In the Contendings of Horus and Set, with the Ennead deadlocked over who inherits Egypt, they write to him for a ruling — and he declines to give one, and tells them to write to Neith instead, which they do.

Domains

• fertility

Relations

• consort of: HatmehitHis consort at Mendes, and probably the town's original god before his cult superseded hers. With Horus the Child they make the Mendesian triad.Reference treatment of Banebdjedet and Mendes: his wife was the goddess Hatmehit, 'Foremost of the Fishes', perhaps the original deity of Mendes, their offspring being Horus the Child and the three forming the Mendesian triad. (secondary)

Sources

• Banebdjedet is the Egyptian ram god of Mendes, shown with four rams' heads representing the four bas of the sun god, who advises the Ennead in the Contendings of Horus and Set.: Reference treatments of Banebdjedet, of Mendes and of the Contendings. (secondary)