Mehen
Egyptian · deity · mythic · deity
Mehen is a snake wrapped round the thing you love rather than round the thing you are killing. In the underworld books he is drawn as a series of loops enclosing the cabin on the solar barque, and the sun rides inside him through the dangerous hours. The same name belongs to a board game — a stone disk carved as a coiled serpent with the playing track spiralling from the tail to the head — which is among the oldest board games anyone has found. The sets survive and the rules are entirely lost.
Domains
- protection
Relations
- enemy: Apep
Sources
- The Amduat and the Book of Gates.
- Mehen game boards of the Early Dynastic and Old Kingdom periods.