Zeus Ammon: The King of the Greek Gods & the Egyptian Gods

Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. The Topic of this video is Zeus Ammon, a god coalesced from Greek and Egyptian counterparts. More broadly, we’ll explore the intermingling of Greek and Egyptian mythology in general, which yielded a multitude of other gods and mutually influenced rituals, another notable example being Hermanubis, a deity that combined the Greek god Hermes with the Egyptian god Anubis.

As well, Alexander the Great will be a main focus, his conquests suffusing much of the ancient world with Greek culture like never before. Most significant, with respect to this video, was his liberation of Egypt, which had, until his arrival, been under Persian control for centuries. The Egyptians welcomed Alexander. They made him pharaoh, consecrating him as the son of Amun, and he cultivated this image, fanning the flames of his divinity. He referred to himself as the son of Zeus Ammon, and he promulgated this image across his empire, coinage depicting him with the god’s curved ram’s horns disseminated far and wide.

Alright let's get into it.

Zeus Ammon is a composite deity that combines Zeus, the Greek king of the gods, and Amun, whom the Greeks called Ammon, the Egyptian king of the gods in certain traditions.

The extent to which these two gods were synthesized varied greatly, contingent on time and location: sometimes the product of scholarly pragmatism, equating the two, as well as many other gods to better understand foreign religions, their gods and myths; sometimes viewing them as interchangeable points of worship, two names for the same god; sometimes as a distinct deity that amalgamated elements of each, and so on.

Watch the video for the rest!