Aker (god)

Aker (also Akar; Akeru plural ) is a deity of ancient Egypt. Together with buildings he represents a personification of the earth

Name

The meaning of his name is unknown. He is first mentioned in the Pyramid Texts. His determinative marks him as personalized "earth". Since the Coffin Texts can be used as determinative the Seth animal and the snake.

In addition to the singular Aker also appears a plural Akeru, were designated by the earth spirits usually represented as snakes.

Functions

In the underworld of the earth god Aker guarded the connection between the western and the eastern horizon. Aker tried the dead in the ground to hold, on the other hand, it also appears as a helper of the deceased, guarded by the snakes. In this way he protects alongside Seth also the sun god Re in front of Apophis. Outside of funerary texts Aker appears as the embodiment of the Earth in cosmic representations, such as the counterpart of the sky.

Representations

In the older Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom Aker was shown as a narrow strip of land with one or two towering at the edges of human heads. In the younger pyramid texts the front paws of a lion were added to this picture, making the representation to a double sphinx was, look at the two lions in opposite directions. This duplication should also explain the alternative name Cherefu and Akeru or Sef ( "yesterday" ) and Tuau ( "today" ). Appears on some dead amulets instead of a lion's head, a bull's head, perhaps an allusion to Osiris.