Min

I worship Min, I extol arm-raising Horus:
Hail to you, Min in his procession!
Tall-plumed, son of Osiris,
Born of divine Isis.
Great in Senut, mighty in Ipu (i.e. Panoplis=Akhmim),
You of Coptus, Horus strong-armed,
Lord of awe who silences pride,
Sovereign of all the gods!
Fragrance laden when he comes from Medja-land,
Awe inspiring in Nubia,
You of Utent, hail and praise!

Hymn to Min of the Deputy-treasurer Sobk-iry, Middle Kingdom
M. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, Vol.1, p.204

Symbols: phallus, lettuce, bull
Cult Center: Koptos, Akhmin


Min was a fertility god who was believed to bestow sexual powers to all men. He also was a god of the rain who was a generative force of nature. In one of the most important Min festivals, the Pharaoh would hoe the fields as Min looked on. At the harvest festivals, the Pharaoh would ceremoniously hoe the fields under Min's supervision. When the Pharaoh begot his heir, he was also identified with Min.


He was portrayed as an ithyphallic bearded man, with his legs close together and wearing the same headdress as Amon. Min is shown with one arm raised wielding a thunderbolt.


His sacred animal was a white bull and his special plant, long lettuce, lactuca sativa, was believed to have aphrodisiac properties. Lettuce is believed to be associated with him, not due to its vaguely phallic shape, but rather to its white milky sap which is reminiscent of semen.


Min was a predynastic god. In the earliest times he was a sky-god called the "Chief of Heaven". Until the Middle Kingdom he was identified with Horus the Elder and he was called the son of Re or Shu. In the New Kingdom, Min became closely linked to Amon-Re. During this time, Min became immensely popular and orgiastic festivals were held in his honor.


Min's cult was centered in the Delta city of Chemmis and Koptos.

From: HERE

Patron of: fertility, sexuality, and travelers through the eastern Sahara.

Appearance: a man with a large erect penis. Sometimes he is shown in the garb of a pharaoh, wearing a feathered crown and carrying a flail.

Description: a very ancient god, Min has become rather popular in the modern era, a sort of resurgence of his cult. Min was honored with a variety of ceremonies, some involving the harvest, others praying for a male heir to the pharaoh. Lettuce was his sacred plant, for it was believed by the Egyptians to be an aphrodisiac. The Greeks identified him with their god Pan, and the Romans believed Min to be the same god as Priapus.

Worshipped: Worshipped widely throughout Egypt by the end of the New Kingdom, his cult centers were at Koptos and Akhmin (Panopolis).

From: HERE

(...)

Min was always a god of fertility and sexuality. He was shown as a human male with an erect penis. In Egyptian times, he was usually an ithyphallic bearded mummiform man, standing with both legs together, an arm raised holding his symbol or a flail and wearing the same low crown with twin plumes as Amen. (The way he holds his flail might be symbolic of sexual intercourse - the flail forms the V while his upraised forearm seems to thrust inside the V.) The Egyptian paintings and reliefs on tomb walls and temples didn't show Min's other arm, but the statues of the god show him with his hand encircling the base of his penis. During New Kingdom times he was sometimes shown as a white bull, an animal sacred to the fertility god.

.. Min, Bull of the Great Phallus,
...
You are the Great Male, the owner of all females.
The Bull who is unites with those of the sweet love, of beautiful face and of painted eyes,
Victorious sovereign among the Gods who inspires fear in the Ennead.
...
The goddesses are glad, seeing your perfection.


-- Hymn to Min

He was associated with the Egyptian cos lettuce - an aphrodisiac to the ancient Egyptians because the lettuce was tall, straight and secreted a milky substance when pressed! (This was also a favourite food of Set.) Min was often shown standing before offering tables, covered with heads of lettuce.

The fertility god was associated both with Horus the Elder (Min-Horus) in the Middle Kingdom and with Amen (Amen-Min) in New Kingdom times to show the creative force of both gods. At times, even some goddesses have been shown with the body of Min!

The goddess Sekhmet as the Eye of Ra, for instance, showing that Min also has a destructive side, rather than just creative. (There are some indications that there was a ritual in the Egyptian military for ensuring the subjugation of prisoners - as in the story of Set and Horus - it involved 'impregnating' (and so emasculating) the prisoner, and so the erect state of the penis could relate to victory over the enemy.) The flail was often used to show the pharaoh's supremacy over his enemies, and was therefor linked to both power and destruction.

(...)

Min wasn't just a fertility god, such as Hapi or Osiris, who only presided over the fields - he was also a god of male fertility who could give the pharaoh (and other men) the power to father a child. He also presided over the sed (jubilee) festival of the pharaoh (where the pharaoh had to run around a course set by the priests, carrying different objects), symbolically rejuvenating the pharaoh to give him long life... and the fertility of his youth.

(...)

He was also a god of the Eastern Desert, and it has been suggested that the description in the Pyramid Texts - 'the one who raises his arm in the east' - is actually talking about Min. With his association with the east, Min became a god who offered protection to travellers and traders - the caravan route went through Gebtu and headed out east to the Red Sea. At Wadi Hammamat (on the trade route), prayers and thanks to the god Min were found. Min was also worshiped by the men who worked the mines and the men who quarried the stone at Hammamat. At this particular Wadi, Min was given the title "Min, the Male of the Mountain", a title with the word 'male' being similar to the hieroglyph for 'foremost'.

(...)

Despite being a god of the desert, Min was still a fertility god, and rather than being painted red (such as the desert god Set), he was painted black to represent the fertile land along the Nile. Min was also a moon god - lunar gods tended also to be gods relating to moisture and thus of fertility. As a lunar deity Min was sometimes given the title "Protector of the Moon". In this capacity, the god was related to the Egyptian calendar - the last day of the lunar month was consecrated to the deity, and the day was known as "The Exit of Min".

For the FULL article see: MIN, GOD OF FERTILITY, POWER AND THE EASTERN DESERT

Min is an Ancient Egyptian god whose cult originated in predynastic times (4th millennium BC).[1] He was represented in many different forms, but was often represented in male human form, shown with an erect penis which he holds in his left hand and an upheld right arm holding a flail. As Khem or Min, he was the god of reproduction; as Khnum, he was the creator of all things, "the maker of gods and men".[2]

As a god of fertility, he was shown as having black skin. His cult was strongest in Coptos and Akhmim (Panopolis), where in his honour great festivals were held celebrating his “coming forth” with a public procession and presentation of offerings.[1] His other associations include the eastern desert and links to the god Horus. Flinders Petrie excavated two large statues of Min at Qift which are now in the Ashmolean Museum and it is thought by some that they are pre-dynastic. Although not mentioned by name a reference to 'he whose arm is raised in the East' in the Pyramid Texts is thought to refer to Min.[3]


His importance grew in the Middle Kingdom when he became even more closely linked with Horus as the deity Min-Horus. By the New Kingdom he was also fused with Amen in the deity Min-Amen-kamutef (Min-Amen - bull of his mother). Min's shrine was crowned with a pair of bull horns.[4]


As the central deity of fertility and possibly orgiastic rites Min became identified by the Greeks with the god Pan. One feature of Min worship was the wild prickly lettuce Lactuca virosa and Lactuca serriola of which is the domestic version Lactuca sativa which has aphrodisiac and opiate qualities and produce latex when cut, possibly identified with semen. He also had connections with Nubia. However, his main centres of worship were Qift (Coptos) and Akhmim (Khemmis).


As a god of male sexual potency, he was honoured during the coronation rites of the New Kingdom, when the Pharaoh was expected to sow his seed — generally thought to have been plant seeds, although there have been controversial suggestions that the Pharaoh was expected to demonstrate that he could ejaculate — and thus ensure the annual flooding of the Nile. At the beginning of the harvest season, his image was taken out of the temple and brought to the fields in the festival of the departure of Min, when they blessed the harvest, and played games naked in his honour, the most important of these being the climbing of a huge (tent) pole.


In Egyptian art, Min was depicted as wearing a crown with feathers, and often holding his penis erect in his left hand and a flail (referring to his authority, or rather that of the Pharaohs) in his upward facing right hand. Around his forehead, Min wears a red ribbon that trails to the ground, claimed by some to represent sexual energy. The symbols of Min were the white bull, a barbed arrow, and a bed of lettuce, that the Egyptians believed to be an aphrodisiac, as Egyptian lettuce was tall, straight, and released a milk-like substance when rubbed, characteristics superficially similar to the penis.


Even some war goddesses were depicted with the body of Min (including the phallus), and this also led to depictions, ostensibly of Min, with the head of a lioness. Min usually was depicted in an ithyphallic (with an erect and uncovered phallus) style. Christians routinely defaced his monuments in temples they co-opted and Victorian Egyptologists would take only waist-up photographs of Min, or otherwise find ways to cover his protruding penis. However, to the ancient Egyptians, Min was not a matter of scandal - they had very relaxed standards of nudity: in their warm climate, farmers, servants, and entertainers often worked partially or completely naked, and children did not wear any clothes until they came of age.


In the 19th century, there was an alleged erroneous transcription of the Egyptian for Min as ḫm ("khem"). Since Khem was worshipped most significantly in Akhmim, the separate identity of Khem was reinforced, Akhmim being understood as simply a corruption of Khem. However, Akhmim is an alleged corruption of ḫm-mnw, meaning Shrine of Min, via the demotic form šmn.

From: Wiki

Also see:
Henadolgy article: MIN
Article
Longer article
Kemet.org Names of Netjer : Min