| Dedun | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
God of incense, wealth, and prosperity | ||||||
 Dedun in his few depictions such as the temple ofThutmose III inSemna was depicted with generic iconography similar to howAtum was sometimes depicted | ||||||
| Name inhieroglyphs |
| |||||
| Venerated in | Nubian mythology | |||||
| Major cult center | Napata | |||||
| Symbol | Incense | |||||
Dedun (orDedwen) was aKushite or Nehasi (C-Group culture) god worshipped during ancient times inancient Egypt andSudan and attested as early as 2400 BC. There is much uncertainty about their original nature, especially since he was depicted as alion, a role that usually was assigned to the son of another deity. Nothing is known of the earlierKushite mythology from which the deity arose, however. The earliest known information inEgyptian writings about Dedun indicates that he already had become a god ofincense by the time of the writings. Since at that historical point, incense was an extremely expensive luxury commodity, and Nubia was the source of much of it, he was quite an important deity. The wealth that the trade in incense delivered to Nubia led to his being identified by them as the god ofprosperity and ofwealth in particular.
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Although he is mentioned in thePyramid Texts ofancient Egypt as being a Nubian deity,[1] there is no evidence that Dedun was worshipped by the Egyptians or that he was worshipped in any location north ofSwenet (contemporary Aswan), which was considered the most southerly city of Ancient Egypt. Nevertheless, in theMiddle Kingdom of Egypt, during the Egyptian rule overKush, Dedun was said by the Egyptians to be the protector of deceased Nubian rulers and their god of incense, thereby associated with funerary rites.
Atlanersa, aKushite ruler of theNapatan kingdom ofNubia, is known to have started a temple dedicated to thesyncretic godOsiris-Dedun[2] atJebel Barkal.[3]
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