Khonsu and Ma’at are interesting because their images coincide greatly with the appearance of other Gods. Knowing how to identify Khonsu from the images of Osiris and Horus can be helpful, as well as being able to tell Ma’at and Isis apart.
Khonsu
Khonsu, like many Gods, had two different forms including one with a human head and one with a falcon head.
The main way to tell if an image is representing Khonsu is by looking for the lunar disk. While he is in falcon form, this disk is essentially the only thing separating him from being Horus or Ra. Generally, however, Khonsu is represented as a young child with green skin, wrapped in mummification linens and bearing the sidelock of youth in his hair. His symbols include the crook and flail, so you will often see that as well. His human form is certainly similar to that of Osiris but the differences are thusly; Osiris has a beard, Khonsu does not. Osiris is almost always shown wearing the White Crown of Upper Egypt, whereas Khonsu is shown with a lunar disk representing the full and crescent moon. Khonsu also has a sidelock hairstyle whereas Osiris has no hair showing.
Khonsu’s falcon form is nearly identical to Horus and Ra so the only thing you need to look for to identify them is for the crown. If it’s the solar disk with the uraeus snake it’s Ra, if it is the double crown of upper and lower Egypt then it’s Horus, and if it’s the lunar disk, it’s Khonsu.
As a reminder, this is what the solar disk with the uraeus looks like:
If you are looking at a large wall inscription, you may also come across Khonsu’s name in hieroglyphs:
Ma’at
Ma’at is similar in representation to Isis. Both are well-known images of ancient Egypt, but few people realize they are posting Ma’at when they want to be posting Isis, and vice versa.
She is represented with her wings spread; very similar to Isis. The image above is Ma’at, and the image below is Isis.
So the main difference here is not the hair––that’s something that changes from art piece to art piece––it’s again, the crown that they wear. Isis is represented with the Throne of Egypt on her head; it’s part of her name in hieroglyphs, whereas Ma’at is represented with the feather of truth on her head. This is a big thing to notice! Both crowns are instrumental in the characters of Isis and Ma’at, and confusing them is to confuse Goddesses who don’t have much to do with one another.
Funnily enough, there is yet another Goddess shown with spread wings. Hathor is also sometimes represented in this way, but to know when it’s her, you again look at the crown. Hathor almost always wears the crown of the cow she represents, whose horns hold up the solar disk. Here’s a quick image so you know what Hathor’s crown looks like.
Going back to Ma’at, there are very few images of her. She had no temples built for her and few worshippers, simply because she was an intrinsic part of the universe, and worship of any other God was based around her powers of calming the chaos of primordial waters.
Like most words and titles in Egyptian hieroglyphs, there were a few different ways to record Ma’at’s name. One is shortened, but I’ve included both long and short versions below.
The beginning of the end is upon us and i am HERE for it
Me when I spend the majority of my career riding the inertia of a series that ended 12 years ago without producing anything else of note and spend all my free time systemically destroying my own legacy
I know she’s going to die wealthier than I could dream of being but I genuinely love that people aren’t going to be able to talk about J.K. in the future without bringing up the fact that she was the public figurehead of a hate group. I love that she’s stubborn enough to see real consequences.
“The thing that disturbs me about the current trend is … there’s a strong possibility that this country is moving in the direction of a fascist theocracy … Now maybe you feel it is far-fetched that if the extreme elements of the fundamentalist right have political power, that it could come to that. Just remember: they were bombing abortion clinics a little while ago…” - Frank Zappa
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