Amun

Amun is written jmn, which officially means “hidden” & “secret”. jmn is an extremely common Egyptian word. In its shortened form mn, it is even a grammar particle meaning “not being there”. While all gods are “hidden” in a sense, this is not the aspect that regular people would want to worship. So making this concept a major deity is proof for the existence of spookery, i.e. secret rulership, in very ancient times. Of course, many other deity names also secretly mean “hidden”, but here it is even admitted.

As usual, all of Amun’s attributes are puns with his name. Like all gods, he was created from puns.

• Amun is a spook symbol, because jmn means “hidden” & “secret”.
• Amun is depicted as a ram, because mnjw means “shepherd”.
• Amun is depicted as a wooly ram, because jnm means “animal’s hide”. It’s an anagram pun.
• Amun is depicted as a ram with twisted horns, because mn means “twisted”, and mˤnn specifically means “twisted horns”.
• Amun is depicted as an obelisk, because mnw means “obelisk”.
• Amun wears a shuti feather crown, perhaps because šwt for “feather” puns with štȝ, another common word for “hidden” & “secret”. It would thus be a synonym pun.
• Amun is said to be “identified” with the god Min, because like Amun, Min is also composed of M-N puns. They’re a pair of puns.

Interestingly, the same spelling jmn also means “right hand”, “West”, “fabrication”. In these meanings, it is identical to Semitic ymn, so it was a multi-lingual root. The meaning of “hidden” cannot be found in the Semitic languages, however. It is either hidden itself, or was only ever present in Egyptian. The Biblical name Benjamin seems intended to pun with “fabrication” instead.

Amun and Amaunet are mentioned in the Old Egyptian Pyramid Texts. The name Amun (written imn) meant something like “the hidden one” or “invisible”.

Wikipedia: Amun