Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu i



Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu i (Egyptian: ꜥnḫ-f-n-ḫnsw), otherwise known as Ankh-af-na-Khonsu, was a priest of the ancient Egyptian god Montu who lived in Thebes during the 25th and 26th Dynasty (c. 725 BCE). He was the son of Bes-en-Mut I and Ta-neshet.

Among practitioners of the Western esoteric tradition and religious philosophy of Thelema, founded by the English occultist and ceremonial magician Aleister Crowley, he is best known under the name of Ankh-af-na-khonsu and as the dedicant of the Stele of Revealing, a wooden offering stele made to ensure his continued existence in the netherworld, now located in the Egyptian Museum of Cairo, Egypt.

Meaning of the name
Sr. Lutea, writing in The Scarlet Letter, explains some of the words in his name: "A translation of the name might be close to the following: Ankh is both a tool and a symbol meaning 'new life.' The hyphen af is always part of another word that lends exclamatory force. The word, na is generally used as a preposition, such as 'to, for, belonging to, through, or because.' Khonsu was the adopted son of Amun and Mut from the Theban triad. His name comes from a word meaning, 'to cross over' or 'wanderer' or 'he who traverses.' So, his entire name may be translated as 'the truth that has crossed over."

Lutea's interpretation is a free one that Egyptologists would tend to reject. A modern Egyptological approach would translate the name Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu (ꜥnḫ-f-n-ḫnsw) as "He lives for Khonsu"; the name is particularly common during the Third Intermediate and Late Periods.

The Stele
The Stele of Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu (Cairo A 9422, formerly Bulaq 666) is a painted, wooden offering stele. The stele is a fairly typical example of a Theban offering stele from the late Third Intermediate Period, dating to the late 25th Dynasty/early 26th Dynasty. It was originally discovered in 1854 as part of a large burial of priests of Montu at Deir el-Bahari in Luxor, Ottoman Egypt, and included the coffin of the dedicant, Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu i.

According to one translation of the stele performed in the Thelemic perspective, it says of Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu i, priest of Montu:

"...has left the multitudes and rejoined those who are in the light, he has opened the dwelling place of the stars; now then, the deceased, Ankh-af-na-khonsu has gone forth by day in order to do everything that pleased him upon earth, among the living."

or by a 1982 analysis,

"deliverer of those who are in the sunshine, open for him the netherworld; indeed the Osiris Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu shall go forth by day to do that which he desires, all, upon earth, among the living."

In Thelema
The Book of the Law (I,36) says:

"My scribe Ankh-af-na-khonsu, the priest of the princes, shall not in one letter change this book; but lest there be folly, he shall comment thereupon by the wisdom of Ra-Hoor-Khu-it."

Based on this, Aleister Crowley used the "magical" name "Ankh-f-n-khonsu" (from the "Stele 666" translation prepared in 1904 for Crowley by the German Egyptologist Émile Brugsch) to sign "The Comment" of The Book of the Law, and also used it sometimes when referring to himself as the prophet of Thelema and the Aeon of Horus. Kenneth Grant wrote that "Crowley claimed to have been a re-embodiment of the magical current represented by the priesthood to which Ankh-af-na-Khonsu belonged".