Ram god whose name means 'ba (or 'soul') lord of Mendes', his cult centered in the north-east Delta.
When the two gods Horus and Set were making the heavens ring with their wranglings over precedent, it was the ram-god Ba Neb Tetet who sensibly suggested to the gods in council that they should write a letter to the goddess Neith and ask for her opinion. His suggestion opened the way for discussion and arbitration which finally settled the dispute. His character, one of peace and level-headedness, has been sadly perverted in sensational 'occult' fiction, for Ba Neb Tetet is the benign original for a travesty called the 'goat of Mendes', who is supposed to be some sort of diabolic spirit. At Mendes was kept a sacred ram, worshipped as the incarnation of Ra and Osiris. Originally a local god, Ba Neb Tetet was given the solar disc and uraeus (coiled cobra) and brought into the main-stream of religious life.
Baal has a pointed beard, a horned helmet and wields a cedar tree, club, or spear. His epithet in the cuneiform texts, 'he who rides on the clouds', is admirable for a god of tempests and thunder- relating thereby to the Mesopotamian thunder- god Adad and in Egypt to the god Seth. Ramesses II in his almost fatal struggle against the Hittite confederation at the battle of Kadesh is called 'Seth great of strength and Baal himself'. The war cry of Ramesses III is like Baal in the sky, i.e. Baal's voice (the thunder) which makes the mountains shake. His relationship to the warrior-pharaoh image may account for the popularity of his cult at Memphis, capital of Egypt, and the theophorous name Baal-Khepeshef or 'Baal-is-upon-his-sword'.
Prominent god of the sky and storms whose cult spread from Ugarit in Syria into Egypt, where he possessed a priesthood by Dynasty XVIII. Aliyan Baal, son of a less well-attested god Dagan, dwelt on Mount Sapan (hence Ball-Zaphon) in North Syria but also became associated as a local deity of other sites such as Baal-Hazor in Palestine, and Baal-Sidon and Baal of Tyre(Melkart) in the Lebanon. Although the anme Baal can mean 'lord' or 'owner' it was being used as a proper name for a specific god by the sixteenth century BC.
In the Middle East Baal's dominion was greatly enhanced when he became the vanquisher of Yamm god of the sea. But Baal was killed in a struggle with Mot (possibly a personification of death) and descended into the Underworld. He returns to life by the intervention of his sister-lover Anat, who also slays his murderer. It is curious that the Egyptians did not, in extant texts at any rate relate this myth symbolizing the continual cycle of vegetation to their own Osiris legend.
Virility God
Babi is known since the Old Kingdom. His name means 'Bull of the Baboons', by which is to say that he is the most dominant of the males. This is a dangerous, blood thirsty and virile baboon deity, who controls the darkness and who lives on human entrails and can murder on sight. There are spells for protection against this dangerous deity, but his powers were also used for the opposite purpose (which was most often the case in the ancient days), that of protection against other dangers in the Underworld, like snakes and turbulent waters. Often in the 'Book of Going Forth by Day', the deceased uses spells to 'become Babi' in order to acquire his powers.
His virility shows in that his phallus is the latch of the doors of heaven, which he opens up for the king. Likewise a deceased identified his own phallus with the one of Babi to ensure successful intercourse in the Afterlife. Other spells are necessary for protection from Babi in the Hall of Double Truth during the Weighing of the Heart, when he was considered as most dangerous.
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