Banebdjedet

Banebdjedet is the local ram god of Mendes (ancient Djedet). His name is attested in forms such as Banebdjedet or Ba-neb-Djedet, literally rendered by specialists as 'the Ba who is Lord of Djedet' (Henadology). The linguistic overlap between the words for 'ram' and 'Ba' (soul) in Egyptian accounts helps explain his conceptual role as a ram form that can stand for the Ba or soul-aspect of greater gods. In Mendes he formed a local triad with the fish‑goddess Hatmehit (his consort) and a child figure often called 'Horus the Child'. In mythic literature he appears as the 'Ram of Mendes' identified in the Book of the Heavenly Cow with the Ba of Osiris and also appears in a New Kingdom story of the Horus–Set dispute where he is consulted by the Divine Tribunal (Wikipedia; Henadology). The Ramesseum stela tradition records a mythic episode in which Ptah assumes his form to gain virility, indicating his association with procreative power (Wikipedia).

Iconographically Banebdjedet is represented primarily in ram form: either as a long‑horned ram or as a ram‑headed anthropoid. A distinctive variant shows him as a composite four‑headed ram; this four‑headed motif is explicitly linked in sources to the four Bas of the sun god and is attested in Mendesian sanctuary imagery and commentaries (Wikipedia; Henadology). Thus depictions range from a single horned ram to a ram‑headed man and, in specific cultic or theological contexts, the four‑headed ram image.

Sources present Banebdjedet as a local divine manifestation whose roles include fertility and virility cult functions, being read as a Ba (soul) manifestation of greater gods (explicitly called the Ba of Osiris in the Book of the Heavenly Cow), and participating in mythic adjudication (the Horus–Set tribunal story where he is consulted and gives opinions about the dispute). Narrative material (Ramesseum stela) also links him to procreative potency when another god takes his form to attain virility. These attestations make him a potent regional deity associated with the continuation of divine and royal life, local temple cult, and syncretic identifications with other major gods (Wikipedia; Henadology).