This is a page about the mythical creature. For the black metal musician, see Astennu (musician)

Astennu (musician)

Astennu is the professional name of Australian heavy metal musician Jamie Stinson. His name is derived from a creature in Egyptian mythology.-Biography:...

.

In Egyptian mythology

Egyptian mythology

Ancient Egyptian religion was a complex system of polytheistic beliefs and rituals which were an integral part of ancient Egyptian society. It centered on the Egyptians' interaction with a multitude of deities who were believed to be present in, and in control of, the forces and elements of nature...

, Astennu (also spelt Asten, Isten, Astes, and Isdes) refers to a baboon

Baboon

Baboons are African and Arabian Old World monkeys belonging to the genus Papio, part of the subfamily Cercopithecinae. There are five species, which are some of the largest non-hominoid members of the primate order; only the mandrill and the drill are larger...

 associated with Thoth

Thoth

Thoth was considered one of the more important deities of the Egyptian pantheon. In art, he was often depicted as a man with the head of an ibis or a baboon, animals sacred to him. His feminine counterpart was Seshat...

. It was also stated that Astennu was merely another aspect of Thoth

Thoth

Thoth was considered one of the more important deities of the Egyptian pantheon. In art, he was often depicted as a man with the head of an ibis or a baboon, animals sacred to him. His feminine counterpart was Seshat...

, as the god could take the form of a baboon

Baboon

Baboons are African and Arabian Old World monkeys belonging to the genus Papio, part of the subfamily Cercopithecinae. There are five species, which are some of the largest non-hominoid members of the primate order; only the mandrill and the drill are larger...

. He was one of four baboons who stood around the lake of fire at the place of judgement in Duat

Duat

In Egyptian mythology, Duat is the underworld. The Duat is a vast area under the Earth, connected with Nun, the waters of the primordial abyss. The Duat is the realm of the god Osiris and the residence of other gods and supernatural beings...

, and consequently associated with Utennu.

He appears in spell 17 of the Book of the Dead. The name Astennu means the moon.

Baboon

Baboon

Baboons are African and Arabian Old World monkeys belonging to the genus Papio, part of the subfamily Cercopithecinae. There are five species, which are some of the largest non-hominoid members of the primate order; only the mandrill and the drill are larger...

 may be an equivalent term for dog-headed ape

Ape

Apes are Old World anthropoid mammals, more specifically a clade of tailless catarrhine primates, belonging to the biological superfamily Hominoidea. The apes are native to Africa and South-east Asia, although in relatively recent times humans have spread all over the world...

. Among the Egyptians

Egyptians

Egyptians are nation an ethnic group made up of Mediterranean North Africans, the indigenous people of Egypt.Egyptian identity is closely tied to geography. The population of Egypt is concentrated in the lower Nile Valley, the small strip of cultivable land stretching from the First Cataract to...

 several kinds of apes were regarded as sacred animals, but the most revered of all was that which was the companion of Thoth

Thoth

Thoth was considered one of the more important deities of the Egyptian pantheon. In art, he was often depicted as a man with the head of an ibis or a baboon, animals sacred to him. His feminine counterpart was Seshat...

, and which is commonly known as the Dog-headed Ape. This animal seems to have been brought in old, as in modern, times from the country far to the south of Nubia

Nubia

Nubia is a region along the Nile river, which is located in northern Sudan and southern Egypt.There were a number of small Nubian kingdoms throughout the Middle Ages, the last of which collapsed in 1504, when Nubia became divided between Egypt and the Sennar sultanate resulting in the Arabization...

, but whether this be so or not it is certain that the Cynocephalus ape found its way into Egyptian mythology

Egyptian mythology

Ancient Egyptian religion was a complex system of polytheistic beliefs and rituals which were an integral part of ancient Egyptian society. It centered on the Egyptians' interaction with a multitude of deities who were believed to be present in, and in control of, the forces and elements of nature...

 at a very early period. In the Judgment

Judgment

A judgment , in a legal context, is synonymous with the formal decision made by a court following a lawsuit. At the same time the court may also make a range of court orders, such as imposing a sentence upon a guilty defendant in a criminal matter, or providing a remedy for the plaintiff in a civil...

 Scene he sits upon the standard of the Great Scales, and his duty was to report to his associate Thoth

Thoth

Thoth was considered one of the more important deities of the Egyptian pantheon. In art, he was often depicted as a man with the head of an ibis or a baboon, animals sacred to him. His feminine counterpart was Seshat...

when the pointer marked the middle of the beam.