Nefertem

Nefertem is the Egyptian god of the lotus and of perfume, son of Ptah and Sekhmet and youngest member of the divine triad of Memphis. His name is also spelled Nefertum.

The Egyptians pictured him as the blue lotus that rose from Nun, the dark primeval waters, at the first sunrise of creation. The flower opened and the young sun came out of it, so Nefertem stands both for the first light of the world and for the scent that came with it. Because the blue lotus opens in the morning light and closes before the day is out, it became an image of the sun reborn every dawn.

At Memphis he was worshipped as the son of the creator Ptah and the lioness Sekhmet, although a less common tradition makes the cat goddess Bastet his mother. He is shown as a young man crowned with a lotus flower, often topped by two tall plumes, and sometimes with the head of a lion. In the Book of the Dead he is one of the forty-two judges before whom the dead declare their innocence, addressed as the god who came forth from Memphis.

His bond with Ra is the lotus held to the sun god's nose. In the Pyramid Texts of Unas, among the oldest religious writings of Egypt, the king appears as Nefertem, the lotus at the nose of Ra, rising from the horizon every day while the gods purify themselves at the sight of him. The image let the dead king share in the sun's daily rebirth.

As lord of the lotus, Nefertem was also the god of perfume, and his name begins with nefer, the Egyptian word for beautiful. From the Third Intermediate Period onward, people wore small amulets of the god in his lotus crown, framed by the counterpoises of menat necklaces, because his flower promised rebirth, and bronze figures of him were dedicated in temples. A painted wooden head from the tomb of Tutankhamun shows the young king emerging from a lotus, in the image of the newborn sun.