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For much of the history of ancient Egypt, Amun was honored as the supreme god in the Egyptian pantheon.all the gods of a particular culture However, he was originally a local deitygod or goddess in Hermopolis, a city in southern Egypt, with power over the air or wind. By 2000 B.C. Amun's cultgroup bound together by devotion to a particular person, belief, or god had reached the capital of Thebes, and rulers began to honor him as the national god of Egypt. However, after invaders known as the Hyksos conquered northern Egypt in the 1700s B.C., only people in the south continued to worship Amun.

The Egyptians drove out the Hyksos in the 1500s B.C., and Amun's influence expanded rapidly. So did the size and splendor of his temples. Two of the largest...