Real Egyptian papyrus bookmark, printed with the Egyptian god Khnum.

Khnum was the ancient Egyptian god of fertility, associated with water and procreation.

Worshiped as early as 2800 BC, he was represented as a ram with twisting horns or as a man with a ram's head. He was believed to have created humankind from clay like a potter. His main temple was at Elephantine, near present-day Aswan, and he formed a triad of deities with the goddesses Satis and Anuket. Khnum also had an important cult at Esna, south of Thebes.

His cult was popular before the cult of Re eclipsed it.

Originally a water god, Khnum was often pictured by the Egyptians as the source of the Nile. On temple walls, he was sometimes shown as holding a jar, with the precious water flowing out of it. He was also believed to be a guardian of the waters in the underworld. He is mentioned as a protective deity of the dead.

The ram-headed god was 'Lord of the Cataract' a god of the yearly inundation and the fertile black soil that came with the flood. Khnum was also seen as a fertility god because of his association with the fertile silt. Pottery was created out of the soil of the Nile, and it was believed that he created the first humans - and the gods - on his potter's wheel with this silt. In Iunyt (Esna) it was believed that it was he who molded the First Egg from which the sun hatched, and thus was a creator god who was 'Father of the Fathers of the Gods and Goddesses, Lord of Created Things from Himself, Maker of Heaven and Earth and the Duat and Water and the Mountains'.

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