Kek (also Keku, Kekui) is the deification of the concept of primordial darkness (kkw smꜣw, keku-semau[1]) in the Ancient EgyptianOgdoadcosmogony. As a concept, Kek was viewed as androgynous, his female form being known as Keket (also Kekuit).[2] Kek and Keket in some aspects also represent night and day, and were called "raiser up of the light" and the "raiser up of the night", respectively.[3] The name is written as kk or kkwy (kkt, kkwyt) with a variant of the sky hieroglyph in ligature with the staff (N2) associated with the word for "darkness" kkw.[4]
In the oldest representations, Kekui is given the head of a serpent, and Kekuit the head of either a frog or a cat. In one scene, they are identified with Ka and Kait; in this scene, Ka-Kekui has the head of a frog surmounted by a beetle and Kait-Kekuit has the head of a serpent surmounted by a disk.[5] In the Greco-Roman period, Kek's male form was depicted as a frog-headed man, and the female form as a serpent-headed woman, as were all four dualistic concepts in the Ogdoad.
^E. Hornung, "Licht und Finsternis in der Vorstellungswelt Altägyptens", Studium Generale 8 (1965), 72-83.
^E. A. Wallis Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians: Or, Studies in Egyptian Mythology (1904), vol. 1, p. 241, pp. 283-286; vol. 2, p. 2, p. 378. Georg Steindorff, The Religion of the Ancient Egyptians (1905), p. 50.
