Egyptian Gods

Ihy was an ancient Egyptian child god and was a god of music and musicians. His name Ihy also spelled as Ahy, whose name means the ‘sistrum player’ or ‘musician’. He was the personification of the joy and jubilation experienced while using the sistrum in rites and worship.

According to myth, Ihy was the son of Hathor, the goddess of music and dance and Horus, the Elder. As his mother’s bovine aspect, his name was believed could also mean ‘calf’. Ihy was associated with the afterlife, since Hathor had a funerary aspect. Sometimes, he also referred as the son of Isis, Nephthys and Sekhmet.

Ihy appearance portrayed as a young boy wearing the sidelock of youth, with his finger held to his mouth and usually carrying a sistrum in his right hand or menet necklace.

There was no any a temple or cult center built for Ihy. However as the son of Hathor and Horus he was worshipped in the temple of Hathor in Dendara. At this temple, Caesar Augustus built a mammisi, or birthing house. There scenes of celebrating Ihy’s conception and birth, portrayed on the walls of the mammisi.

In the Coffin Texts and the Book of the Dead, Ihy was called the “lord of bread” and “in charge of beer”.