| Kek | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Kauket (left) and Kek (right) sitting on thrones, relief from a temple at Deir el-Medina | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Name in hieroglyphs |
Kek
Kekui
Kekuit
Keket | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Major cult center | Hermopolis (as a member of the Ogdoad) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Spouse | Kauket | ||||||||||||||||||||
Kek is the deification of the concept of primordial darkness (kkw sm3w[1]) in the ancient Egyptian Ogdoad cosmogony of Hermopolis.
The Ogdoad consisted of four pairs of deities, four male gods paired with their female counterparts. Kek's female counterpart was Kauket.[2][3][4] Kek and Kauket in some aspects also represent night and day, and were called "raiser up of the light" and the "raiser up of the night", respectively.[5]
The name is written as kk or kkwy with a variant of the sky hieroglyph in ligature with the staff (N2) associated with the word for "darkness" kkw.[6]
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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.[7]
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.
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Main article: Pepe the Frog |
In relation to the 2016 United States presidential election, individuals associated with online message boards, such as 4chan, noted a similarity between Kek and the character Pepe the Frog. This, combined with the frequent use of the term "kek" as a popular Korean onomatopoetic stand-in for the internet slang "lol", which was often paired with images of Pepe,[8] resulted in a resurgence of interest in the ancient deity.[9]
