Khonsu was the Egyptian god of the moon, time and healing — the youthful moon-god who measured out the months and the passage of time, the divine son of Amun and Mut in the great Theban triad, and a powerful healer and protector who drove away evil spirits and disease. The traveler of the night sky, he is the moon whose changing course marks the months and whose light guards against the terrors of the dark.
The Moon-God
Khonsu (Egyptian Khonsu, “the traveler” or “the wanderer”) was the god of the moon, his very name reflecting the moon's journey across the night sky. He was usually depicted as a youth, often as a young man wrapped like a mummy with a side-lock of hair (the symbol of youth and childhood), wearing a headdress combining the full lunar disc and the crescent moon. As the moon-god, he traveled across the heavens by night as Ra traveled by day, the great light of the darkness, the wanderer of the night sky whose changing phases the Egyptians watched with care.
The Measurer of Time
As the moon, Khonsu was the great measurer of time. The Egyptian calendar and the reckoning of months were based on the cycles of the moon, and so Khonsu, who governed the moon's phases and journey, was the god who measured out the months, the seasons and the passage of time. He determined the length of life, watched over the divisions of time, and was associated with the calendar and the marking of the year. The waxing and waning of the moon was his doing, and through it the very flow of time was reckoned. He was, in this aspect, kin to Thoth, who was also a moon-god and a measurer of time.
The Healer and Protector
Khonsu was a powerful god of healing, protection and the driving-out of evil. He was believed to drive away evil spirits, to protect against disease, madness and the dangers of the night, and to heal the sick. In a famous text (the “Bentresh Stela”), a statue of Khonsu was sent to a foreign land to heal a princess possessed by an evil spirit, which the god successfully exorcised. His light, like the moon piercing the darkness, drove away the demons and terrors that lurked in the night, and he was invoked for protection and healing throughout Egypt. As a protective god, he watched over people in the dangerous hours of darkness.
The Wanderer of the Night Sky
Khonsu endures as the Egyptian god of the moon, time and healing — the youthful wanderer of the night sky, the measurer of months and the passage of time, the divine son of the Theban triad, and the powerful healer who drove away evil and disease. He embodies the Egyptian reverence for the moon as the light of the darkness and the measure of time, and the protective power of that light against the terrors of the night; and he completes, with Amun and Mut, the great divine family of Thebes — the youthful moon-god son of the King and Queen of the Gods.
The youthful moon-god who wanders the night sky, measures out the months, and drives away the demons of the dark — the healing light in the darkness, son of the King and Queen of the Gods.