In Egyptian mythology, Khnum is the creator god said to shape humans on a potter’s wheel.
Khnum was originally associated with the Nile’s cataracts and the life-giving silt carried by the river’s annual flood. Egyptian theology connected that clay with creation: Khnum fashioned human bodies on a potter’s wheel and supplied them with their life force, or ka, before placing them in their mothers’ wombs.
Khnum was especially important at Elephantine near the First Cataract and at Esna farther south. He was usually shown with a ram’s head, linking him to fertility, vitality, and the powerful waters of the Nile. At Elephantine, he formed a divine triad with the goddesses Satis and Anuket.
A useful distinction is that Egyptian creation stories assigned creative roles to several gods. Ptah was also a creator deity, particularly associated with craftsmanship and creation through thought and speech, while Atum was a primordial creator in Heliopolitan theology. The potter’s-wheel image, however, is especially characteristic of Khnum. Reliefs at Deir el-Bahari show him shaping Queen Hatshepsut in a divine-birth scene.