Editing Mendes (section)

==Religion==
The chief [[deities]] of Mendes were the [[Sheep|ram]] deity [[Banebdjedet]] (lit. ''Ba of the Lord of Djedet''), who was the [[Egyptian soul|Ba]] of [[Osiris]], and his [[wikt:consort|consort]], the fish goddess [[Hatmehit]]. With their child [[Har-pa-khered]] ("[[Horus]] the Child"), they formed the triad of Mendes.

The [[sheep|ram]] deity of Mendes was described by [[Herodotus]] in his ''[[Histories (Herodotus)|Histories]]''<ref>Herodotus, History, Book II, 42 ([[Robin Waterfield]] translation)</ref> as being represented with the head and [[Wool|fleece]] of a [[goat]]: "...whereas anyone with a sanctuary of Mendes or who comes from the province of Mendes, will have nothing to do with ([[sacrifice|sacrificing]]) goats, but uses [[sheep]] as his sacrificial animals... They say that Heracles' overriding desire was to see [[Zeus]], but Zeus was refusing to let him do so. Eventually, as a result of Heracles' pleading, Zeus came up with a plan. He skinned a ram and cut off his head, then he held the head in front of himself, wore the fleece, and showed himself to Heracles like that. That is why the Egyptian statues of Zeus have a ram's head, is why rams are sacred to the Thebans, and they do not use them as sacrificial animals. However there is just one day of the year—the day of the [[festival of Zeus]]—when they chop up a single ram, skin it, dress the statue of Zeus in the way mentioned, and then bring the statue of Heracles up close to the statue of Zeus. Then everyone around the [[sanctuary]] mourns the death of the ram and finally they bury it in a sacred tomb."

[[demonology|Demonologists]] in [[early modern times]] often imagined [[Satan]] as manifesting himself as a goat or [[satyr]], because goats had a reputation for lustful behavior and were used in the iconography of pre-Christian gods like [[Pan (god)|Pan]] and the goat of Mendes. The occultist [[Eliphas Levi]] in his ''Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie'' (1855) drew an image of the fictitious medieval idol [[Baphomet]] that conflated it with the goat of Mendes and the imagery of the Satanic satyr. The image of the [[satyr]]-like Baphomet and its supposed connection with Mendes has since been repeated by various occultists, conspiracy theorists, and [[neopagans]].<ref>"Pan en Egypte et le «bouc» de Mendès" by Youri Volokhine, in Francesca Prescendi and Youri Volokhine, ''Dans le laboratoire de l'historien des religions: Mélanges offerts à Philippe Borgeaud''. Editions Labor et Fides, 2011, pp. 637–642, 646–647.</ref>