Real, but the surviving record is thin or comes from one period only.
Ar-ren-f-tchesef
eighth hour, and the twentieth finger
Part of the Hours of the Day and Night.
Overview
Ar-ren-f-tchesef holds the eighth hour of the day and of the night, and the twentieth finger-breadth of the royal cubit.
His name is the most transparently sentence-like in the group: ar "to make," ren-f "his name," tchesef "himself" — "he who made his own name."
That reading is offered with the usual caution, since Budge does not gloss it. But if it is right it is a significant name. Making one's own name, in a religion where a being does not fully exist until it is named and where erasing a name erases the bearer, is a claim of self-existence — the same claim Atum and Khepri make in their creation formulas.
Attestation history
The twelve. Budge's list of the gods and goddesses of the hours of the day [budge-1904]:
| Hour | God | Hour | God | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Imsety (Amseth) | 7 | Maa-tef-f | |
| 2 | Hapy (Hap) | 8 | Ar-ren-f-tchesef | |
| 3 | Duamutef (Tua-mat-f) | 9 | Hentch-hentch | |
| 4 | Qebehsenuef | 10 | Qet | |
| 5 | Heq | 11 | An-erta-nef-nebat | |
| 6 | Armai | 12 | Matchet |
And the night is the same twelve. Budge: "The deities of the hours of the night are the same as those of the hours of the day, and their names follow each other in the order in which they occur as gods of the hours of the day" [budge-1904].
The rota. Budge prints a table of the gods who watch "before and behind Osiris-Serapis" through the twelve hours, and it is a shift rotation: each god stands behind Osiris for one hour, then before him for the next [budge-1904]. This god is behind Osiris in hour 0 and before Osiris in hour 1.
The cubit. Budge's list of the twenty-eight finger-breadths of the royal cubit gives 20. Ar-ren-f-tchesef [budge-1904] — one of four hour-gods appearing consecutively at fingers 17–20, in their hour order.
What the texts say
Self-naming as self-creation. Budge records elsewhere that "no creature, animate or inanimate, could be said to have an existence until it possessed a name," and that "to destroy or blot out a name was to wipe out of existence the being who bore it" [budge-1904]. A god called he who made his own name is, on that logic, a god who caused himself to exist.
Whether the twelfth-hour list intends anything of the kind, or simply inherited a grand name for a minor office, cannot be settled here.
What this entry cannot tell you. Budge prints these gods as bare list entries — a name and a position. There is no iconography, no epithet, no speech, no cult and no narrative for any of the twelve. The grade is ◐ partial because the attestation is real and precise, and because that is genuinely all of it.
Iconography
None recorded.
Cult and practice
None. These are gods of divisions, not of places.
The record
Every claim above traces to a row here. Source, exact place in that source, and what it actually supports.
| Source | Locus | Attests |
|---|---|---|
[budge-1904] | *Gods of the Egyptians* II, §V, p. 294 | god of the eighth hour of the day |
[budge-1904] | *Gods of the Egyptians* II, §VI, p. 294 | the same twelve serve the hours of the night |
[budge-1904] | *Gods of the Egyptians* II, §VII, p. 295 | position in the before-and-behind rota round Osiris-Serapis |
[budge-1904] | *Gods of the Egyptians* II, §I, p. 291 | 20. Ar-ren-f-tchesef of the royal cubit |
Sources
[budge-1904]— Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians (1904), vol. II, ch. XIX "Miscellaneous Gods", §V (hours of the day, p. 294), §VI (hours of the night, p. 294) and §VII (the watch before and behind Osiris-Serapis, p. 295). Public domain, archived insources-texts/. Budge caveat applies (04-BIBLIOGRAPHY.md); these are name-lists and tables, which is transcription rather than interpretation.[wilkinson-2003]— Wilkinson, The Complete Gods and Goddesses. In copyright; cited only.
Open questions
- Identify the manuscript behind Budge's hour-lists. He prints them without a
- Establish the meaning of the name; Budge does not gloss it.
- Verify the "he who made his own name" parse. It is the most consequential
- Check for any appearance outside the list literature — a single narrative or
Cite this entry
Research grade: ◐partial — Genuinely attested, but the record is thin or single-period.
"Ar-ren-f-tchesef", The Egyptian God Corpus,
graded partial, retrieved 2026-08-10.