A name and a job. Nothing else survives — and that is the finding, not a gap in our work. Arrives with the Book of the Dead.
Khenti-khas
a name in Budge's list of the Gods of the Book of the Dead
What is attested, and exactly how much
He is in Budge's compiled list of the Gods of the Book of the Dead (Gods of the Egyptians II, ch. XX), a run of several hundred divine names transcribed in hieroglyphs with no commentary. That is a real attestation — Budge assembled the list from the Book of the Dead, so the name was in a papyrus before it was in his index.
It is also the whole of it. No passage in the eighteen archived sources has been located in which he does, says or receives anything.
Budge indexes him three times — Gods of the Egyptians i. 111, and the Book of the Dead III index twice — and all three are index lines. The pages themselves have not been read.
Why this is ○ name-only and not ⚠ audit
The distinction matters and the corpus has been sloppy about it before.
An ⚠ audit entry is for a name that could not be traced to an acceptable source at all, or that turned out to be a door, a tool, a place or a person — see the Epithet Trap.
This is different. The name is in a list of Book of the Dead gods, compiled by an Egyptologist from the text. It is a god; what is missing is everything else. ○ name-only is exactly the grade for that, and the entry stays this length until a passage turns up.
The Khenti- family is a standing hazard
Khenti means "foremost of," and it forms compounds everywhere: Khenti-Amentet, Khenti-heh-f, Khenti-peru, Khenti-Re-stau, Khenti-Thenenet, Khenti-qerer. Several of those are epithets of Osiris, listed in the Theban and Saite name-lists (the Names of Osiris).
This name has not been found in either recension — checked — so it is not one of them on present evidence. But khas is the element to identify, and until it is, the possibility that this is a title rather than a name stays open (trap form 2).
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, "Gods of the Book of the Dead," ch. XX | **Khenti-khas** among the transcribed names |
[budge-1904] | *ibid.*, index | "**Khenti-khas**, i. 111" |
Sources
[budge-1904]— Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians (1904), vol. II. Public domain, archived. The name-list is a transcription, which is where Budge is most dependable — and it carries no context whatsoever.
Open questions
- Read the indexed pages. GotE i. 111, and the two Book of the Dead III references. A numbered page in an archived book is the cheapest work in this corpus, and it is the only thing that would move this entry.
- Which chapter of the Book of the Dead? Budge's list does not say, and the answer would give the name a text.
- What is khas? Identify the second element and the name may resolve into a title.
Cite this entry
Research grade: ○name-only — A name and a function in a spell list. That is all that survives.
"Khenti-khas", The Egyptian God Corpus,
graded name-only, retrieved 2026-08-10.