The role of the Khemenyu, «The ones of the town “Eight” (Khemenu/Hermopolis)», known
as Ogdoad, was crucial in the theologies of Ptolemaic temples, in Thebes, Fayum and other
places. In Thebes particularly, the ritual scenes, hymns, dedicatory inscriptions on the propylons (temple of Khonsu, temple of Montu, second pylon, pylon of Medinet Habu) or inside the
temples (Opet, Khonsu temple, small temple of Medinet Habu) offer a large amount of information to understand the myth of their birth in Luxor, their role of creators, their travels along
the Nile to Hermopolis, Memphis and Heliopolis, their return to Thebes where they were buried in the sacred mound of Djeme on the western bank of the Nile in the area of the small temple of Medinet Habu. The analysis of more ancient documents will show that this group do not
appear before the 18th dynasty. Until the first millennium, their role was limited to the sun’s adoration, perhaps in the shape of baboons. Their iconography is not known before the 26th dynasty, when they appeared as men with frog heads and women with cobra heads; their Theban
Ptolemaic representations are generally purely anthropomorphic. At the same time, they received personal names as four couples named by the masculine name and its feminine counterpart: Amon and Amonet, Nun and Nunet, Hehu and Hehet, Keku and Keket.
From their first manifestations during the New Kingdom to the last ones in Roman time,
the evolution of their functions is obvious; the creation of their own myth as cosmogonic
gods and dead gods cannot be dated before the second part of the first millenium. This analysis underlines the transformation of these divine entities, of their myth and their theology
during their long history.