CHONS, an Egyptian deity called also Khons or Khonsou, principally worshipped at Thebes as the great eldest son of Amen Ra and Mut, and identified with Aah the moon. He had two names in the Thebaid, his second being Neferhotep; as such he is called the god of two names. By the Greeks he was called Chon, and considered to be a form of Hercules. Like Horus he is represented as a youthful god, his form mummied, wearing the lock of hair at the right side of his head and a skullcap surmounted by the full and dichotomized lunar disk, or else hawkheaded, wearing the same. He holds a crook and whip. He was a celestial deity, and at a later time connected with Thoth, and was said to have proceeded from Nu or Han the celestial waters, or to be the same as Har or Horus and Shu or Sos. The functions of Chons are exceedingly limited; he is said in the Ritual to overthrow the proud, and to be mystically connected with the Phoenix. But the most remarkable characters of Chons are those mentioned on a tablet found on a temple in the S.W. quarter of Karnak dedicated to the god, which had been repaired or erected by Rameses III. of the 20th dynasty, said to be of sandstone and basalt, the doors plated with goldandelectrum. The temple of calcareous stone in the Karnak quarter was dedicated to Chons in two characters, that of giving oracles and of expelling evil, and the remarkable tablet found there records the departure of the god in his ark in the 16 th year of the reign of Rameses XII. to the land of Bakhtan to expel a demon which had possessed the daughter of the king of that country and sister of the queen of Egypt. After effecting this miracle, and remaining some time there, the god returned in his ark conducted by priests in the 33d year of the same reign. Attached to this temple ...