Colossal Statue: God Hapy
The colossal male statue personifying the flood and its bounty is carrying a table of offerings, his head adorned with a papyrus plant symbolizing Lower Egypt. The statue was broken into pieces which were mixed with those of the royal colossi. The monument bears the traces of ancient repairs; some surfaces were repolished like the right shoulder. As most of the damage seems to concentrate in the statue’s right side, it is possible that the colossus collapsed on this side, maybe because of an earthquake. The statue seems more eroded than the royal couple, although their pieces were found together in a jumble, and therefore exposed to the same conditions for centuries. Beyond stylistic considerations, these findings question the co-existence of these three colossi and when exactly they were gathered to embellish the entrance of Amun-Gereb’s sanctuary.
Hapy was called "Father of the gods" because the flood was to the Egyptians the manifestation of the resurgence of the primordial waters from whence came the world, the gods and men. The presence of this great statue in Heracleion was also possibly related to the worship of the renewed waters, on the occasion of the rebirth of Osiris. The city of Thonis-Heracleion was connected to the Canopus by a canal where, as mentioned in the Decree of Canopus, a fluvial procession would take place during the Osirian festivals.