Egyptian mythology

Egyptian mythology (or Egyptian religion) is the name for the succession of beliefs held by the people of Egypt until the coming of Christianity and Islam.

The timespan involved is nearly three thousand years, and beliefs varied considerably over time, so an article or, indeed, even one whole book, cannot do more than outline the many entities and subjects in this complex system of beliefs. Egyptian Mythology is different from Greek or Roman Mythology, in that in Egyptian Mythology most deities are of human body and animal head or vice versa.

Pharaoh Akhenaten and his family adoring the Aten.

Burial

Egyptian Burial Chambers

A sarcophagus is a stone container for a coffin or body. Sarcophagi were usually carved, decorated or built ornately. Some were built to be freestanding above ground, as a part of an elaborate tomb. Others were made for burial, or were placed in crypts. In Ancient Egypt, a sarcophagus was usually the external layer of protection for a royal Egyptian mummy, with several layers of coffins nested within.

Natural Mummies

See also Mummy.

In Egypt, the dead were originally not mummified with the extensive process that happened during the first dynasty. The dead were originally buried in reed caskets in the sand. The searing hot sand caused the remains to dry quickly, preventing decomposition. After a while, though, they started constructing wooden tombs, and the extensive process of mummification was made so that the bodies would not decompose in the afterlife. The mummified individual was placed at his/her final resting place through a set of rituals and protocol.

The earliest 'mummified' individual dates back to approximately 3300 BC, although it is not a 'true' mummy. The body is on display in the British Museum and has been given the nickname of 'Ginger' because he has red hair. Ginger was buried in the hot desert sand with maybe some stones piled on top to prevent the corpse being eaten by jackals. The hot, dry conditions desiccated the body, preventing the muscle and soft tissues from decaying. Ginger was buried with some pottery vessels, which would have held food and drink to sustain him on his long journey to the other world. There are no written records of the religion or gods from that time, and it is not known if it was the intention of the ancient Egyptians that the deceased were being preserved.

However, from the First dynasty onwards, the ancient Egyptians were trying to preserve the bodies of the death, so their spirit had a body to guide them to the afterlife.

Important Human Elements

The Egyptians believed that there were several important elements to account for that make up the human being:

Name
Heart
The Physical Body
The Shadow
Ka (spirit)
Ba (personality)
The Akh (immortality)

Each one of these elements played an important role in the wellbeing of an individual. Each was necessary to achieve rebirth into the afterlife. With the exception of the Akh (immortality), all these elements join a person at birth.

Name

A person's name was given to them at birth and would live for as long as that name was spoken which explains why efforts were made to protect it. A cartouche (magical rope) was used to surround the name and protect it for eternity.

Heart

The Edwin Smith papyrus of about 3000 BC shows that the ancient Egyptians understood that the blood-vessels came from the heart.

Body and Shadow

A person's shadow was always present. A person could not exist with out a shadow, nor the shadow without the person. The shadow was represented as a small human figure painted completely black.

Ka (double/spirit/soul)

The Ka was a person's double/spirit/soul. The Ka was created at the same time as the physical body. The doubles were made on a potter's wheel by the ram-headed god, Khnum. The Ka existed in the physical world and resided in the tomb. It had the same needs that the person had in life, which was to eat, drink, etc. The Egyptians left offerings of food, drink, and worldly possessions in tombs for the Ka to use.

Ba (personality)

The Ba, which ability to take on different forms, can best be described as someone's personality. Like a person's body, each Ba was an individual. It entered a person's body with the breath of life and it left at the time of death and moved freely between the underworld and the physical world.

Akh (immortality)

The Akh was the aspect of a person that would join the gods in the underworld being immortal and unchangeable. It was created after death by the use of funerary text and spells, designed to bring forth an akh. Once this was achieved that individual was assured of not "dying a second time" a death that would mean the end of one's existence.

An intact body was an integral part of a person's afterlife. Without a physical body there was no shadow, no name, no ka, ba, or akh. By mummification, the Egyptians believed they were assuring themselves a successful rebirth into the afterlife.

Afterlife

Ancient Egyptians believed they may in part survive to an afterlife. Egyptians believed that the soul (or the Ka (human personality)) could survive death if the body was preserved. Therefore, embalming and mummification was practiced to preserve the individual's identity. The deceased coffin and tomb walls were inscribed and painted with elaborate scenes and spells to protect the deceased spirit during his or her "dangerous journey" to the underworld. The final "transition" to the underworld involved the ceremony of weighing of the heart or judgement; which occurred before proceeding to either the afterlife or the devourer.[1]

Egyptian embalming

Main article: Mummification

Since preservation of the body was instrumental in keeping the Ka and Ba souls, embalming was developed by the Egyptians around the 4th Dynasty. The Priests of Anupu (Anubis) would conduct the mummification process under the watchful eyes of Anubis. Since it was a stoneable offence to harm the body of the Pharaoh, even after death, the person who made the cut in the abdomen with a rock knife was ceremonially chased away and had rocks thrown at him. All soft tissues like the brain and most of the internal organs were removed. The cavities were washed and then packed with natron, and the body buried in a pile of natron. The intestines, lungs, liver and the stomach were preserved separately and stored in jars protected by the four sons of Hor (Horus): Duamutef (stomach), Qebhsenuef (intestines), Hapi (lungs), and Imsety (liver). After coming out of the natron the bodies were coated inside and out with resin to preserve them, then they were wrapped with linen bandages. Important religious amulets and tailsmans were embedded within the linen.

The Ka could only return in a body that was well preserved. A damaged body could not be recognised by the Ka and this destroyed the chance of an afterlife. The fear of this led the Egyptian people to place great importance on the mummification process and the burial itself. This 'second death' could be used to take revenge on someone after death by destroying the mummy.

Other creatures were also mummified, sometimes thought to be pets of Egyptian families but more frequently or more likely they were the representations of the Gods. The ibis, crocodile, cats, nile perch and baboon can be found in perfect mummified forms.

Book of the dead

Main article: Book of the Dead

The Book of the Dead was a series of almost two hundred magical texts, songs and pictures written on papyrus, which were buried along with the dead in order to ease their passage into the underworld. In some tombs, the Book of the Dead has also been found painted on the walls. One of the best examples of the Book of the Dead is "The Papyrus of Ani", created around 1240 BC. In addition to the texts themselves, it also contains many pictures of Ani and his wife on their journey through the land of the dead.

Egyptians saw death as being the start of a dangerous journey, rather than the end of life. The goal of this journey was to reach the land of the gods. In order to reach the land where the gods dwelt, and to live amongst them, they must first travel through the land of the dead. Each Book of the Dead was tailored to some extent for the individual who would be taking the journey. It contained the spells and hymns thought to be most appropriate to the life that the person had led, as well as the pleas and speeches that would be used to pass each test on the journey. Crucially, these included the test of the Weighing of the Heart.

The weighing of the heart

To the Egyptian, the heart notes all good and bad deeds of a person's life. It was the data that is analyzed in a ceremony, upon death, in a judgment for afterlife. The ceremony of the weighing of the heart occurred in the Hall of Judgement. The deceased is led into the hall by Anupu (Anubis). The deceased's heart is placed on one scale pans and weighed against the Maàt's feather of truth. Anubis then adjusts the scale's plummet. Djehuty (Thoth) records the verdict. The deceased is taken by Hor (Horus) before Ausare (Osiris) after a proper verdict if rendered in favor. The demon Ammit the Devourer, "Eater of Hearts" – part crocodile, part lion, and part hippopotamus – destroys those whom the verdict is against.

(A majority of historians believe that there is no Book of the Dead. It is said that the enchantments were too sacred to be written down on anything. I would best relate this to scops of ancient Anglo-Saxon history).

External influences

Egypt exchanged ideas with Libya during its early unsettled period. Egypt was also influenced by the Greek Ptolemaic dynasties, which ruled Egypt for 300 years. Cleopatra was the only Ptolemaic queen to rule on her own. Egypt was incorporated into the Roman Empire, and was ruled first from Rome and then from Constantinople (until the Arab conquest).

Libyan period

Main article: Libyan Egypt
22nd – 25th Dynasty

Egypt has long had ties with Libya. After the death of Rameses XI, the priesthood in the person of Herihor wrest control of Egypt away from the Pharaohs until they were superseded (without any apparent struggle) by the Libyan kings of the 22nd Dynasty., The first king of the new Dynasty served as a general under the last ruler of the 21st Dynasty. It is known that he appointed his own son to be the High Priest of Amun, a post that was previously a hereditary appointment. The scant and patchy nature of the written records from this period suggest that it was unsettled. There appear to have been many subversive groups which eventually led to the creation of the 23rd dynasty which ran concurrent with the 22nd.

Ptolemaic period

Main article: Greek Egypt
304 BC – 30 BC

Started with Ptolemy I of Egypt and ended with Cleopatra VII. As Ptolemy I Soter ("Saviour"), he founded the Ptolemaic dynasty, which was to rule Egypt for 300 years. All the male rulers of the dynasty took the name "Ptolemy". Because the Ptolemaic kings adopted the Egyptian custom of marrying their sisters, many of the kings ruled jointly with their spouses, who were also of the royal house. This custom made Ptolemaic politics confusingly incestuous, and the later Ptolemies were increasingly feeble. The last of the Ptolemies, the famous Cleopatra, was the only Ptolemaic queen to rule on her own, after the death of her brother/husband, Ptolemy XIII.

Roman period

Main article: Roman Egypt
30 BC – 639 AD

Egypt was incorporated into the Roman Empire, and was ruled first from Rome and then from Constantinople (until the Arab conquest). The most revolutionary event in the history of Roman Egypt was the introduction of Christianity in the 2nd century. It was at first vigorously persecuted by the Roman authorities, who feared religious discord more than anything else in a country where religion had always been paramount. But it soon gained adherents among the Jews of Alexandria. From them it rapidly passed to the Greeks, and then to the native Egyptians, who found its promise of personal salvation and its teachings of social equality appealing.

Monotheism developments

A short period of monotheism (Atenism) occurred under the reign of Akhenaten, focused on the Egyptian sun deity Aten. Akhenaten outlawed the worship of any other god and built a new capital (Amarna) around the temple for Aten. The religious change survived only until the death of Akhenaten's nephew Tutankhamun, being highly unpopular and quickly reverted afterwards. In fact, Akhenaten and Tutankhamun's removals from the Wall of Kings are likely related to the radical religious change.

According to some egyptologists, it is incorrect to regard this period as monotheistic. These researchers state that people did not worship the Aten but worshipped the royal family as a pantheon of gods who received their divine power from the Aten. According to other egyptologists, it is important to regard this period as monotheistic. A recent alternative explanation resulting from interpreting particular items of knowledge concerning biblical and Egyptian history (by Ahmed Osman) proposes that Moses and Akhenaten to be the same person. After the fall of the Amarna dynasty, the original Egyptian pantheon survived more or less as the dominant faith, until the establishment of Coptic Christianity and later Islam, even though the Egyptians continued to have relations with the other monotheistic cultures (e.g. Hebrews). Egyptian mythology put up surprisingly little resistance to the spread of Christianity. Possibly its long history of collaboration with the Greek and Roman rulers of Egypt had robbed it of its authority.

Temples

Many temples are still standing today. Others are in ruins from wear and tear, while others have been lost entirely. Pharaoh Ramses II was a particularly prolific builder of temples.

Some known temples include:

Abu Simbel – Complex of two massive rock temples in southern Egypt on the western bank of the Nile.
Abydos (Great Temple of Abydos) – Adoration of the early kings, whose cemetery, to which it forms a great funerary chapel, lies behind it.
Ain el-Muftella (Bahariya Oasis) [2] – Could have served as the city center of El Qasr. It was probably built around the 26th Dynasty.
Karnak – Once part of the ancient capital of Egypt, Thebes.
Bani Hasan al Shurruq [3]; Located in Middle Egypt near to Al-Minya and survived the reconstruction of the New Kingdom.
Edfu – Ptolemaic temple that is located between Aswan and Luxor.
Temple of Kom Ombo – Controlled the trade routes from Nubia to the Nile Valley.
Luxor – Built largely by Amenhotep III and Ramesses II, it was the center of the festival of Opet.
Medinet Habu [4] (Memorial Temple of Ramesses III)– Temple and a complex of temples dating from the New Kingdom.
Temple of Hatshepsut – Mortuary temple complex at Deir el-Bahri with a colonnaded structure of perfect harmony, built nearly one thousand years before the Parthenon.
Philae – Island of Philae with Temple of Aset which was constructed in the 30th Dynasty.
Ramesseum (Memorial Temple of Ramesses II) – The main building, dedicated to the funerary cult, comprised two stone pylons (gateways, some 60 m wide), one after the other, each leading into a courtyard. Beyond the second courtyard, at the centre of the complex, was a covered 48-column hypostyle hall, surrounding the inner sanctuary.
Dendera Temple complex – Several temples but the all overshadowing building in the complex is the main temple, the Hathor temple.

The World

Creation

Ptah ("The Creator") was a creator god and patron deity of craftsmen and king of the underworld. In some myths, he created Ra as well. Mehturt ("great flood"; also Mehurt, Mehet-Weret, Mehet-uret) is the goddess of the part of the sky where the sun exists, i.e. the places where Ra proceedes across the sky. Amun, "the hidden one", was the "lord of the thrones of the two lands," and more proudly still, "king of the gods.". Ra came from the mound that came from the waters of Nu, or a lotus flower. Ra was the "king of the gods": the rule of heaven belonged to the sun-god, and this identification with Re was only logical for a supreme deity. Aten is the name given to the solar disk, who rejoices in the horizon in his name of the light which is in the sun disk.

Set

Order and chaos

Maàt was the goddess of truth, justice and order. Maat is more of a concept of balance, justice, and truth than an actual deity. In the underworld, Ma'at's headband supplied the Feather of Truth.

Set was a god of strength, war, storms, foreign lands and deserts in Egyptian mythology. He was closely associated with the god Ash. He was 'great of strength' and caused storms, evils, and confusion. Seth protected the sun (Re) as he journeyed through the land of the dead during the night. Most notably, he fought and killed Apep, the evil serpent of darkness who attacked Re each night.

Heaven and earth

Sun

The Ogdoad created the mound that Ra came from and the mound came from the waters of Nu. Ra was the "king of the gods": the rule of heaven belonged to the sun-god, and this identification with Re was only logical for a supreme deity. Aten is a sun god in ancient Egyptian mythology, and represented by the sun's disk.

Thoth

Moon

Thoth, pronounced "tot", is the Greek name given to Djehuty, the Egyptian god of the moon (lunar deity), wisdom, writing, magic, and measurement of time, among other things. Chons (alternately Khensu, Khons, Khonsu or Khonshu) is also a lunar deity, and a son of Amun and Mut.

Heaven

Hathor ("the house of Horus") was a fertility goddess, positioned as the celestial cow which encircles the sky and hawk god, Hor (Horus). She was also a goddess of royalty. Hathor was portrayed as a cow with a stylized sun between her horns, or a woman wearing a headdress with horns, the stylized sun and sometimes a uraeus. Hathor was both the daughter and wife of Ra. Hathor and Ra once argued, and she left Egypt. Ra quickly decided he missed her, but she changed into a cat that destroyed any man or god that approached. Thoth, disguised, eventually succeeded in convincing her to return. Bat was another goddess of fertility.

Horus was a falcon-god of law and order, later associated with the sun god Ra where they combined especially at Heliopolis and became "Horus of the two horizons", "Horus upon the horizon", and god of the morning sun. Heru-ur (also called Harmerti) was a falcon creator-god who was known for restraining Apep. His eyes were the sun and the moon; during a new moon, he was blind and was "he who has no eyes" and "he who has eyes". While blind, Horus was quite dangerous, sometimes attacking his friends after mistaking them for enemies. He was a son of Geb and Nut and was the patron god of Sekhem/Sokhmît/Letopolis. "Horus the child" was a son of either Ausare and Aset (Osiris and Isis) or Banebdjetet and Hatmehit. Later Horus became absolutely aligned as a son of the dead body of Osiris and Isis (alternatively: he emerged from Saosis' acacia tree). Horus was Osiris' bodyguard in the underworld, Duat. A war between Set and Horus was fought, lasting for eighty years. Horus was the father of the four gods associated with the canopic jars of Egyptian funerary beliefs: Imset, Hapi, Duamutef, and Kebechsenef.

Earth

Ausare (Osiris), the life-death-rebirth deity, was the fertility and agricultural deity. With his wife, Aset (Isis), he was the father of Horus. Ptah was the chthonic god. Chnum was the god of the Nile River delta.

Hapy

The Nile

Annual Nile flooding was from the solar deity, Hapy ("runner"), and was the symbolization of the annual flood of the Nile River which deposited rich silt on the banks and allowed the Egyptians to grow crops.

The river Nile gave life to the entire Egyptian civilisation. Its annual spring floods bringing water and rich nutrients to fields that would otherwise be swallowed up by the Sahara Desert. The river provided food, transportation, building materials and papyrus. Egypt's new year was deemed to begin at the flooding of the Nile. The river's course, from south to north, was seen as being in perfect harmony with the sun god Ra's daily journey from west to east in his boat across the ocean of sky. It was the Pharaoh's duty each year to influence the gods and bring forth the floods, as well as organising the building and repair of the irrigation systems. His success or failure as a ruler was measured by the prosperity brought by the Nile. The Nile itself did not play a major role in Egyptian religious beliefs. It was known simply as "the river".

External links and references

Hare, J.B., "Ancient Egypt". (sacred-texts.com)
"Ancient Egyptian architecture: temples". University College London.
O'Brien, Alexandra A., "Death in Ancient Egypt".
Telford, Mark Patrick, "Death And The Afterlife".
Crystal, Ellie, "Ancient Egypt". Crystalinks Metaphysical and Science.
Ancient Egypt Religion History

Egyptian mythology articles

See the Egyptian mythology topics article for particular deities.

Notes on Pronunciation

A "received pronunciation" of the names of ancient Egyptian deities has formed. By and large, this pronunciation is acceptable for most consonants and utterly wrong for the vowels. The actual vowels of ancient Egyptian are essentially unknown. Egyptologists developed a set of conventions to make it easier to talk about the terms they used. Two distinct different glottal consonants were both replaced with "a". A consonant similar to the "y" in the English word "yet" was replaced with "i". A consonant similar to the "w" in the English word "well" was replaced with "u". Then, "e" was inserted between other consonants. Thus, for example, the Egyptian king whose name is most accurately transcribed as "R?-mss" is known as "Rameses", even though cuneiform tablets that mention him suggest that a more accurate rendering with vowels might have been "Ri`amasesa".

See also: Egyptian language

External links

Glyphdoctors: Study hieroglyphics and Egyptian mythology online.
Egyptian Ministry of Tourism's extensive information on Egyptian Deities

Categories: Egyptian mythology | Ancient Egypt