Egyptian mythology

Ancient Egyptian religion encompasses the beliefs and rituals of Ancient Egypt. It was followed in Egypt for over three thousand years until the establishment of Coptic Christianity and Islam.
Contents
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* 1 Gods
* 2 Death
* 3 The monotheistic period
* 4 Temples
* 5 See also
* 6 References
* 7 Further reading
* 8 External links

[edit] Gods

Further information: List of Egyptian gods

Egyptian goddess Isis, tomb painting, ca. 1360 BC.
Egyptian goddess Isis, tomb painting, ca. 1360 BC.
A stele depicting two triads of gods
A stele depicting two triads of gods

Early beliefs can be split into 5 distinct localized groups:

* the Ennead of Heliopolis, where the chief god was Atum or Atum-Ra
* the Ogdoad of Hermopolis, where the chief god was Thoth
* the Chnum-Satet-Anuket triad of Elephantine, where the chief god was Chnum
* the Amun-Mut-Chons triad of Thebes, where the chief god was Amun
* the Ptah-Sekhmet-Nefertem triad of Memphis, unusual in that the gods were unconnected before the triad was formalized, where the chief god was Ptah.

Throughout the vast and complex history of Egypt, the dominant beliefs of the ancient Egyptians merged and developed as leaders of different groups gained power. This process continued even after the end of the ancient Egyptian civilization as we know it today. As an example, during the New Kingdom Ra and Amun became Amun-Ra. This "merging" into a single god is typically referred to as syncretism. Syncretism should be distinguished from mere groupings, also referred to as "families" such as Amun, Mut and Khonsu, where no "merging" takes place. Over time, deities took part in multiple syncretic relationships, for instance, the combination of Ra and Horus into Ra-Herakty. However, even when taking part in such a syncretic relationship, the original deities did not become completely "absorbed" into the combined deity, although the individuality of the one was often greatly weakened. Also, these syncretic relationships sometimes involved more than just two deities, for instance, Ptah, Seker and Osiris, becoming Ptah-Seker-Osiris. The goddesses followed a similar pattern. Also important to keep in mind is that sometimes the attributes of one deity got closely associated with another, without any "formal" syncretism taking place. For instance, the loose association of Hathor with Isis. Khnum was the god with the ram's head.

An interesting aspect of ancient Egyptian religion is that deities sometimes played different conflicting roles. As an example, the lioness Sekhmet being sent out by Ra to devour the humans for having rebelled against him, but later on becoming a fierce protectress of the kingdom, life in general and the sick. Even more complex is the roles of Set. Judging the mythology of Set from a modern perspective, especially the mythology surrounding Set's relationship with Osiris, it is easy to cast Set as the arch villain and source of evil. This is wrong, however, as Set was earlier playing the role of destroyer of Apep, in the service of Ra on his barge, and thus serving to uphold Ma'at (Truth, Justice and Harmony).

The Egyptians believed that in the beginning, the universe was filled with the dark waters of chaos. The first god, Re-Atum, appeared from the water as the land of Egypt appears every year out of the flood waters of the Nile. Re-Atum spat and out of the spittle came out the gods Shu (air) and Tefnut (moisture). The world was created when Shu and Tefnut gave birth to two children: Nut (sky) and Geb (the Earth). Humans were created when Shu and Tefnut went wandering in the dark wastes and got lost. Re-Atum sent his eye to find them. On reuniting, his tears of joy turned into people.

Geb and Nut copulated, and upon Shu's learning of his children's fornication, he separated the two, effectively becoming the air between the sky and ground. He also decreed that the pregnant Nut should not give birth any day of the year. Nut pleaded with Thoth, who on her behalf gambled with the moon-god Yah and won five more days to be added onto the then 360-day year. Nut had one child on each of these days: Osiris, Isis, Set, Nephthys, and Horus-the-Elder.

Osiris, by different accounts, was either the son of Re-Atum or Geb, and king of Egypt. His brother Set represented evil in the universe. He murdered Osiris and himself became the king. After killing Osiris, Set tore his body into pieces, but Isis rescued most of the pieces for burial beneath the temple. Set made himself king but was challenged by Osiris's son - Horus. Set lost and was sent to the desert. He became the God of terrible storms. Osiris was mummified by Anubis and became God of the dead. Horus became the King and from him descended the Pharaohs.

Another version is when Set made a chest that only Osiris could fit into. He then invited Osiris to a feast. Set made a bet that no one could fit into the chest. Osiris was the last one to step into the chest, but before he did Set asked if he could hold Osiris's crown. Osiris agreed and stepped into the chest. As he lay down, Set slammed the lid shut and put the crown on his head. He then set the chest afloat on the Nile. Isis did not know of her husband's death until the wind told her. She then placed her son in a safe place and cast a spell so no one could find him. When she searched for her husband, a child told her a chest had washed up on the bank and a tree had grown up. The tree was so straight the king had used it for the central pillar. Isis went and asked for her husband's body and it was given to her. The god of the underworld told her that Osiris would be a king, but only in the underworld.

Another interesting note to be made is that the ancient Greeks believed that their gods and goddesses were the origins of the Egyptian deities. According to ancient Greek Mythology, during the period of time when the titan Typhon was free to roam the earth, all of the Greek gods except for Hermes and Zeus fled from Greece and to Egypt. While in Egypt many of the gods took on the shape or form of animals as a means to hide themselves from the wrath of Typhon. Thus the Egyptian deities were born.

[edit] Death

Egypt had a highly developed view of the afterlife with elaborate rituals for preparing the body and soul for a peaceful life after death. Beliefs about the soul and afterlife focused heavily on preservation of the body. This was because they believed that the vitality or double, the ka, was still associated with the body after death and it was necessary for the ka to be reunited with the ba, the spirit or soul to form the akh. This meant that embalming and mummification were practised, in order to preserve the individual's identity in the afterlife. Originally the dead were buried in reed caskets in the searing hot sand, which caused the remains to dry quickly, preventing decomposition, and were subsequently buried. Later, they started constructing wooden tombs, and the extensive process of mummification was developed by the Egyptians around the 4th Dynasty. All soft tissues were removed, and the cavities washed and packed with natron, then the exterior body was buried in natron as well. Since it was a stoneable offense 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.

After coming out of the natron, the bodies were coated inside and out with resin to preserve them, then wrapped with linen bandages, embedded with religious amulets and talismans. In the case of royalty, this was usually then placed inside a series of nested coffins, the outermost of which was a stone sarcophagus. The intestines, lungs, liver and the stomach were preserved separately and stored in canopic jars protected by the Four sons of Horus. 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. They left the heart in place because it was thought to be the home of the soul.

The Book of the Dead was a series of almost two hundred spells represented as sectional texts, songs and pictures written on papyrus, individually customized for the deceased, 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, although the practice of painting on the tomb walls appears to predate the formalization of the Book of the Dead as a bound text. One of the best examples of the Book of the Dead is The Papyrus of Ani, created around 1240 BC, which, in addition to the texts themselves, also contains many pictures of Ani and his wife on their journey through the land of the dead. After a person dies their soul is led into a hall of judgment in Duat by Anubis (god of mummification) and the deceased's heart, which was the record of the morality of the owner, is weighed against a single feather representing Ma'at (the concept of truth, and order). If the outcome is favorable, the deceased is taken to Osiris, god of the afterlife, in Aaru, but the demon Ammit (Eater of Hearts) – part crocodile, part lion, and part hippopotamus – destroys those hearts whom the verdict is against, leaving the owner to remain in Duat. [1]. A heart that weighed less than the feather was considered a pure heart, not weighed down by the guilt or sins of one's actions in life, resulting in a favorable verdict; a heart heavy with guilt and sin from one's life weighed more than the feather, and so the heart would be eaten by Ammit. An individual without a heart in the afterlife in essence, did not exist as Egyptians believed the heart to be the center of reason and emotion as opposed to the brain which was removed and discarded during mummification. Many times a person would be buried with "surrogate" hearts to replace their own for the weighing of the heart ceremony.

[edit] The monotheistic period
Pharaoh Akhenaten and his family praying to Aten.
Pharaoh Akhenaten and his family praying to Aten.

A short interval of monotheism (Atenism) occurred under the reign of Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV), focused on the Egyptian sun deity Aten. The Aten is typically shown as a sun disk with rays coming out of all sides. Akhenaten built a new capital at Amarna with temples for The Aten. This was a symbolic act as Akhenaten wanted a place of worship for The Aten that was not tainted by the visage of other gods. The religious change survived only until the death of Akhenaten, and the old religion was quickly restored during the reign of Tutankhamun, Akhenaten's son by his wife Kiya. Interestingly, Tutankhamun and several other post-restoration Pharaohs were erased from the history, because they were reguarded as heretics.

According to John Tuthill, a professor at the University of Guam, Akhenaten's reasons for his religious reform were political. By the time of Akhenaten's reign, the god Amun had risen to such a high status that the priests of Amun had become even more wealthy and powerful than the pharaohs. However, it may be that Akhenaten was influenced by his family members, particularly his wife or mother (Dunham, 1963, p. 4; Mertz, 1966, p. 269). There was a certain trend in Akhenaten's family towards sun-worship. Towards the end of the reign of Akhenaten's father, Amenhotep III, the Aten was depicted increasingly often. Some historians have suggested that the same religious revolution would have happened even if Akhenaten had never become pharaoh at all. However, considering the violent reaction that followed shortly after Akhenaten's untimely death, this seems improbable. The reasons for Akhenaten's revolution still remain a mystery. After the death of Akhenaten, his son, the famous Tutankhamun reinstated the polytheistic (pantheon) religion that was in place before the time of The Aten.

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, sometimes explained by claiming that Jesus was originally a syncretism based predominantly on Horus, with Isis and her worship becoming Mary and veneration (see Jesus as myth).

[edit] 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) – 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 – 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 centre of the Opet Festival.
* Medinet Habu (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.