1.
Ancient Egyptian religion
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Ancient Egyptian religion was a complex system of polytheistic beliefs and rituals which were an integral part of ancient Egyptian society. It centered on the Egyptians interaction with many deities who were believed to be present in, and in control of, rituals such as prayers and offerings were efforts to provide for the gods and gain their favor. Formal religious practice centered on the pharaoh, the king of Egypt and he acted as the intermediary between his people and the gods and was obligated to sustain the gods through rituals and offerings so that they could maintain order in the universe. The state dedicated enormous resources to Egyptian rituals and to the construction of the temples, individuals could interact with the gods for their own purposes, appealing for their help through prayer or compelling them to act through magic. These practices were distinct from, but closely linked with, the formal rituals, the popular religious tradition grew more prominent in the course of Egyptian history as the status of the Pharaoh declined. Another important aspect was the belief in the afterlife and funerary practices, the Egyptians made great efforts to ensure the survival of their souls after death, providing tombs, grave goods, and offerings to preserve the bodies and spirits of the deceased. The religion had its roots in Egypts prehistory and lasted for more than 3,000 years, the details of religious belief changed over time as the importance of particular gods rose and declined, and their intricate relationships shifted. At various times, certain gods became preeminent over the others, including the sun god Ra, the creator god Amun, for a brief period, in the theology promulgated by the Pharaoh Akhenaten, a single god, the Aten, replaced the traditional pantheon. Ancient Egyptian religion and mythology left behind many writings and monuments, along with significant influences on ancient, the beliefs and rituals now referred to as ancient Egyptian religion were integral within every aspect of Egyptian culture. Their language possessed no single term corresponding to the modern European concept of religion, the characteristics of the gods who populated the divine realm were inextricably linked to the Egyptians understanding of the properties of the world in which they lived. The Egyptians believed that the phenomena of nature were divine forces in and these deified forces included the elements, animal characteristics, or abstract forces. The Egyptians believed in a pantheon of gods, which were involved in all aspects of nature and their religious practices were efforts to sustain and placate these phenomena and turn them to human advantage. This polytheistic system was complex, as some deities were believed to exist in many different manifestations. Conversely, many forces, such as the sun, were associated with multiple deities. The diverse pantheon ranged from gods with vital roles in the universe to minor deities or demons with very limited or localized functions. It could include gods adopted from foreign cultures, and sometimes humans, deceased Pharaohs were believed to be divine, and occasionally, distinguished commoners such as Imhotep also became deified. The depictions of the gods in art were not meant as representations of how the gods might appear if they were visible. Instead, these depictions gave recognizable forms to the deities by using symbolic imagery to indicate each gods role in nature
2.
Duat
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Duat was the realm of the dead in ancient Egyptian mythology. It was the realm of the deity Osiris and the residence of other gods, the Duat was the region through which the sun god Ra traveled from west to east during the night, and where he battled Apep. It was also the place where peoples souls went after death for judgement, burial chambers formed touching-points between the mundane world and the Duat, and spirits could use tombs to travel back and forth from the Duat. What is known of the Duat derives principally from funerary texts such as the Book of Gates, the Book of Caverns, the Coffin Texts, the Amduat, and the Book of the Dead. Each of these fulfilled a different purpose and gave a different perspective on the Duat. Surviving texts differ in age and origin, and there likely was never a single interpretation of the Duat. The geography of Duat is similar in outline to the world the Egyptians knew, there are realistic features like rivers, islands, fields, lakes, mounds and caverns, along with fantastic lakes of fire, walls of iron and trees of turquoise. In the Book of Two Ways, one of the Coffin Texts, the Book of the Dead and Coffin Texts were intended to guide people who had recently died through the Duats dangerous landscape and to a life as an akh or blessed spirit amongst the gods. The dead person must pass a series of gates guarded by dangerous spirits, depicted as human bodies with heads of animals, insects. These beings have equally grotesque names, for instance Blood-drinker who comes from the Slaughterhouse or One who eats the excrement of his hindquarters, other features emphasised in these texts are mounds and caverns, inhabited by gods or supernatural animals, which threatened the spirits of the dead. The purpose of the books is not to lay out a geography, if the deceased successfully passed these unpleasant demons, he or she would reach the Weighing of the Heart. In this ritual, the heart of the deceased was weighed by Anubis, using a feather, representing Maat, any hearts heavier than her feather were rejected and eaten by the Ammit, the Devourer of Souls. Those souls that were lighter than a feather passed the test would be allowed to travel toward the paradise of Aaru, in spite of the unpleasant inhabitants of the Duat, this was no Hell to which souls were condemned, the nature of Duat is more complex than that. The grotesque spirits of the underworld were not evil, but under the control of the Gods. The Duat was also a residence of gods themselves, as well as Osiris, Anubis, Thoth, Horus, Hathor and Maat all appear as a dead soul makes its way toward judgement. It was also in the underworld that the sun, Ra, travelled under the Earth upon his Atet barge from west to east and was transformed from its aged Atum form into Khepri, the new dawning Sun. Just as a person faced many challenges in the Duat. The Egyptian Book of the Dead, The Book of Going Forth by Day, chronicle Books,2000 Pinch, G. Magic in Ancient Egypt
3.
Maat
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Maat or Maat was the ancient Egyptian concept of truth, balance, order, harmony, law, morality, and justice. Maat was also personified as a goddess regulating the stars, seasons, cuneiform texts indicate that the word mˤ3t was pronounced /múʕʔa/ during the New Kingdom period, having lost the feminine ending t. Sound shifts from u to e later produced the cognate Coptic word ⲙⲉⲉ/ⲙⲉ truth, later, as a goddess in other traditions of the Egyptian pantheon, where most goddesses were paired with a male aspect, her masculine counterpart was Thoth, as their attributes are similar. In other accounts, Thoth was paired off with Seshat, goddess of writing and measure and her feather was the measure that determined whether the souls of the departed would reach the paradise of afterlife successfully. Pharaohs are often depicted with the emblems of Maat to emphasise their role in upholding the laws of the Creator, Maat represents the ethical and moral principle that every Egyptian citizen was expected to follow throughout their daily lives. They were expected to act with honor and truth in manners that involve family, the community, the nation, the environment, Maat as a principle was formed to meet the complex needs of the emergent Egyptian state that embraced diverse peoples with conflicting interests. The development of such rules sought to avert chaos and it became the basis of Egyptian law, from an early period the King would describe himself as the Lord of Maat who decreed with his mouth the Maat he conceived in his heart. The ancient Egyptians had a conviction of an underlying holiness. Cosmic harmony was achieved by public and ritual life. Any disturbance in cosmic harmony could have consequences for the individual as well as the state, an impious King could bring about famine or blasphemy blindness to an individual. In opposition to the order expressed in the concept of Maat is the concept of Isfet, chaos, lies. In one Middle Kingdom text the Creator declares I made every man like his fellow, a passage in the Instruction of Ptahhotep presents Maat as follows, Maat is good and its worth is lasting. It has not been disturbed since the day of its creator and it lies as a path in front even of him who knows nothing. Wrongdoing has never yet brought its venture to port and it is true that evil may gain wealth but the strength of truth is that it lasts, a man can say, It was the property of my father. There is little surviving literature that describes the practice of ancient Egyptian law, Maat was the spirit in which justice was applied rather than the detailed legalistic exposition of rules. Maat represented the normal and basic values that formed the backdrop for the application of justice that had to be carried out in the spirit of truth and fairness. From the 5th dynasty onwards the Vizier responsible for justice was called the Priest of Maat, later scholars and philosophers also would embody concepts from the wisdom literature, or Sebayt. These spiritual texts dealt with social or professional situations and how each was best to be resolved or addressed in the spirit of Maat
4.
Egyptian mythology
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Egyptian mythology is the collection of myths from ancient Egypt, which describe the actions of the Egyptian gods as a means of understanding the world. The beliefs that these myths express are an important part of ancient Egyptian religion, Myths appear frequently in Egyptian writings and art, particularly in short stories and in religious material such as hymns, ritual texts, funerary texts, and temple decoration. These sources rarely contain an account of a myth and often describe only brief fragments. Inspired by the cycles of nature, the Egyptians saw time in the present as a series of recurring patterns, Myths are set in these earliest times, and myth sets the pattern for the cycles of the present. Present events repeat the events of myth, and in doing so renew maat, events from the present that might be regarded as myths include Ras daily journey through the world and its otherworldly counterpart, the Duat. The details of these sacred events differ greatly from one text to another, Egyptian myths are primarily metaphorical, translating the essence and behavior of deities into terms that humans can understand. Each variant of a myth represents a different symbolic perspective, enriching the Egyptians understanding of the gods and it inspired or influenced many religious rituals and provided the ideological basis for kingship. Scenes and symbols from myth appeared in art in tombs, temples, in literature, myths or elements of them were used in stories that range from humor to allegory, demonstrating that the Egyptians adapted mythology to serve a wide variety of purposes. The development of Egyptian myth is difficult to trace, Egyptologists must make educated guesses about its earliest phases, based on written sources that appeared much later. One obvious influence on myth is the Egyptians natural surroundings, thus the Egyptians saw water and the sun as symbols of life and thought of time as a series of natural cycles. This orderly pattern was at constant risk of disruption, unusually low floods resulted in famine, the hospitable Nile valley was surrounded by harsh desert, populated by peoples the Egyptians regarded as uncivilized enemies of order. For these reasons, the Egyptians saw their land as an place of stability, or maat. These themes—order, chaos, and renewal—appear repeatedly in Egyptian religious thought, another possible source for mythology is ritual. Many rituals make reference to myths and are based directly on them. But it is difficult to determine whether a cultures myths developed before rituals or vice versa, questions about this relationship between myth and ritual have spawned much discussion among Egyptologists and scholars of comparative religion in general. In ancient Egypt, the earliest evidence of religious practices predates written myths, rituals early in Egyptian history included only a few motifs from myth. For these reasons, some scholars have argued that, in Egypt, but because the early evidence is so sparse, the question may never be resolved for certain. In private rituals, which are often called magical, the myth, many of the myth-like stories that appear in the rituals texts are not found in other sources
5.
Ancient Egyptian concept of the soul
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The ancient Egyptians believed that a human soul was made up of five parts, the Ren, the Ba, the Ka, the Sheut, and the Ib. In addition to these components of the soul there was the human body, the other souls were aakhu, khaibut, and khat. An important part of the Egyptian soul was thought to be the jb, the heart was believed to be formed from one drop of blood from the childs mothers heart, taken at conception. To ancient Egyptians, the heart was the seat of emotion, thought, will and this is evidenced by the many expressions in the Egyptian language which incorporate the word jb. This word was transcribed by E. A. Wallis Budge as Ab, in Egyptian religion, the heart was the key to the afterlife. It was conceived as surviving death in the world, where it gave evidence for, or against. It was thought that the heart was examined by Anubis and the deities during the Weighing of the Heart ceremony, if the heart weighed more than the feather of Maat, it was immediately consumed by the monster Ammit. A persons shadow or silhouette, Sheut, is always present, because of this, Egyptians surmised that a shadow contains something of the person it represents. Through this association, statues of people and deities were sometimes referred to as shadows, the shadow was also representative to Egyptians of a figure of death, or servant of Anubis, and was depicted graphically as a small human figure painted completely black. Sometimes people had a box in which part of their Sheut was stored. For example, part of the Book of Breathings, a derivative of the Book of the Dead, was a means to ensure the survival of the name, a cartouche often was used to surround the name and protect it. Conversely, the names of deceased enemies of the state, such as Akhenaten, were hacked out of monuments in a form of damnatio memoriae. Sometimes, however, they were removed in order to make room for the insertion of the name of a successor. The greater the number of places a name was used, the greater the possibility it would survive to be read, the Bâ was everything that makes an individual unique, similar to the notion of personality. In the Coffin Texts one form of the Bâ that comes into existence after death is corporeal, louis Žabkar argued that the Bâ is not part of the person but is the person himself, unlike the soul in Greek, or late Judaic, Christian or Muslim thought. The word bau, plural of the ba, meant something similar to impressiveness, power. When a deity intervened in human affairs, it was said that the Bau of the deity were at work. The Ka was the Egyptian concept of essence, which distinguishes the difference between a living and a dead person, with death occurring when the ka left the body
6.
Ancient Egyptian funerary practices
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The ancient Egyptians had an elaborate set of funerary practices that they believed were necessary to ensure their immortality after death. These rituals and protocols included mummifying the body, casting of magic spells, the burial process used by the ancient Egyptians evolved throughout time as old customs were discarded and new ones adopted, but several important elements of the process persisted. Although specific details changed over time, the preparation of the body, the rituals involved. Though no writing survives from Predynastic Egypt, scholars believe the importance of the physical body and this would explain why people of that time did not follow the common practice of cremation, but rather buried the dead. Some also believe they may have feared the bodies would rise again if mistreated after death, early bodies were buried in simple, shallow oval pits, with a few burial goods. Sometimes multiple people and animals were placed in the same grave, over time, graves became more complex, with the body placed in a wicker basket, then later in wooden or terracotta coffins. The latest tombs Egyptians made were sarcophaguses and these graves contained burial goods like jewelry, food, games and sharpened splint. This demonstrates that this ancient period had a sense of the afterlife and this may be because admission required that the deceased must be able to serve a purpose there. The pharaoh was allowed in because of his role in life, human sacrifices found in early royal tombs reinforce this view. These people were meant to serve the pharaoh during his eternal life. Eventually, figurines and wall paintings begin to replace human victims, some of these figurines may have been created to resemble certain people, so they could follow the pharaoh after their lives ended. Note that not only the classes had to rely on the pharaoh’s favor. They believed that when he died, the became a type of god. This belief existed from the period through the Old Kingdom. In the First Intermediate Period, however, the importance of the pharaoh declined, funerary texts, previously restricted to royal use, became more widely available. The first farmers in Egypt are known from the villages of Omari, the people of these villages buried their dead in a simple, round graves with one pot. The body was neither treated nor arranged in a way as would be the case later in the historical period. Without any written evidence, there is little to provide information about contemporary beliefs concerning the afterlife except for the inclusion of a single pot in the grave
7.
Ancient Egyptian offering formula
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The Ancient Egyptian offering formula, generally referred to as the ḥtp-dỉ-nsw formula by Egyptologists, was written as an offering for the deceased in the ancient Egyptian religion. All ancient Egyptian offering formulas share the basic structure, but there is a great deal of variety in which deities and offerings are mentioned. That he may give a voice-offering of bread, beer, oxen, birds, alabaster, clothing, for the ka of the revered Senwosret, True of Voice. The offering formula is found carved or painted onto funerary stelae, false doors, coffins. Each person would, of course, have their own name, the offering formula was not a royal prerogative like some of the other religious texts such as the Litany of Re, and was used by anyone who could afford to have one made. The offering formula always begins with the phrase, ḥtp dỉ nsw This phrase comes from Old Egyptian, because the king was seen as an intermediary between the people of Egypt and the gods, the offering was made through him. Next the formula names a god of the dead and several of his epithets, usually Osiris, Anubis, or Geb or another deity. The following phrase is an invocation of Osiris, wsỉr nb ḏdw, nṯr ꜥꜣ, nb ꜣbḏw which means Osiris, the lord of Busiris, the great god. There was apparently no set rule about what epithets were used, however Lord of Busiris, Great God, after the list of deities and their titles, the formula proceeds with a list of the ḫrt-prw, or invocation offerings. The list is always preceded by the phrase, or dỉ=f prt-ḫrw or dỉ=sn prt-ḫrw which means He give invocation offerings, the last part of the offering formula lists the name and titles of the recipient of the invocation offerings. For example, n kꜣ n ỉmꜣḫy s-n-wsrt, mꜣꜥ-ḫrw which means for the ka of the revered Senwosret, Egyptian mythology Egyptian soul Ancient Egyptian burial customs Ancient Egyptian funerary texts Bennett, C. Growth of the ḤTP-DI-NSW Formula in the Middle Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom Offering Formulas—A Challenge. Die Opferformel des Alten Reiches unter Berücksichtigung einiger später Formen, mainz am Rhein, Verlag Philipp von Zabern. The Writing of the ḤTP-DI-NSW Formula in the Middle and New Kingdoms, telford, Mark Patrick, Death And The Afterlife
8.
Egyptian temple
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Egyptian temples were built for the official worship of the gods and in commemoration of the pharaohs in ancient Egypt and regions under Egyptian control. Temples were seen as houses for the gods or kings to whom they were dedicated and these rituals were seen as necessary for the gods to continue to uphold maat, the divine order of the universe. Housing and caring for the gods were the obligations of pharaohs, nevertheless, a temple was an important religious site for all classes of Egyptians, who went there to pray, give offerings, and seek oracular guidance from the god dwelling within. The most important part of the temple was the sanctuary, which contained a cult image. These edifices are among the largest and most enduring examples of Egyptian architecture and their typical design consisted of a series of enclosed halls, open courts, and massive entrance pylons aligned along the path used for festival processions. Beyond the temple proper was a wall enclosing a wide variety of secondary buildings. A large temple also owned sizable tracts of land and employed thousands of laymen to supply its needs, temples were therefore key economic as well as religious centers. The priests who managed these powerful institutions wielded considerable influence, temple-building in Egypt continued despite the nations decline and ultimate loss of independence to the Roman Empire. With the coming of Christianity, however, Egyptian religion faced increasing persecution, for centuries, the ancient buildings suffered destruction and neglect. Dozens of temples survive today, and some have become world-famous tourist attractions that contribute significantly to the modern Egyptian economy, Egyptologists continue to study the surviving temples and the remains of destroyed ones, as they are invaluable sources of information about ancient Egyptian society. Ancient Egyptian temples were meant as places for the gods to reside on earth, indeed, the term the Egyptians most commonly used to describe the temple building, ḥwt-nṯr, means mansion of a god. A gods presence in the temple linked the human and divine realms and these rituals, it was believed, sustained the god and allowed it to continue to play its proper role in nature. They were therefore a key part of the maintenance of maat, maintaining maat was the entire purpose of Egyptian religion, and it was the purpose of a temple as well. Because he was credited with divine power himself, the pharaoh, as a king, was regarded as Egypts representative to the gods. Thus, it was theoretically his duty to perform the temple rites, the pharaoh was nevertheless obligated to maintain, provide for, and expand the temples throughout his realm. Although the pharaoh delegated his authority, the performance of rituals was still an official duty. The participation of the populace in most ceremonies was prohibited. Much of the lay religious activity in Egypt instead took place in private and community shrines, however, as the primary link between the human and divine realms, temples attracted considerable veneration from ordinary Egyptians
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