1.
Deshret
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Deshret, from ancient Egyptian, was the formal name for the Red Crown of Lower Egypt and for the desert Red Land on either side of Kemet, the fertile Nile river basin. When combined with the Hedjet of Upper Egypt, it forms the Pschent, the Red Crown in Egyptian language hieroglyphs eventually was used as the vertical letter n. The original n hieroglyph from the Predynastic Period, and the Old Kingdom was the sign depicting ripples of water, in mythology, the earth deity Geb, original ruler of Egypt, invested Horus with the rule over Lower Egypt. The Egyptian pharaohs, who saw themselves as successors of Horus, other deities wore the deshret too, or were identified with it, such as the protective serpent goddess Wadjet and the creator-goddess of Sais, Neith, who often is shown wearing the Red Crown. The Red Crown would later be combined with the White Crown of Upper Egypt to form the Double Crown, symbolizing the rule over the whole country, as concerns deshret, the Red Land which comprised the deserts and foreign lands surrounding Egypt, Seth was its lord. It was considered a region of chaos, without law and full of dangers, none of the red crowns have survived, and it is unknown how it was constructed and what materials were used. Copper, reeds, cloth, and leather have been suggested, the Red Crown frequently is mentioned in texts and depicted in reliefs and statues. An early example is the depiction of the victorious pharaoh wearing the deshret on the Narmer Palette, a label from the reign of Djer records a royal visit to the shrine of the Deshret which may have been located at Buto in the Nile delta. The ancient Egyptian Red Crown, the Deshret crown, is one of the oldest Egyptian hieroglyphs, as an iconographic element, it is used on the famous Narmer Palette of Pharaoh Narmer as the Red Crown of the Delta, the Delta being Lower Egypt. The first usage of the Red Crown was in iconography as the symbol for Lower Egypt with the Nile Delta, later it came to be used in the Egyptian language – as an alphabetic uniliteral, vertical form for letter n as a phoneme or preposition. It became functional in running hieroglyphic texts, where either the horizontal or vertical form preposition satisfied space requirements, the Red Crown is also used as a determinative, most notably in the word for deshret. It is also used in words or names of gods. One older use of the red crown hieroglyph is to make the word, Egyptian in is used at the beginning of a text and translates as, Behold. or Lo. and is an emphatic. In the 198 BC Rosetta Stone, the Red Crown as hieroglyph has the usage mostly of the form of the preposition n. Visually it is also a hieroglyph that takes up more space-, so it may have a purpose of a less compact text. The Red Crown hieroglyph is used 35 times in the Rosetta Stone and it averages once per line usage in the 36 line Decree of Memphis -. Deshret, the Red Crown of the Pharaoh Gardiners Sign List#S. Crowns, Dress, Staves, Gardiners Sign List Deshret in hieroglyphic writing Budge. An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary, E. A. Wallace Budge, c 1978, the Rosetta Stone, E. A. Wallace Budge, c 1929, Dover edition,1989
2.
Egyptian hieroglyphs
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Egyptian hieroglyphs were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt. It combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with a total of some 1,000 distinct characters, cursive hieroglyphs were used for religious literature on papyrus and wood. The later hieratic and demotic Egyptian scripts are derived from hieroglyphic writing, the writing system continued to be used throughout the Late Period, as well as the Persian and Ptolemaic periods. Late survivals of hieroglyphic use are found well into the Roman period, with the closing of pagan temples in the 5th century, knowledge of hieroglyphic writing was lost, and the script remained undeciphered throughout the medieval and early modern period. The decipherment of hieroglyphs would only be solved in the 1820s by Jean-François Champollion, the word hieroglyph comes from the Greek adjective ἱερογλυφικός, a compound of ἱερός and γλύφω, supposedly a calque of an Egyptian phrase mdw·w-nṯr gods words. The glyphs themselves were called τὰ ἱερογλυφικὰ γράμματα the sacred engraved letters, the word hieroglyph has become a noun in English, standing for an individual hieroglyphic character. As used in the sentence, the word hieroglyphic is an adjective. Hieroglyphs emerged from the artistic traditions of Egypt. For example, symbols on Gerzean pottery from c.4000 BC have been argued to resemble hieroglyphic writing, proto-hieroglyphic symbol systems develop in the second half of the 4th millennium BC, such as the clay labels of a Predynastic ruler called Scorpion I recovered at Abydos in 1998. The first full sentence written in hieroglyphs so far discovered was found on a seal found in the tomb of Seth-Peribsen at Umm el-Qaab. There are around 800 hieroglyphs dating back to the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, by the Greco-Roman period, there are more than 5,000. However, given the lack of evidence, no definitive determination has been made as to the origin of hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt. Since the 1990s, and discoveries such as the Abydos glyphs, as writing developed and became more widespread among the Egyptian people, simplified glyph forms developed, resulting in the hieratic and demotic scripts. These variants were more suited than hieroglyphs for use on papyrus. Hieroglyphic writing was not, however, eclipsed, but existed alongside the other forms, especially in monumental, the Rosetta Stone contains three parallel scripts – hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek. Hieroglyphs continued to be used under Persian rule, and after Alexander the Greats conquest of Egypt, during the ensuing Ptolemaic and Roman periods. It appears that the quality of comments from Greek and Roman writers about hieroglyphs came about, at least in part. Some believed that hieroglyphs may have functioned as a way to distinguish true Egyptians from some of the foreign conquerors, another reason may be the refusal to tackle a foreign culture on its own terms, which characterized Greco-Roman approaches to Egyptian culture generally
3.
Esna
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Esna, known to the ancient Egyptians as Egyptian, Iunyt or Ta-senet, Coptic, ⲥⲛⲏ, which derives from Ta-senet, Greek, Λατόπολις or πόλις Λάτων or Λάττων, Latin, Lato, is a city in Egypt. It is located on the west bank of the River Nile, the town was formerly part of the modern Qena Governorate, but as of 9/12/2009, has been incorporated into the new Luxor Governorate. This city of Latopolis in the Thebaid region of Upper Egypt should not be confused with the more northerly city of Letopolis, ancient Khem, modern Ausim, held sacred, the Lates niloticus was buried in a cemetery west of the town. The tutelary deities of Latopolis seem to have been the triad – Khnum and Neith, the temple of Esna, dedicated to this triad, was remarkable for the beauty of its site and the magnificence of its architecture. It was built of red sandstone, and its portico consisted of six rows of four each, with lotus-leaf capitals. Another temple of the period has been identified at Kom Mer, about 12 km to the south. There was a temple, dedicated to the triad of Latopolis. Here, too, is a small Zodiac of the age of Ptolemy III Euergetes and this latter building was destroyed in the 19th century, as it stood in the way of a new canal. The temple of Esna was cleared of the soil and rubbish which filled its area when Denon visited it, and served as a cotton warehouse in the mid-19th century. With the exception of the jamb of a gateway – now converted into a door-sill – of the reign of Thutmose II, the name of Ptolemy V Epiphanes is found also inscribed upon a doorway. Although the scale of the ruins are impressive, their sculptures, the west wall features reliefs of Ptolemy VI Philometor and Ptolemy VIII Physcon. On the ceiling of the pronaos is the larger Latopolitan Zodiac, the name of the emperor Geta, the last ruler that can be read in hieroglyphics, although partially erased by his brother and murderer Caracalla, is still legible on the walls of Latopolis. Before raising their own edifice, the Romans seem to have destroyed even the basements of the earlier Egyptian temple, the ceremonial way, which probably linked the quay to the temple, has disappeared. The quay bears cartouches of Marcus Aurelius, the cemetery west of the town, where the Lates niloticus was buried, also contains human burials dating of the Middle Kingdom to the Late Period. The Temple of Esna conveys a sense of the importance which the Ancient Egyptians placed upon their places of worship, all Egyptians who entered the confines of an Egyptian temple were required to comply with the strict rules regarding ritual purity. Two barrage bridges straddle the Nile at this point, one built by the British in 1906, navigation, particularly, Nile cruisers ferrying tourists from Luxor to Aswan 155 km further upstream, can be held up for hours while vessels negotiate their way through the lock system. The two main points of interest in Esna are its lively tourist-oriented market, which fills a couple of streets leading inland from the corniche, the other is the temple of Esna. The temple, which has only partially excavated, is about 200 meters from the river
4.
Sobek
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Sobek, in Greek, Suchos and from Latin Suchus, was an ancient Egyptian deity with a complex and fluid nature. He is associated with the Nile crocodile and is represented in its form or as a human with a crocodile head. Sobek enjoyed a longstanding presence in the ancient Egyptian pantheon, from the Old Kingdom through the Roman period and he is first known from several different Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom, particularly from spell PT317. Unis has appeared as Sobek, Neiths son, Unis will eat with his mouth, Unis will urinate and Unis will copulate with his penis. Unis is lord of semen, who takes women from their husbands to the place Unis likes according to his hearts fancy. The origin of his name, Sbk in ancient Egyptian, is debated among scholars, though Sobek was worshipped in the Old Kingdom, he truly gained prominence in the Middle Kingdom, most notably under the Twelfth Dynasty king, Amenemhat III. Amenemhat III had taken a particular interest in the Faiyum region of Egypt, Amenemhat and many of his dynastic contemporaries engaged in building projects to promote Sobek – projects that were often executed in the Faiyum. In this period, Sobek also underwent an important change, he was fused with the falcon-headed god of divine kingship. This brought Sobek even closer with the kings of Egypt, thereby giving him a place of prominence in the Egyptian pantheon. The fusion added a level of complexity to the god’s nature, as he was adopted into the divine triad of Horus. Sobek-Horus persisted as a figure in the New Kingdom, but it was not until the last dynasties of Egypt that Sobek-Ra gained prominence and this understanding of the god was maintained after the fall of Egypts last native dynasty in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt. The entire Faiyum region – the Land of the Lake in Egyptian – served as a center of Sobek. Most Faiyum towns developed their own localized versions of the god, such as Soknebtunis at Tebtunis, Sokonnokonni at Bacchias, at Karanis, two forms of the god were worshipped, Pnepheros and Petsuchos. There, mummified crocodiles were employed as cult images of Petsuchos, Sobek Shedety, the patron of the Faiyums centrally located capital, Crocodilopolis, was the most prominent form of the god. Extensive building programs honoring Sobek were realized in Shedet, as it was the capital of the entire Arsinoite nome and it is thought that the effort to expand Sobeks main temple was initially driven by Ptolemy II. Outside the Faiyum, Kom Ombo, in southern Egypt, was the biggest cultic center of Sobek, particularly during the Ptolemaic, located about 30 miles north of Aswan and was built during the Graeco-Roman period. The temple at this site was called the Per-Sobek, meaning the house of Sobek, Sobek is, above all else, an aggressive and animalistic deity who lives up to the vicious reputation of his patron animal, the large and violent Nile crocodile. Some of his common epithets betray this nature succinctly, the most notable of which being, he who loves robbery, he who eats while he also mates, however, he also displays grand benevolence in more than one celebrated myth
5.
Ra
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Ra or Re is the ancient Egyptian sun god. By the Fifth Dynasty in the 25th and 24th centuries BC, he had become a god in ancient Egyptian religion. In later Egyptian dynastic times, Ra was merged with the god Horus and he was believed to rule in all parts of the created world, the sky, the earth, and the underworld. He was associated with the falcon or hawk, when in the New Kingdom the god Amun rose to prominence he was fused with Ra as Amun-Ra. During the Amarna Period, Akhenaten suppressed the cult of Ra in favor of another deity, the Aten, the deified solar disc. The cult of the Mnevis bull, an embodiment of Ra, had its center in Heliopolis, all forms of life were believed to have been created by Ra, who called each of them into existence by speaking their secret names. Alternatively man was created from Ras tears and sweat, hence the Egyptians call themselves the Cattle of Ra, in the myth of the Celestial Cow it is recounted how mankind plotted against Ra and how he sent his eye as the goddess Sekhmet to punish them. When she became bloodthirsty she was pacified by drinking beer mixed with red dye, to the Egyptians, the sun represented light, warmth, and growth. This made the sun deity very important, as the sun was seen as the ruler of all that he created, the sun disk was either seen as the body or eye of Ra. Ra was the father of Shu and Tefnut, whom he created, Shu was the god of the wind, and Tefnut was the goddess of the rain. Sekhmet was the Eye of Ra and was created by the fire in Ras eye, Ra was thought to travel on the Atet, two solar barks called the Mandjet or morning boat and the Mesektet or evening boat. These boats took him on his journey through the sky and the Duat, while Ra was on the Mesektet, he was in his ram-headed form. When Ra traveled in his sun boat, he was accompanied by other deities including Sia and Hu. Sometimes, members of the Ennead helped him on his journey, including Set, who overcame the serpent Apophis, and Mehen, when Ra was in the underworld, he would visit all of his various forms. Apophis, the god of chaos, was a serpent who attempted to stop the sun boats journey every night by consuming it or by stopping it in its tracks with a hypnotic stare. During the evening, the Egyptians believed that Ra set as Atum or in the form of a ram, the night boat would carry him through the underworld and back towards the east in preparation for his rebirth. When Ra was in the underworld, he merged with Osiris, the god of the dead, Ra was worshipped as the Creator god among some ancient Egyptians, specifically followers of his cult at Heliopolis. It was believed that Ra wept, and from his tears came man and these cult-followers believed that Ra was self-created, while followers of Ptah believed that Ra was created by Ptah
6.
Ancient Egyptian deities
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Ancient Egyptian deities are the gods and goddesses worshipped in ancient Egypt. The beliefs and rituals surrounding these gods formed the core of ancient Egyptian religion, the gods complex characteristics were expressed in myths and in intricate relationships between deities, family ties, loose groups and hierarchies, and combinations of separate gods into one. Deities diverse appearances in art—as animals, humans, objects, and combinations of different forms—also alluded, through symbolism, to their essential features. In different eras, various gods were said to hold the highest position in society, including the solar deity Ra, the mysterious god Amun. The highest deity was usually credited with the creation of the world, some scholars have argued, based in part on Egyptian writings, that the Egyptians came to recognize a single divine power that lay behind all things and was present in all the other deities. Gods were assumed to be present throughout the world, capable of influencing natural events, people interacted with them in temples and unofficial shrines, for personal reasons as well as for larger goals of state rites. Egyptians prayed for help, used rituals to compel deities to act. Humans relations with their gods were a part of Egyptian society. The beings in ancient Egyptian tradition who might be labeled as deities are difficult to count, Egyptian texts list the names of many deities whose nature is unknown and make vague, indirect references to other gods who are not even named. The Egyptologist James P. Allen estimates that more than 1,400 deities are named in Egyptian texts, the Egyptian languages terms for these beings were nṯr, god, and its feminine form nṯrt, goddess. Scholars have tried to discern the nature of the gods by proposing etymologies for these words, but none of these suggestions has gained acceptance. The hieroglyphs that were used as ideograms and determinatives in writing these words show some of the traits that the Egyptians connected with divinity, the most common of these signs is a flag flying from a pole. Similar objects were placed at the entrances of temples, representing the presence of a deity, other such hieroglyphs include a falcon, reminiscent of several early gods who were depicted as falcons, and a seated male or female deity. The feminine form could also be written with an egg as determinative, connecting goddesses with creation and birth, or with a cobra, the Egyptians distinguished nṯrw, gods, from rmṯ, people, but the meanings of the Egyptian and the English terms do not match perfectly. The term nṯr may have applied to any being that was in some way outside the sphere of everyday life, Egyptian religious art also depicts places, objects, and concepts in human form. These personified ideas range from deities that were important in myth and ritual to obscure beings, only mentioned once or twice, confronting these blurred distinctions between gods and other beings, scholars have proposed various definitions of a deity. One widely accepted definition, suggested by Jan Assmann, says that a deity has a cult, is involved in some aspect of the universe, according to a different definition, by Dimitri Meeks, nṯr applied to any being that was the focus of ritual. From this perspective, gods included the king, who was called a god after his coronation rites, and deceased souls, likewise, the preeminence of the great gods was maintained by the ritual devotion that was performed for them across Egypt
7.
Nile Delta
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The Nile Delta is the delta formed in Northern Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the worlds largest river deltas—from Alexandria in the west to Port Said in the east, from north to south the delta is approximately 160 kilometres in length. The Delta begins slightly down-river from Cairo, from north to south, the delta is approximately 160 kilometres in length. From west-to-east, it covers some 240 kilometres of coastline, the delta is sometimes divided into sections, with the Nile dividing into two main distributaries, the Damietta and the Rosetta, flowing into the Mediterranean at port cities with the same name. In the past, the delta had several distributaries, but these have been lost due to flood control, one such defunct distributary is Wadi Tumilat. The Suez Canal runs to the east of the delta, entering the coastal Lake Manzala in the north-east of the delta, to the north-west are three other coastal lakes or lagoons, Lake Burullus, Lake Idku and Lake Maryut. The Nile is considered to be a delta, as it resembles a triangle or flower when seen from above. The outer edges of the delta are eroding, and some coastal lagoons have seen increasing salinity levels as their connection to the Mediterranean Sea increases, topsoil in the delta can be as much as 70 feet in depth. People have lived in the Delta region for thousands of years, the Delta River used to flood on an annual basis, but this ended with the construction of the Aswan Dam. The Rosetta Stone was found in the Nile Delta in 1799 in the city of Rosetta. The delta was a constituent of Lower Egypt. The Biblical Land of Goshen was located in an area on the west bank of the Pelusiac distributary. There are many sites in and around the Nile Delta. About 39 million people live in the Delta region, outside of major cities, population density in the delta averages 1,000 persons/km² or more. Alexandria is the largest city in the delta with a population of more than 4.5 million. Other large cities in the delta include Shubra al Khaymah, Port Said, El-Mahalla El-Kubra, El Mansura, Tanta, during autumn, parts of the Nile River are red with lotus flowers. The Lower Nile and the Upper Nile have plants that grow in abundance, the Upper Nile plant is the Egyptian lotus, and the Lower Nile plant is the Papyrus Sedge, although it is not nearly as plentiful as it once was, and is becoming quite rare. Several hundred thousand birds winter in the delta, including the world’s largest concentrations of little gulls
8.
Nile
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The Nile is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It is generally regarded as the longest river in the world, in particular, the Nile is the primary water source of Egypt and Sudan. The Nile has two tributaries, the White Nile and Blue Nile. The White Nile is considered to be the headwaters and primary stream of the Nile itself, the Blue Nile, however, is the source of most of the water and silt. The White Nile is longer and rises in the Great Lakes region of central Africa and it flows north through Tanzania, Lake Victoria, Uganda and South Sudan. The Blue Nile begins at Lake Tana in Ethiopia and flows into Sudan from the southeast, the two rivers meet just north of the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. The northern section of the river flows north almost entirely through the Sudanese desert to Egypt, then ends in a large delta, Egyptian civilization and Sudanese kingdoms have depended on the river since ancient times. Most of the population and cities of Egypt lie along those parts of the Nile valley north of Aswan, in the ancient Egyptian language, the Nile is called Ḥpī or Iteru, meaning river. In Coptic, the words piaro or phiaro meaning the river come from the ancient name. The English name Nile and the Arabic names en-Nîl and an-Nîl both derive from the Latin Nilus and the Ancient Greek Νεῖλος, beyond that, however, the etymology is disputed. One possible etymology derives it from a Semitic Nahal, meaning river, the standard English names White Nile and Blue Nile, to refer to the rivers source, derive from Arabic names formerly applied only to the Sudanese stretches which meet at Khartoum. Above Khartoum, the Nile is also known as the White Nile, at Khartoum the river is joined by the Blue Nile. The White Nile starts in equatorial East Africa, and the Blue Nile begins in Ethiopia, both branches are on the western flanks of the East African Rift. The drainage basin of the Nile covers 3,254,555 square kilometers, the source of the Nile is sometimes considered to be Lake Victoria, but the lake has feeder rivers of considerable size. It is either the Ruvyironza, which emerges in Bururi Province, Burundi, or the Nyabarongo, the two feeder rivers meet near Rusumo Falls on the Rwanda-Tanzania border. Gish Abay is reportedly the place where the water of the first drops of the Blue Nile develop. The Nile leaves Lake Nyanza at Ripon Falls near Jinja, Uganda and it flows north for some 130 kilometers, to Lake Kyoga. For the remaining part it flows westerly through the Murchison Falls until it reaches the very northern shores of Lake Albert where it forms a significant river delta
9.
Anthropomorphism
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Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, and intentions to non-human entities and is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology. Personification is the attribution of human form and characteristics to abstract concepts such as nations, emotions and natural forces like seasons. Both have ancient roots as storytelling and artistic devices, and most cultures have traditional fables with anthropomorphized animals as characters, people have also routinely attributed human emotions and behavioural traits to wild as well as domestic animals. Anthropomorphism derives from its verb form anthropomorphize, itself derived from the Greek ánthrōpos and it is first attested in 1753, originally in reference to the heresy of applying a human form to the Christian God. One of the oldest known is a sculpture, the Löwenmensch figurine, Germany. It is not possible to say what these prehistoric artworks represent, in either case there is an element of anthropomorphism. This anthropomorphic art has been linked by archaeologist Steven Mithen with the emergence of more systematic hunting practices in the Upper Palaeolithic. In religion and mythology, anthropomorphism refers to the perception of a divine being or beings in human form, ancient mythologies frequently represented the divine as deities with human forms and qualities. They resemble human beings not only in appearance and personality, they exhibited many human behaviors that were used to explain phenomena, creation. The deities fell in love, married, had children, fought battles, wielded weapons and they feasted on special foods, and sometimes required sacrifices of food, beverage, and sacred objects to be made by human beings. Some anthropomorphic deities represented specific concepts, such as love, war, fertility, beauty. Anthropomorphic deities exhibited human qualities such as beauty, wisdom, and power, and sometimes human weaknesses such as greed, hatred, jealousy, Greek deities such as Zeus and Apollo often were depicted in human form exhibiting both commendable and despicable human traits. Anthropomorphism in this case is referred to as anthropotheism, from the perspective of adherents to religions in which humans were created in the form of the divine, the phenomenon may be considered theomorphism, or the giving of divine qualities to humans. Anthropomorphism has cropped up as a Christian heresy, particularly prominently with the Audians in third century Syria, but also in fourth century Egypt and tenth century Italy. This often was based on an interpretation of Genesis 1,27, So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him. Some religions, scholars, and philosophers objected to anthropomorphic deities. Ethiopians say that their gods are snub–nosed and blackThracians that they are pale and he said that the greatest god resembles man neither in form nor in mind. Both Judaism and Islam reject an anthropomorphic deity, believing that God is beyond human comprehension, judaisms rejection of an anthropomorphic deity grew during the Hasmonean period, when Jewish belief incorporated some Greek philosophy. Judaisms rejection grew further after the Islamic Golden Age in the tenth century, hindus do not reject the concept of a deity in the abstract unmanifested, but note practical problems
10.
Abiogenesis
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Abiogenesis, biopoiesis, \by-o-po-ee-sis\ or informally, the origin of life, is the natural process by which life arises from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds. The study of abiogenesis can be geophysical, chemical, or biological, Life itself is dependent upon the specialized chemistry of carbon and water and is largely based upon five different families of chemicals. Carbohydrates are sugars, and as monomer units can be assembled into polymers called polysaccharides, such as cellulose, nitrogenous bases are organic molecules in which the amine group of nitrogen, combined with two hydrogen atoms, plays an important part. Chlorophyll is based upon a porphyrin ring derived from amine monomer units, nucleic acid monomers are made from a carbohydrate monosaccharide a nitrogenous base and one or more high energy phosphate groups. When joined together they form either the unit of inheritance, the gene, made from DNA or RNA, the monomer unit of a protein is always one of 20 amino acids, comprising an amine group, a hydrocarbon and a carboxylic acid. Through a condensation reaction, in which the acid of one amino acid is linked to the amine of another with removal of a water molecule. Polymers of amino acids are termed proteins and these molecules provide many catalytic metabolic functions for living processes, any successful theory of abiogenesis must explain the origins and interactions of these five classes of molecules. Many approaches to investigate how self-replicating molecules, or their components. It is generally thought that current life on Earth is descended from an RNA world, various external sources of energy that may have triggered these reactions have been proposed, including lightning and radiation. Other approaches focus on understanding how catalysis in chemical systems on the early Earth might have provided the precursor molecules necessary for self-replication. Complex organic molecules have found in the Solar System and in interstellar space. It is speculated that the biochemistry of life may have begun shortly after the Big Bang,13.8 billion years ago, the panspermia hypothesis proposes that life originated outside the Earth, not how life came to be. Nonetheless, Earth remains the place in the Universe known to harbour life. In recent years, there have been a number of discoveries that suggested the earliest appearance of life on Earth was even earlier in time, according to biologist Stephen Blair Hedges, If life arose relatively quickly on Earth … then it could be common in the universe. The Hadean Earth is thought to have had a secondary atmosphere, during its formation, the Earth lost a significant part of its initial mass, with a nucleus of the heavier rocky elements of the protoplanetary disk remaining. As Earth lacked the gravity to hold any molecular hydrogen, this component of the atmosphere would have been rapidly lost during the Hadean period, along with the bulk of the original inert gases. The solution of carbon dioxide in water is thought to have made the slightly acidic. The atmosphere at the time has been characterized as a gigantic and it may have been similar to the mixture of gases released today by volcanoes, which still support some abiotic chemistry
11.
Creation myth
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A creation myth is a symbolic narrative of how the world began and how people first came to inhabit it. While in popular usage the term often refers to false or fanciful stories, formally. Cultures generally regard their creation myths as true, in the society in which it is told, a creation myth is usually regarded as conveying profound truths, metaphorically, symbolically and sometimes in a historical or literal sense. They are commonly, although not always, considered cosmogonical myths – that is, Creation myths often share a number of features. They often are considered sacred accounts and can be found in all known religious traditions. They are all stories with a plot and characters who are either deities, human-like figures, or animals and they are often set in a dim and nonspecific past that historian of religion Mircea Eliade termed in illo tempore. Creation myths develop in oral traditions and therefore typically have multiple versions, found throughout human culture, Creation myth definitions from modern references, A symbolic narrative of the beginning of the world as understood in a particular tradition and community. Creation myths are of importance for the valuation of the world, for the orientation of humans in the universe. Creation myths tell us how things began, all cultures have creation myths, they are our primary myths, the first stage in what might be called the psychic life of the species. As cultures, we identify ourselves through the collective dreams we call creation myths, … Creation myths explain in metaphorical terms our sense of who we are in the context of the world, and in so doing they reveal our real priorities, as well as our real prejudices. Our images of creation say a deal about who we are. A philosophical and theological elaboration of the myth of creation within a religious community. Religion professor Mircea Eliade defined the word myth in terms of creation, Myth narrates a history, it relates an event that took place in primordial Time. All creation myths are in one sense etiological because they attempt to explain how the world was formed, in the past historians of religion and other students of myth thought of them as forms of primitive or early-stage science or religion and analyzed them in a literal or logical sense. However they are seen as symbolic narratives which must be understood in terms of their own cultural context. Charles Long writes, The beings referred to in the myth – gods, animals, the myths should not be understood as attempts to work out a rational explanation of deity. While creation myths are not literal explications they do serve to define an orientation of humanity in the world in terms of a birth story. They are the basis of a worldview that reaffirms and guides how people relate to the world, to any assumed spiritual world
12.
Ptah
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In Egyptian mythology, Ptah is the demiurge of Memphis, god of craftsmen and architects. In the triad of Memphis, he is the spouse of Sekhmet and he was also regarded as the father of the sage Imhotep. Ptah is the Creator god par excellence, He is considered the demiurge who existed before all other things, and by his willfulness, thought the world. It was first conceived by Thought, and realized by the Word, Ptah conceives the world by the thought of his heart and that which Ptah commanded was created, with which the constituents of nature, fauna, and flora, are contained. He also plays a role in the preservation of the world and this document has been known as the Memphite Theology, and shows the god Ptah, the god responsible for the creation of the universe by thought and by the word. Ptah is the patron of craftsmanship, metalworking, carpenters, shipbuilders, from the Middle Kingdom onwards, he was one of five major Egyptian gods with Ra, Isis, Osiris and Amun. He is sometimes represented as a dwarf, naked and deformed, frequently associated with the god Bes, his worship then exceeded the borders of the country and was exported throughout the eastern Mediterranean. Thanks to the Phoenicians, we find figures of Ptah in Carthage, from the Old Kingdom, he quickly absorbs the appearance of Sokar and Tatenen, ancient deities of the Memphite region. His form of Sokar is found contained in its white shroud wearing the Atef crown, in this capacity, he represents the god of the necropolis of Saqqara and other famous sites where the royal pyramids were built. Gradually he formed with Osiris a new deity called Ptah-Sokar-Osiris, statuettes representing the human form, half-human, half-hawk, or simply in its falcon form will be systematically placed in tombs to accompany and protect the dead on their journey to the West. His Tatenen form is represented by a young and vigorous man wearing a crown with two tall plumes that surround the solar disk and he thus embodies the underground fire that rumbles and raises the earth. As such, he was revered by metalworkers and blacksmiths. In this form also, Ptah is the master of ceremonies for Heb Sed, in the holy of holies of his temple in Memphis, as well as in his great sacred boat, he drove in procession to regularly visit the region during major holidays. Ptah was also symbolized by two birds with human heads adorned with solar disks, symbols of the souls of the god Re, the two Ba are also identified as the twin gods Shu and Tefnut and are associated with the djed pillar of Memphis. Finally, Ptah is embodied in the bull, Apis. Frequently referred to as a herald of Re, the animal is the link with the god Re from the New Kingdom. He even received worship in Memphis, probably at the heart of the temple of Ptah. As god of craftsmen, the cult of the god Ptah quickly spread throughout Egypt, for this reason, the oratory of Ptah who listens to prayers was built near the site of Deir el-Medina, the village where the workers and craftsmen were confined
