Mythology

Egyptian Mythology, specifically, the religion of ancient Egypt. The religious beliefs of the ancient Egyptians were the dominating influence in the development of their culture, although a true religion, in the sense of a unified theological system, never existed among them. The Egyptian faith was based on an unorganized collection of ancient myths, nature worship, and innumerable deities. In the most influential and famous of these myths a divine hierarchy is developed and the creation of the earth is explained.

According to the Egyptian account of creation, only the ocean existed at first. Then Ra, the sun, came out of an egg (a flower, in some versions) that appeared on the surface of the water. Ra brought forth four children, the gods Shu and Geb and the goddesses Tefnut and Nut. Shu and Tefnut became the atmosphere. They stood on Geb, who became the earth, and raised up Nut, who became the sky. Ra ruled over all. Geb and Nut later had two sons, Set and Osiris, and two daughters, Isis and Nephthys. Osiris succeeded Ra as king of the earth, helped by Isis, his sister-wife. Set, however, hated his brother and killed him. Isis then embalmed her husband’s body with the help of the god Anubis, who thus became the god of embalming. The powerful charms of Isis resurrected Osiris, who became king of the netherworld, the land of the dead. Horus, who was the son of Osiris and Isis, later defeated Set in a great battle and became king of the earth.

From this myth of creation came the conception of the ennead, a group of nine divinities, and the triad, consisting of a divine father, mother, and son. Every local temple in Egypt possessed its own ennead and triad. The greatest ennead, however, was that of Ra and his children and grandchildren. This group was worshiped at Heliopolis, the center of sun worship. The origin of the local deities is obscure; some of them were taken over from foreign religions, and some were originally the animal gods of prehistoric Africa. Gradually, they were all fused into a complicated religious structure, although comparatively few local divinities became important throughout Egypt. In addition to those already named, the important divinities included the gods Amon, Thoth, Ptah, Khnemu, and Hapi, and the goddesses Hathor, Mut, Neit, and Sekhet. Their importance increased with the political ascendancy of the localities where they were worshiped. For example, the ennead of Memphis was headed by a triad composed of the father Ptah, the mother Sekhet, and the son Imhotep. Therefore, during the Memphite dynasties, Ptah became one of the greatest gods in Egypt. Similarly, when the Theban dynasties ruled Egypt, the ennead of Thebes was given the most importance, headed by the father Amon, the mother Mut, and the son Khonsu. As the religion became more involved, true deities were sometimes confused with human beings who had been glorified after death. Thus, Imhotep, who was originally the chief minister of the 3rd Dynasty ruler Djoser, was later regarded as a demigod. During the 5th Dynasty the pharaohs began to claim divine ancestry and from that time on were worshiped as sons of Ra. Minor gods, some merely demons, were also given places in local divine hierarchies.

The Egyptian gods were represented with human torsos and human or animal heads. Sometimes the animal or bird expressed the characteristics of the god. Ra, for example, had the head of a hawk, and the hawk was sacred to him because of its swift flight across the sky; Hathor, the goddess of love and laughter, was given the head of a cow, which was sacred to her; Anubis was given the head of a jackal because these animals ravaged the desert graves in ancient times; Mut was vulture headed and Thoth was ibis headed; and Ptah was given a human head, although he was occasionally represented as a bull, called Apis. Because of the gods to which they were attached, the sacred animals were venerated, but they were never worshiped until the decadent 26th Dynasty. The gods were also represented by symbols, such as the sun disk and hawk wings that were worn on the headdress of the pharaoh.

The only important god who was worshiped with consistency was Ra, chief of cosmic deities, from whom early Egyptian kings claimed descent. Beginning with the Middle Kingdom (2040-1640 bc), Ra worship acquired the status of a state religion, and the god was gradually fused with Amon during the Theban dynasties, becoming the supreme god Amon-Ra. During the 18th Dynasty the pharaoh Amenhotep III renamed the sun god Aton, an ancient term for the physical solar force. Amenhotep’s son and successor, Amenhotep IV, instituted a revolution in Egyptian religion by proclaiming Aton the true and only god. He changed his own name to Akhenaton, meaning “He who is devoted to Aton.” This first great monotheist was so iconoclastic that he had the plural word gods deleted from monuments, and he relentlessly persecuted the priests of Amon. Akhenaton’s sun religion failed to survive, although it exerted a great influence on the art and thinking of his time, and Egypt returned to the ancient, labyrinthine religion of polytheism after Akhenaton’s death.

Death Mask of Tutankhamun

Ancient Egyptians believed that the ka, or the body in the afterlife, could not survive unless the deceased person’s actual body was preserved. In order to preserve the bodies of the dead, the ancient Egyptians embalmed and mummified them before burial. They placed the mummified body in a tomb filled with money, household items, and the bodies of loyal servants so that the dead could use them thereafter in the underworld. The death mask of Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun (about 1340 bc), shown here, is made of gold and inlaid with colored glass and semiprecious stone. The mask comes from the innermost mummy case in the pharaoh’s tomb and stands 54 cm (21 in) high.
Bridgeman Art Library, London/New York

Burying the dead was of religious concern in Egypt, and Egyptian funerary rituals and equipment eventually became the most elaborate the world has ever known. The Egyptians believed that the vital life-force was composed of several psychical elements, of which the most important was the ka. The ka, a duplicate of the body, accompanied the body throughout life and, after death, departed from the body to take its place in the kingdom of the dead. The ka, however, could not exist without the body; every effort had to be made, therefore, to preserve the corpse. Bodies were embalmed and mummified according to a traditional method supposedly begun by Isis, who mummified her husband Osiris. In addition, wood or stone replicas of the body were put into the tomb in the event that the mummy was destroyed. The greater the number of statue-duplicates in his or her tomb, the more chances the dead person had of resurrection. As a final protection, exceedingly elaborate tombs were erected to protect the corpse and its equipment. See Egyptian Art and Architecture.

After leaving the tomb, the souls of the dead supposedly were beset by innumerable dangers, and the tombs were therefore furnished with a copy of the Book of the Dead. Part of this book, a guide to the world of the dead, consists of charms designed to overcome these dangers. After arriving in the kingdom of the dead, the ka was judged by Osiris, the king of the dead, and 42 demon assistants. The Book of the Dead also contains instructions for proper conduct before these judges. If the judges decided the deceased had been a sinner, the ka was condemned to hunger and thirst or to be torn to pieces by horrible executioners. If the decision was favorable, the ka went to the heavenly realm of the fields of Yaru, where grain grew 3.7 m (12 ft) high and existence was a glorified version of life on earth. All the necessities for this paradisiacal existence, from furniture to reading matter, were, therefore, put into the tombs. As a payment for the afterlife and his benevolent protection, Osiris required the dead to perform tasks for him, such as working in the grain fields. Even this duty could, however, be obviated by placing small statuettes, called ushabtis, into the tomb to serve as substitutes for the deceased.

Egyptian art and architecture

Aldred, Cyril. Egyptian Art: In the Days of the Pharaohs, 3100-320 B.C. Oxford University Press, 1980. Thames & Hudson, 1985. Illustrated survey includes architecture, sculpture, and painting.

Andrews, Carol. Amulets of Ancient Egypt. University of Texas Press, 1994. Illustrated introduction draws on the collections of the British Museum.

Arnold, Dorothea, and others. Egyptian Art in the Age of the Pyramids. Abrams, 1999. Catalog of an exhibition of Old Kingdom art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with scholarly essays.

Arnold, Dorothea, and others. The Royal Women of Amarna: Images of Beauty from Ancient Egypt. Abrams, 1997. Handsomely illustrated catalog of an exhibition of later Egyptian art.

Badawy, Alexander. A History of Egyptian Architecture. University of California Press, 1966. Sanders, 1990. Domestic, religious, burial, and military complexes in three periods.

Brier, Bob. Egyptian Mummies: Unraveling the Secrets of an Ancient Art. Morrow, 1994. For younger readers.

Lepre, J. P. The Egyptian Pyramids: A Comprehensive, Illustrated Reference. McFarland, 1990.

Malek, Jaromir. Egyptian Art. Phaidon, 1999. A survey from the beginnings to the Roman conquest.

Millard, Anne. Pyramids. Kingfisher, 1996. Cross-cultural study for younger readers; especially good discussion of Egyptian pyramid construction.

Peck, William H. Splendors of Ancient Egypt. Abbeville, 1998. Illustrated catalog of objects from the collections of Römer-Pelizaeus Museum in Germany.

Reeves, Nicholas. The Complete Tutankhamun: The King, the Tomb, the Royal Treasure. Thames & Hudson, 1990, 1995. Complete study of the excavations.

Russmann, Edna R., and David Finn. Egyptian Sculpture: Cairo and Luxor. University of Texas Press, 1989. Illustrated survey.

Wilkinson, Richard H. Reading Egyptian Art: A Hieroglyphic Guide to Ancient Egyptian Painting. Thames & Hudson, 1992, 1994.

Wilkinson, Richard H. Symbol & Magic in Egyptian Art. Thames & Hudson, 1994. Concise guide to understanding Egyptian symbolism.