Ancient Egyptian religion

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  About 1,500 deities are known from ancient Egyptian religion, a polytheistic system that lasted 3,500 years. It centered on the Egyptians' interactions with gods believed to be present and in control of the world. Rituals such as prayer and offerings were provided to win the gods' favor. At the heart of it all stood a single, fragile idea: Ma'at, the order of the cosmos, eternally threatened by Isfet, which was chaos. The pharaoh was charged with sustaining that order through endless ritual. But what happened when one pharaoh tried to erase nearly every god at once? How did a faith decentralize, then fade, then end on a precise date that scholars now dispute? And why were millions of mummified cats, birds, and other creatures buried near the homes of the gods? The answers run from prehistoric desert graves to a sixth-century temple closure, and they begin with how the Egyptians pictured their universe.

• 2. The Order Of Ma'at

  ›

  Ma'at was a word that carried several meanings at once, including truth, justice, and order. It was the fixed, eternal order of the universe, both in the cosmos and in human society, and was often personified as a goddess. It had existed since the creation of the world, and without it the world would lose its cohesion. The Egyptians believed Ma'at was constantly under threat, so all of society was required to maintain it. On the human level, members of society were meant to cooperate and coexist. On the cosmic level, the forces of nature, which were the gods, had to keep functioning in balance.

  Time itself was woven into this concern. Throughout the linear passage of time, a cyclical pattern recurred, in which Ma'at was renewed by events that echoed the original creation. Among these were the annual Nile flood and the succession from one king to another. The most important was the daily journey of the sun god Ra.

  The shape of the cosmos reflected these forces. The Egyptians saw the earth as a flat expanse of land, personified by the god Geb, over which arched the sky goddess Nut. The two were separated by Shu, the god of air. Beneath the earth lay a parallel underworld and undersky, and beyond the skies lay the infinite expanse of Nu, the chaos and primordial watery abyss that had existed before creation. Each day, Ra traveled across the underside of the sky, and at night he passed through the Duat, a mysterious region of death and rebirth, to be reborn at dawn.

• 3. A Pantheon Of Forces

  ›

  The Egyptians believed the phenomena of nature were divine forces in and of themselves. These deified forces included the elements, animal characteristics, or abstract forces. The system was very complex, as some deities existed in many different manifestations, and some had multiple mythological roles. The sun alone was associated with multiple gods. The pantheon ranged from deities with vital roles in the universe to minor figures or demons with very limited or localized functions.

  The depictions of the gods in art were not meant as literal representations of how they might appear if visible, because their true natures were believed to be mysterious. Instead, symbolic imagery gave recognizable forms to abstract deities, indicating each god's role in nature. This iconography was not fixed, and many gods could be shown in more than one form.

  The gods related to one another in intricate ways that mirrored the forces they represented. The Egyptians often grouped them, and one common combination was a family triad of father, mother, and child, worshipped together. A wider grouping was the Ennead, which assembled nine deities into a theological system spanning creation, kingship, and the afterlife. The Ennead of Heliopolis linked Atum, Ra, Osiris, and Set in a single creation myth.

  Syncretism deepened these links further. Two or more different gods could be joined to form a composite deity, a recognition of one god's presence in another. When Amun, the god of hidden power, was linked with Ra, the god of the sun, the result was Amun-Ra. That united the power behind all things with the greatest and most visible force in nature. Deceased pharaohs were believed to be divine, and occasionally distinguished commoners such as Imhotep were also deified.

• 4. The Living God-King

  ›

  Egyptologists have long debated how far the pharaoh was considered a god. It seems most likely the Egyptians viewed royal authority itself as a divine force. They recognized the pharaoh as human and subject to human weakness, yet they also viewed him as a god, because the divine power of kingship was incarnated in him. He acted as intermediary between Egypt's people and the gods, and he oversaw all state religious activity.

  The king was tied directly to specific deities. He was identified with Horus, who represented kingship itself, and he was seen as the son of Ra, who ruled and regulated nature as the pharaoh ruled society. By the New Kingdom he was also associated with Amun, the supreme force in the cosmos. Upon his death, the king became fully deified, identified with Ra and associated with Osiris, god of death and rebirth and the mythological father of Horus. Many mortuary temples were dedicated to worshipping deceased pharaohs as gods.

  The pharaoh's real influence could differ sharply from his portrayal in official writings. Beginning in the late New Kingdom his religious importance declined drastically. The populace began to believe the gods were much more directly involved in daily life, and Amun was increasingly seen as the final arbiter of human destiny, the true ruler of Egypt. As oracles grew in importance as a means of decision-making, so did the wealth and influence of their interpreters, the priesthood.

• 5. The Soul And The Afterlife

  ›

  Egyptian belief held that humans possessed a ka, or life-force, which left the body at the point of death. In life the ka received its sustenance from food and drink, so to endure after death it had to keep receiving offerings, whose spiritual essence it could still consume. Each person also had a ba, the set of spiritual characteristics unique to each individual, which remained attached to the body after death.

  Funeral rituals were meant to release the ba so it could move freely, and to rejoin it with the ka so the person could live on as an akh. It was important that the body be preserved by mummification, because the ba was thought to return to its body each night to receive new life before emerging in the morning as an akh.

  In the fully developed afterlife beliefs of the New Kingdom, the soul had to avoid supernatural dangers in the Duat before a final judgement called the Weighing of the Heart, carried out by Osiris and by the Assessors of Ma'at. The gods compared the deceased's actions in life, symbolized by the heart, to the feather of Ma'at. If the deceased was judged worthy, the ka and ba were united into an akh. The dead were often said to dwell in the realm of Osiris, a lush and pleasant land in the underworld. Over the course of the Middle and New Kingdoms, the notion that the akh could also travel in the world of the living, and magically affect events there, became increasingly prevalent.

• 6. Temples And Their Priests

  ›

  State-run temples served as houses for the gods, in which physical images that acted as their intermediaries were cared for and provided with offerings. This service was believed necessary to sustain the gods, so they could in turn maintain the universe. Vast resources were devoted to their upkeep, including donations from the monarchy and large estates of their own. Pharaohs often expanded them as part of their obligation to honor the gods, so many grew to enormous size.

  The standard temple plan that emerged in the New Kingdom ran along a central processional way, leading through courts and halls to the sanctuary, which held a statue of the god. Access to this most sacred part was restricted to the pharaoh and the highest-ranking priests. The journey from entrance to sanctuary was seen as a passage from the human world to the divine realm. Beyond the temple building stood an outer wall, and between the two lay workshops, storage areas, and the library where sacred writings and mundane records were kept.

  Ritual duties were almost always carried out by priests rather than the pharaoh. During the Old and Middle Kingdoms there was no separate class of priests; government officials served for several months a year before returning to secular duties. Only in the New Kingdom did professional priesthood become widespread. As temple wealth grew, priestly influence rose until it rivaled that of the pharaoh. In the political fragmentation of the Third Intermediate Period, the high priests of Amun at Karnak even became the effective rulers of Upper Egypt. Large temples were major centers of economic activity, sometimes employing thousands of people.

• 7. Magic And Cult Animals

  ›

  Heka is normally used to translate the Egyptian word for magic, which James P. Allen describes as the ability to make things happen by indirect means. Heka was believed to be a natural phenomenon, the force used to create the universe and which the gods employed to work their will. Humans could use it too, and even the regular rituals performed in temples were counted as magical. No form of magic was considered inimical in itself; it was seen primarily as a way to prevent or overcome negative events.

  Language was closely linked with heka, so closely that Thoth, the god of writing, was sometimes said to be the inventor of heka. Magic frequently involved written or spoken incantations, usually accompanied by ritual actions that invoked an appropriate deity. Sometimes a ritual cast its practitioner or subject in the role of a mythological character, inducing the god to act toward that person as it had in the myth. The Egyptians also used objects believed to be imbued with heka, such as the protective amulets worn in great numbers by ordinary people.

  At many sacred sites the Egyptians worshipped individual animals believed to be manifestations of particular deities, selected by specific sacred markings. The Apis bull was worshipped in Memphis as a manifestation of Ptah. A separate practice developed in the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, when people began mummifying any member of a particular animal species as an offering to the god it represented. Millions of mummified cats, birds, and other creatures were buried at temples honoring Egyptian deities. Worshippers paid the priests to obtain and mummify an animal, and the mummy was placed in a cemetery near the god's cult center.

• 8. Decline And Afterlives

  ›

  The New Kingdom religious order was disrupted when Akhenaten acceded and replaced Amun with the sun-disk Aten as the state god. He eliminated the official worship of most other gods and moved Egypt's capital to a new city at Amarna. He claimed unprecedented status: only he could worship the Aten, and the populace directed their worship toward him. The Atenist system lacked well-developed mythology and afterlife beliefs, and the Aten seemed distant and impersonal, so it did not appeal to ordinary Egyptians. His successors restored the traditional system and eventually dismantled all Atenist monuments, and Akhenaten himself came to be reviled as a heretic.

  In the 1st millennium BC, foreigners several times seized the country and assumed the position of pharaoh. Isis grew more popular as a goddess of protection, magic, and personal salvation, becoming the most important goddess in Egypt. In the 4th century BC, Egypt became a Hellenistic kingdom under the Ptolemaic dynasty, which assumed the pharaonic role and built or rebuilt many temples. From cross-cultural syncretism emerged Serapis, a god combining Osiris and Apis with characteristics of Greek deities, who became very popular among the Greek population.

  The religion decentralized following the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 BC. As the empire weakened, official temples fell into decay, and religious practice became fragmented and localized. Worship in the temples of Philae apparently survived at least until the 5th century. The 6th-century historian Procopius records that the temples at Philae were closed down officially in AD 537 by the local commander Narses the Persarmenian, on an order of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I. That event is conventionally considered to mark the end of ancient Egyptian religion, though a study by Jitse Dijkstra argues organized paganism at Philae ended in the fifth century. A petition from Dioscorus of Aphrodito dated to 567 warns of a man, called eater of raw meat, alleged to have restored paganism at the sanctuaries.

  Its symbols outlived its temples. The sphinx and winged solar disk were adopted by other cultures across the Mediterranean and Near East, as were deities such as Bes. The Greek concept of Elysium may have derived from the Egyptian vision of the afterlife, and Hermeticism derived from the tradition of secret magical knowledge associated with Thoth. Interest revived with the French Campaign in Egypt and Syria in 1798, and in the late 20th century several new groups under the term Kemetism formed, speaking not of descent but of recreation or restoration.