Skip to main content

Religion in Ancient Egypt: gods, temples and mummies

Before being ruled by a pharaoh , the Ancient Egypt was a set of independent settlements, each with its own cult of the gods, which would later form part of the dynastic pantheon.The Egyptians were, above all, tolerant, their pantheon became formed by 2000 different divinities .

This was possible, to a large extent, because all the Egyptian gods resembled each other, at least in their concept.Unlike the Sumerian religion, I reserve a particular space for each deity, the Egyptian pantheon was never fully systematized, nor were the properties of each god determined.

Religion in Ancient Egypt: gods, temples and mummies

The importance of each god within the pantheon had a direct relationship with the politics that crossed the re In every moment, if the predominantly political city was, for example, Heliopolis, city of priests, then the solar god Ra was worshiped as the main divinity.During the first historical phases, when the capital of the Empire was Memphis (III and IV dynasty), the cult of Ptha predominated over others, and so on.

The decline of the monarchy, from the VI dynasty, caused other local gods to gain strength, such as the case of Osiris , associated with the resurrection.According to the myth, Osiris was killed by his brother Seth The goddess Isis , wife and sister of Osiris , managed to resuscitate him with the help of Thoth and Anubis , and was finally avenged by his son Horus.

During the Middle Kingdom the "official" god was Amon , originally from the city of Thebes in the Al to Egypt.Its character of solar divinity helped him identify with Ra , from Lower Egypt, thus achieving his acceptance of the entire kingdom.In the New Kingdom, the association between the two gods was such that simply the cult was imposed on Amon-Ra.

After the extinction of the New Empire, the cult of the local gods and the old traditions took center stage again. Amon ceased to be considered the national god and, instead, many other deities were venerated, such as Neith , the goddess of war, and Bast , The goddess of happiness.

The end of Egyptian religion would not come until the fourth century, when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, which had conquered Egypt during its expansion into the Mediterranean.

Religion in Ancient Egypt: gods, temples and mummies

The main Egyptian gods were:

  • Amon : The" hidden "God of creation and patron of Thebes.national since the 12th dynasty.
  • Anubis : God with jackal head, coming from Tinis.Patron of magic, protector of tombs and guide of the dead at death.
  • Apis : God-bull of Memphis.Regenerated since the 1st dynasty as a son of Ptah and as a symbol of strength and courage.
  • Bast : Cat-headed goddess, daughter of the solar god Ra.Adorada in Bubastis.Pattern of music and dance.
  • Isis : Wife of Osiris and mother of Horus.Personification of the Egyptian throne, and goddess of motherhood and medicine.
  • Khnum : God-ram of Elephantine and guardian of the sources of the Nile.Creator of all living beings.
  • Maat : Goddess of truth and justice.Daughter of Ra.The one in charge of weighing the soul of him you dead.
  • Osiris : God of the ultraworld, the resurrection, and nature.With centers of worship in Bubastis and Abydos.
  • Ptah : Memphis deity protective of artists and blacksmiths.Appears like a mummy with a shaved head.
  • Ra : The supreme god according to Heliopolis theology.represented with the head of a hawk and a solar disk.
  • Seth : Personifies the chaos within Egyptian mythology.represented as a zoomorphic warrior.

Sources:

  • Meuleau, M.: The Ancient World, The World and its History, Argos, Barcelona, ​​1968
  • Universal History: Pharaonic Egypt.Bs.As., AGEA, 2005
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Enrico Caruso Biography

Enrico Caruso (Naples, 1873-id., 1921) Italian tenor considered the best of his time and one of the greatest in history.Enrico Caruso made his debut in his hometown in 1894, although it was in Milan that he achieved his first great success in 1898 with the interpretation of the opera Fedora , by Umberto Giordano. Enrico Caruso His tours took him around the world, with performances in Saint Petersburg, Rome, Lisbon and Monte Carlo, where he excelled in his magnificent interpretation of La bohème by Giacomo Puccini, accompanied by Australian soprano Nellie Melba.With his fame firmly established, he made his debut in 1902 at London's Covent Garden with Rigoletto by Verdi, an opera that he also performed at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York in 1903, with extraordinary success.The beauty and strength of her voice won over the Metropolitan audience. His cheerful and outgoing character, his dramatic talent on stage and an almost perfect tenor voice, with a superb powe...
Post a Comment
Read more

Francisco Asenjo Barbieri Biography

Francisco Asenjo Barbieri (Madrid, 1823-1894) Spanish composer and musicologist.The significance of Francisco Asenjo Barbieri in Spanish music is threefold: he was an excellent composer, a capable conductor, who is responsible for the introduction in Spain of many symphonic works from the European continent, and a tireless musicologist, responsible for the recovery and edition of the ancient heritage of his homeland. Francisco Asenjo Barbieri Drawn to opera since his earliest childhood (when he attended the Italian opera performances that were offered at the Teatro de la Cruz, in the that his grandfather worked), Barbieri studied clarinet, singing and composition at the Madrid Conservatory, where he had Ramón Carnicer as his teacher.At the end of his studies he carried out various tasks, from copyist to choirmaster, while trying to publicize his first compositions, including the Italian opera Il buontempone (1847). The difficulties to release it made him focus his interest o...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ismael Serrano Biography

Ismael Serrano (Madrid, 1974) Spanish singer-songwriter.Endowed with a deep and personal voice, his career began to emerge with the boom of new singer-songwriters of the 1990s and he soon became one of the most openly committed voices of his generation. Ismael Serrano Born in the popular Vallecas neighborhood, the young Ismael grew up among the records of his father, the journalist and writer Rodolfo Serrano, and his older brother.His father even taught him the first chords on a guitar.He began to study music theory and piano and, shortly after, he dared to compose his first songs. In 1992 he began his Physics career at the Complutense University of Madrid and towards the year 1994 he entered the circuit of bars and cafes in Madrid, to play and sing in the emblematic places of the capital that They welcomed musical styles related to his: La Taberna Encantada, Libertad 8 or Galileo Galilei.Following the line of interpreters such as Silvio Rodríguez, Luis Eduardo Aute, Joan Ma...
Post a Comment
Read more

Duke of Rivas Biography

Duque de Rivas (Ángel de Saavedra, Duke of Rivas; Córdoba, 1791-Madrid, 1865) Spanish poet and playwright whose work is considered emblematic of Hispanic romanticism.With liberal ideas, he fought against the French in the war of independence and later against the absolutism of Fernando VII, for which he had to go into exile in Malta.These experiences inspired some of his poems, such as With eleven mortal wounds, in the manner of ancient pastoral romances.Under the influence of his friend Manuel José Quintana and of the then dominant aesthetics, his first verses (collected in Poesías , 1813) and plays, such as Ataúlfo (1814) and Lanuza (1822), were framed within the neoclassical order.However, during his Maltese exile he met the work of William Shakespeare, Walter Scott and Lord Byron and joined the romantic trend with the poems The Exile and The Outlaw's Dream (1824), and The Malta Lighthouse (1828). Ángel de Saavedra, Duke of Rivas He lived in France from 1830 ...
Post a Comment
Read more

John osborne Biography

John Osborne (London, 1929-Shropshire, UK, 1994) British playwright.The first book of his autobiography, A Better Class of Person (1989), describes his childhood in the suburbs, his brief experience as a journalist and his years as a provincial actor, during which he began to write his first plays, the first being staged in 1950. He made his name with Looking back with anger (1956), which was followed by Epitaph for George Dillon (1957), written in collaboration with Anthony Creighton. The Host (1957) starred Laurence Olivier in the role of Archie Rice, a withered survivor of the great Music Hall era. Looking back with anger was the founder of a new theatrical trend that critics called the school of angry young men ( angry young man ) for the vitality, satire and realism of his proposal, which expressed a reaction against the old values ​​and the social order established in the postwar period.Osborne was precisely one of the most important and well-known playwrights o...
Post a Comment
Read more

Jorge L. Tamayo Biography

Jorge L.Tamayo (Oaxaca, 1912-Playa Vicente, Veracruz, 1978) Mexican engineer and geographer.He was a professor of economic geography, a technical consultant on transportation for the UN attached to ECLAC, and president of the Mexican Society of Natural History (1974-1978).His works include The use of water and soil in Mexico (1958), Atlas of the water of the Mexican Republic (1976) and The fundamental problem of the Mexican agriculture (1964), for which he won the national economics prize in 1962 and 1964.Despite not being one of his fields of study, Jorge L.Tamayo also carried out an enormous task as a historian by collecting more than nine thousand writings and documents related to the Mexican president Benito Juárez, a task in which he invested ten years and whose results would be published in fifteen volumes.
Post a Comment
Read more

Edward Kennedy Biography

Edward Kennedy (Edward Moore Kennedy, also known as Ted Kennedy; Boston, 1932-Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, 2009) American politician member of the Kennedy clan, one of the most influential families in the history of the Democratic Party.Brother of Robert Francis Kennedy and President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, he began his political career as a Democratic senator from Massachusetts in 1964, a position to which he would be reelected in 1970, 1982, 1992 and 1996. Edward Kennedy From 1969 to 1971 he was deputy leader of the Senate Democratic majority.His presidential aspirations were frustrated when he was convicted of reckless manslaughter in a 1969 car accident.While he was driving while intoxicated, his vehicle fell into a lake and his companion, Mary Jo Kopechne, was killed.Despite this, he would later present his candidacy for the nomination for the presidential elections of 1980 and 1988, but was defeated. Edward Kennedy had married in 1958 with Virginia Joan Bennet, with who...
Post a Comment
Read more

Joseph Reinach Biography

Joseph Reinach (Paris, 1856-1921) French journalist.He started in the journalistic profession through the Parisian newspaper La République Française , where from 1877 he began to publish interesting political analyzes that placed him at the epicenter of French public life in the last quarter of the century XIX.He acquired such importance in such a short space of time that in 1881, following the proclamation in France of the Third Republic, President León Gambetta called him to his side to place all his trust in him and appoint him head of his secretariat. At only thirty years old (1886), he became editor-in-chief of La République Française .Once this position was released, he directed a noisy journalistic campaign from the pages of the newspaper against the nationalist and populist politics of Georges Boulanger (the " General Revanche ").With this and other similar matters of maximum national interest, Joseph Reinach continued to rise in French public life and, in 188...
Post a Comment
Read more

Georges devereux Biography

Georges Devereux (Lugos, 1908-Paris, 1985) Hungarian-American anthropologist and psychiatrist.He studied physics with Curie and Perrin, but in 1926 he went to the institute of ethnology, where he was a disciple of Maus and Lévy-Bruhl, and settled in the United States, where he was a professor at various universities.He founded ethnopsychiatry ( Ethnopsychiatry , 1970) and synthesized Greek culture ( Dreams in Greek tragedy , 1976), psychoanalysis ( Complementary ethnopsychoanalysis , 1972) and anthropology (he has two studies on the Prairie Indians and the Mohave).
Post a Comment
Read more

Hans thoma Biography

Hans Thoma (Bernau, Duchy of Baden, 1839-Karlsruhe, 1924) German painter.After a trip to Paris, and inspired by the Barbizon school and especially by G.Courbet, his painting drifted towards a lively naturalism.He painted compositions, landscapes and also some portraits.
Post a Comment
Read more