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

Joseph Boussinesq Biography

Joseph Boussinesq (Saint-André-de-Sangonis, 1842-Paris, 1929) French mathematician.He also studied physics and was a professor of different disciplines in Paris.A member of the Academy of Sciences, his work covered very diverse fields of physics, mathematics and philosophy.His statistical studies on hydrodynamics are especially interesting.His works include Infinitesimal Analysis Course and Analytical Theory of Heat.
Post a Comment
Read more

Gaspar Gil Polo Biography

Gaspar Gil Polo (Valencia, c .1530-Barcelona, ​​1584) Spanish writer.There is very little news of his life.Part of his fame as a poet is that Cervantes dedicated a royal octave to him in La Galatea (1583) and Juan de Timoneda quotes him in his Sarao de amor (1561).His fundamental work is the Diana in love (1564), continuation of the Diana by Jorge de Montemayor. Illustration of Diana in love , of Gaspar Gil Polo Born into a family of municipal officials in Valencia, Gaspar Gil Polo became a lawyer and held various administrative positions in the city.Felipe II appointed him commissioner in the principality of Catalonia, so in 1580 he moved to Barcelona.He must have been known as a poet among his contemporaries, since Juan de Timoneda quotes him in a romance of 1561, but at present only some of his loose poems are preserved. In 1564 he published in Valencia the five books of Diana in love , a pastoral novel that constitutes a continuation of Jorge de Montemayor's...
Post a Comment
Read more

Jose Mauri Biography

José Mauri (Valencia, 1856-Havana, 1937) Spanish composer.Installed in Cuba for most of his life, he founded the conservatory that bears his name there (1914).His work includes numerous songs and the opera The Slave (1921).
Post a Comment
Read more

Jose Miguel Infante Rojas Biography

José Miguel Infante Rojas (Santiago, 1778-1844) Chilean politician.Supporter of the federal system of government, tried to implant it in Chile.In 1821 he founded the newspaper El Valdiviano Federal, in which he defended his federalist theories.He was a deputy to Congress for Santiago de Chile in 1811, and a senator in 1812.In addition, he held the position of secretary of the first National Congress.During the so-called Patria Vieja (1810-1814) he was part of the successive government boards. José Miguel Infante At his instigation, Carrera and O'Higgins was elected (1813).Minister of Finance with O'Higgins (1818), then he faced him and was appointed, at his fall, a member along with Errázuriz and Eyzaguirre of the Junta that in 1823 took power.In July 1823 he promoted, from his position as senator, the abolition of slavery; In this way Chile became the first country in America to take this measure and the second in the world to do so. In 1824 he was elected president o...
Post a Comment
Read more

Gerolamo Tiraboschi Biography

Gerolamo Tiraboschi (Gerolamo or Girolamo Tiraboschi; Bergamo, 1731-Modena, 1794) Italian scholar.At fifteen he entered the Society of Jesus, where he remained until its dissolution.He taught at the Milanese academy of Brera, and in 1770 he was appointed prefect of the Estense Library by Francisco III, Duke of Modena.The large number of sources at his disposal allowed him to compose works of considerable scholarship; the main one was the History of Italian Literature (1772-1781). Girolamo Tiraboschi He later became the official advisor of the new duke, Hercules III.He expanded the Estense Library and belonged to various academic entities.Tiraboschi also wrote a series of works on the arts, letters and the historical evolution of Modena.His minor texts include Vetera Humiliatorum monumenta (1766), Biblioteca modenese (1781-86), Memorie storiche modenesi (1793-1794) and Dizionario topografico-storico degli Stati Estensi (posthumous, 1824-25). Published from 1772 to 178...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dukes of Medina Sidonia Biography

Dukes of Medina Sidonia (Or Medinasidonia) Castilian noble lineage that starts from Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, the Good (1256-1309).In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, his descendants extended their manorial domains through western Andalusia, around Sanlúcar de Barrameda and obtained the County of Niebla, as well as the position of major advance of the Andalusian border. It stands out among them Juan Alonso de Guzmán (1410-68), to whom Juan II granted the title of Duke of Medina Sidonia, who would henceforth carry his descendants: Enrique de Guzmán el Bueno y Meneses (?-1492) participated in the wars of the Catholic Monarchs against the Kingdom of Granada, standing out in the taking of Alhama and Malaga.He was succeeded by his son Juan Alonso de Guzmán el Bueno (?-1559), who participated in several expeditions against North Africa. His grandson Alonso Pérez de Guzmán (?-1619) was appointed by Felipe II to command the Invincible Armada, destined to invade England (1588); hi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Gregory IX Biography

Gregory IX (Ugolino de Segni; Anagni, c .1170-Rome, 1241) Pope of the Catholic Church (1227-1241).Nephew of Pope Innocent III, he studied in Paris and Bologna and in 1206 he was appointed Cardinal Bishop of Ostia by his uncle.A man of notable legal scholarship, he defended with great energy the claims of power of the papacy and the freedom of the church, for which reason he came into conflict with Emperor Frederick II Hohenstaufen. Pope Gregory IX approves the Decretals (fresco by Rafael Sanzio) Already in 1227 he excommunicated Frederick II for failing to fulfill his promise to undertake a new crusade, and in 1229 ordered the invasion of the kingdom of Sicily.In 1230 he made peace with the emperor, although the struggle between the Church and the emperor continued.In 1239 he again excommunicated Federico II and decreed a crusade against him; the imperial troops were about to enter Rome when he passed away. During his pontificate, Gregory IX founded the Inquisition and, with ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Harold Clayton Urey Biography

Harold Clayton Urey (Walkerton, Indiana, 1893-La Jolla, California, 1981) American chemist, pioneer in the application of isotope separation techniques, who was awarded the Nobel Prize of Chemistry in 1934 for the discovery of deuterium (heavy isotope of hydrogen).He was also the author of a theory about the origin of life on Earth and other planets. Harold Clayton Urey After graduating in Zoology from the University of Montana in 1917 and working as a professor for two years at this university, Urey's fondness for chemistry led him to pursue a doctorate in Chemistry from the University of Berkeley in 1923.After researching with Borh on the theory of structure Atomic, he returned to the United States where he taught chemistry at Johns Hopkins University (1924-1929), Columbia University (1929-1945), the University of Chicago (1945-1952) and the University of San Diego, where He held the position of professor emeritus from 1970 to 1981. During his teaching, Urey carried out ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Jose Maria Galvez Alonso Biography

José María Gálvez Alonso (Matanzas, 1834-Havana, 1906) Cuban lawyer and politician.After studying law at the University of Havana, he sympathized with the independence movement of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes that led to the Ten Years' War (1868-1878), and served their cause from New York, taking charge of the leadership of the newspaper The Revolution .Due to the complaints and appeals that he published on its pages, he was arrested and imprisoned by the Spanish authorities, and released with the amnesty that was granted once the war ended. José María Gálvez Alonso then founded the Partido Liberal Autonomista (1881), formation that during the following years competed for power with the Conservative Party.Gálvez, who advocated bringing Cuban society and institutions to a point of maturity and sufficient stability as a step prior to independence, also directed the Economic Society of Friends of the Country.He was president of the short-lived autonomous government of Cuba (1897-18...
Post a Comment
Read more

Claes oldenburg Biography

Claes Oldenburg (Stockholm, 1929) American artist.Along with Andy Warhol, he is considered one of the most prominent figures in pop art , a trend inspired by mass culture that reached its peak in the 1960s.At the age of five he moved with his family to Chicago.In 1950 he graduated from Yale and went on to study at the Chicago Institute School of Art.In 1956 he moved to New York, where he soon met other happening and environment artists (Jim Dine, Red Grooms, Allan Kaprow and Geoge Segal, among others). Claes Oldenburg In connection with these experiences he presented his first solo exhibition at the Judson Gallery (1960) under the title of The street .In it he gathered figures and objects made with cheap materials (cloth, cardboard, paper), forming a unique evocation of the urban landscape. A year later he exhibited The Store , a space crammed with facsimiles of food, clothing and other objects, made mainly of wire, plaster and fabric, and painted in bright colors.The i...
Post a Comment
Read more