Religion of Ancient Egypt

facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

Egyptian goddess Isis from temple at Philae

A stele depicting two triads (groups of three) of gods
The religion of ancient Egypt was a polytheistic religion which lasted throughout their
civilisation. After about three thousand years, the Egyptian people turned to Coptic
Christianity and Islam. These religions were brought by influences from
outside. Christianity spread across Egypt in the third and fourth centuries AD. After the
Muslim conquest of Egypt in the 7th century, most Egyptians were converted to Islam by
the 10th century.
Contents
 Gods
 History of the gods
 Death
 The monotheistic period
 Gods
 Images for kids

Gods
Main page: List of Egyptian gods and goddesses
At the beginning, there were five different religious groups of people in Egypt. Each groups
had different beliefs, and were based in different places.

Group Location Chief God

Ennead Heliopolis Atum (also called Atum-Ra)

Ogdoad Hermopolis Thoth.
Chnum-Satet- Elephantine Chnum
Anuket triad    
Amun-Mut- Thebes Amun
Chons triad    
Ptah-Sekhmet- Memphis Ptah (This is not normal because the gods were not
Nefertem triad   connected before the triad was made).
During the history of Egypt, the beliefs changed with the leader. When someone rose in
power, their belief system rose as well. The new beliefs would combined with the beliefs
that were already there. This happened even after the end of the ancient
Egyptian civilization as it is known today. An example of this might be the New Kingdom.
During its time, the gods Ra and Amun, became Amun-Ra. Joining to create one god is
usually referred to as syncretism.
History of the gods
Egyptian goddess Isis, tomb painting, ca. 1360 BC
The Egyptians believed that in the beginning, the universe was filled with the dark waters
of chaos. The first god, Re-Atum, came from the water. Re-Atum spat and this created the
gods Shu (god of air) and Tefnut (goddess of moisture). The world was created when Shu
and Tefnut gave birth to two children: Nut (goddess of the sky) and Geb (god of
the Earth). Humans were created when Shu and Tefnut went walking in the darkness and
got lost. Re-Atum sent his eye to find them. After finding them, his tears of joy turned into
people.
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Nut and Geb had intercourse. When Shu heard about this, he did not want them to be
together. He became the air between the sky and ground. He also said that the pregnant Nut
could not give birth. Nut begged Thoth to help. Thoth gambled with the moon-god Khonsu.
He won five more days to be added to the 360-day year. Nut had one child on each of these
days: Osiris, Isis, Set, Nephthys, and Horus-the-Elder.
Osiris was the king of Egypt. His brother, Seth, murdered him and became the king. After
killing him, Seth tore the body of Osiris into pieces. Isis rescued the pieces. She wanted
to bury the pieces under the temple. After Seth became king, he was fought by Horus,
Osiris's son. Seth lost and was sent to the desert. Seth became the god of horrible storms.
Osiris was mummified by Anubis and became God of the dead. Horus became the new
king. In ancient Egypt, it was believed that the pharaohs were Horus's descendants.
The ancient Greeks believed that their gods and goddesses were the ancestors of the
Egyptian gods and goddesses. In ancient Greek Mythology, when the titan Typhon was set
free, all of the Greek gods (except for Hermes and Zeus) fled to Egypt. In Egypt, many of
the gods made themselves turn into animals to hide themselves from Typhon. They
reproduced, and the Egyptian gods and goddesses were born.

4 canopic jars with heads of Horus' sons

Death
Egypt had a developed view of the afterlife with rituals for preparing the body and soul for
a peaceful life after death. Beliefs about the soul and afterlife focused mainly
on preserving the body. This was because they believed that the ka (a part of a person's soul
that was depicted as a bird with a persons head) was still living in the body after death and
it was important for the ka to be reunited with the ba, the spirit or soul to form the akh. This
meant that embalmingand mummification were done, in order to preserve the person's
identity in the afterlife. Originally the dead were buried in reed coffins in the hot sand,
which caused the remains to dry quickly, and then were buried. Later, they started
constructing wooden tombs, and the long process of mummification was developed by the
Egyptians around the 4th Dynasty. All soft tissues were removed, and the cavities washed
and packed with natron, then the outer body was buried in natron as well. The heart was the
only organ left within the body as it was believed the heart had to be weighed in the
underworld to see if the person was worthy of a peaceful afterlife. The other organs were
placed in 'canopic jars' which had seals depicting the heads of the Gods that guarded the
intestines: Imsety,an Egyptian man who guards the liver, Hapi, a baboon who guards the
lungs, Duamutef, a jackal who guards the stomach and Qebehsenuef, a falcon who guards
the intestines.
After coming out of the natron, the bodies were coated inside and out with resin to preserve
them, then wrapped with linen bandages, embedded with religious amulets and talismans.
In the case of royalty, this was usually then placed inside a series of nested coffins. The
outer layer of the coffins was a stone sarcophagus. Other creatures were also mummified,
sometimes thought to be pets of Egyptian families, but more likely they represented the
gods. They left the heart in place because they thought it was the home of the soul.
The Book of the Dead was a series of almost two hundred spells represented as texts, songs
and pictures written on papyrus. They were individually customized for the dead. They
were buried along with the dead to make their passage into the underworld easier. After
working their way through lakes of fire, spitting cobras, demon jackals and giant bugs their
soul is led into a hall of judgment in Duat by Anubis (god of mummification) and the
deceased's heart, which was the record of the morality of the owner, is weighed against a
single feather representing Ma'at (the concept of truth, and order). A heart that weighed less
than the feather was considered a pure heart. This resulted in a good outcome. A heart
heavy with guilt and sin from one's life weighed more than the feather, and so the heart
would be eaten by Ammit (Eater of Hearts)–part crocodile, part lion, and part
hippopotamus. If the outcome was good, the dead are taken to Osiris, god of the afterlife, in
Aaru, but the if the out come was bad, the demon Ammit destroyed their heart which killed
the soul. The person would then be placed in a special place with food just out of reach of
their hands. If they ever got the food, demons would put them into a hole to make it harder
for them. The Greeks wrote a myth about a King who was forced to do the same thing but
he was imprisoned in a lake. Whenever he bent his head to have some water, the lake
would drain away only to bring the water back when he stopped trying. There was also
food above his head on a tree and whenever he reached out for it the branch would move
away.
The monotheistic period
 Pharaoh Akhenaten and his family praying to Aten
A short time of monotheism (Atenism) happened when Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV) was
pharaoh. He focused the religion on the Egyptian sun god Aten. The Aten is usually shown
as a sun disk with rays coming out of all sides. Akhenaten built a new capital
at Amarna with temples for The Aten. Akhenaten's religion only lasted until his death. The
old religion was quickly restored by Tutankhamun, Akhenaten's son by his wife Kiya.
While most historians say this period is monotheistic, some researchers do not. They say
that people worshipped the royal family as gods who got their divine power from the Aten.
In one picture, Akhenaten is shown with his wife Nefertiti with three of their 6 daughters
sitting under the beams of the Aten. This point of view is mostly ignored by historians.
Some researchers say that Akhenaten or some of his viziers were Moses or Joseph
(Bible) from the Bible.
After the fall of the Amarna dynasty, the original Egyptian pantheon was the main religion,
until the development Coptic Christianity and later Islam, even though the Egyptians
continued to have relations with the other monotheistic cultures (the Hebrews). Egyptian
mythology put up surprisingly little resistance to the spread of Christianity. This is
sometimes explained by saying that Jesus was originally a syncretism based mainly
on Horus, with Isisand her worship becoming Mary.
Gods
 Anubis
 Ptah
 Ra
 Osiris
 Isis
 Horus
 Nephthys
 Seth
 Bes
 Sobek
 Sekhmet
 Min

Images for kids


The gods Osiris, Anubis, and Horus, in order from left to right


Amun-Ra kamutef, wearing the plumed headdress of Amun and the sun disk representing Ra


Colossal statue of the Pharaoh Ramesses II
 
 
First pylon and colonnade of the Temple of Isis at Philae.
 


Amulet in the shape of the Eye of Horus, a common magical symbol


The Opening of the Mouth ceremony being performed before the tomb


The pyramid complex of Djedkare Isesi
 


Serapis

 
 

Altar to Thoth of a Kemetic follower.