Egyptian pantheon

From MedBib.com - Medicine & Nature

nṯrt "goddess"

in hieroglyphs
R8 t
r
t		 B1
nṯr "god"

in hieroglyphs
R8 Z1

Ancient Egyptian religion was polytheistic and often zoomorphic. The Egyptian term for goddess was neṯeret (nṯrt; netjeret, nečeret) and the term for god was neṯer (nṯr; also transliterated netjer, nečer). Earliest hieroglyphs for goddesses were just a flag or a flag with an Egyptian cobra arising from the base of the pole. The later hieroglyphs for these terms (R8) are depicted as flags followed by an appropriate gender symbol.

Being a culture dating from 10,000 B.C. or before, there is an extensive pantheon for Ancient Egypt. The earliest deities are presumed to be goddess figures such as Bat, Mut, or Ma'at. Symbols for Neith also appear among the earliest of images. Many fertility figurines have been discovered. Vestiges of the early white vulture (Nekhbet) and cobra (Wadjet) goddesses are born on the crowns of the separate Egyptian cultural centers as well as the crown of the united Upper and Lower Egypt of the predynastic and protodynastic periods and all periods thereafter until the Roman period began in 30 B.C. Once the country was united and the dynasties emerged, these two deities, known as the Two Ladies always remained as the protecting deities of the country and the pharaoh in particular.

Cattle were domesticated in Egypt by 8,000 B.C. and by 5,500 B.C. stone-roofed subterranean chambers and other subterranean complexes in Nabta Playa are seen to contain the tombs of ceremoniously-sacrificed cattle, indicating the worship of the goddess Hathor. The fierce lionesses who hunted in groups, were represented by Sekhmet as the warrior goddess in the south. She later was merged with an aspect of Hathor.

Predynastic artifacts: clockwise from top left: a Bat figurine, a Naqada jar, an ivory figurine, a porphyry jar, a flint knife, and a cosmetic palette

Predynastic Egypt included a culture identified as, Naqada, which arose in the western desert. By 4,000 B.C. Gerzean tomb-building was seen to include underground rooms and burial of furniture and amulets, a prelude to the worship of Osiris also. Many local variants of these and other deities existed, becoming polytheistic. After this period historical records began to appear and some were retained in tombs and temples that can be deciphered from the two writing systems that emerged.

Eventually most deities began to be seen as existing in equal pairs, most of the ancient goddesses accompanied by a male counterpart having a similar role, with significant exceptions. Aspects of some deities diversified and merged at different times and in different regions.

The pharaoh was deified after death, and bore the title of nṯr nfr "the good god," if male. The title, "servant of god" was used for the religious leaders in the temples of gods, ḥmt-nṯr was applied to priestesses and ḥm-nṯr was applied to priests, with parallel constructions for goddesses, the religious leaders of their temples, and for dead pharaohs who were women.

Over the great period of time included in ancient Egyptian culture, some deities arose, gained greater prominence over others or receded into less significance. At times abstract concepts emerged and regressed, as well as did a short-lived episode when one deity eclipsed most others, sometimes referred to as a monotheistic religion, in the 1,300s B.C., toward the end of the eighteenth dynasty that is dated 1,550-1,292 B.C. The worship of some early deities never ceased, however, and with the death of the pharaoh who advanced this cult based upon his favorite regional deity—a quick reversal occurred. Even members of his own family reverted to the worship of the deities as proscribed by the previously dominant cult, which would be eclipsed again and fade into obscurity when the cult of Osiris and Isis reached its highest development.

Hathor-Menkaure-Bat triad of the fourth dynasty - the deities flank the pharaoh and provide the authority to rule - Cairo Museum

First mentions of Isis date back to the fifth dynasty which is when the first literary inscriptions are found, but her cult became prominent late in Egyptian history, when it began to absorb the cults of many other goddesses. It eventually spread outside Egypt. She absorbs many aspects of earlier goddesses, becoming identified as the mother of Horus, who represented and protected the pharaohs.

After Horus, Amun was a regional solar deity whose importance increased greatly when the pharaohs of Thebes regained control of the country from invaders and began the eighteenth dynasty. Ra became the next son of the solar deity and his cult rose to later dominance, eclipsing the earlier deities.

The term, hemt-nṯr-nt imen "servant of the god, wife of Amun" was a title held by priestesses in the tenth (2,160 BCE) and twelfth (1991-1802 BCE) dynasties (Shafer, p 14), which was adopted by the female members of the royal family in the New Kingdom (the hereditary, royal lineage of Egypt was a matrilineality, carried by its women). The New Kingdom is dated from 1,570-1,070 BCE and includes the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth dynasties. The term "god father" jt-nṯr was an epithet of Thoth when he became identified as a counterpart to the goddess, Ma'at.

Ancient Egyptian culture persisted, albeit quite altered, through the Ptolemaic dynasty. That dynasty was ruled by a Hellenistic royal family for nearly 300 years, from 305 BCE. to 30 BCE, when the Romans conquered Cleopatra VII, the last pharaoh. Roman rule lasted until the final invasion by Muslim Arabs in 646 CE that ended 975 years of Græco-Roman rule over Egypt. During that time religious concepts had blended few aspects from the invading cultures with the native, but retained most of the Egyptian cults and deities for continuity with the long history of a culture that served as the authority for the government, maintained the royal lineage, and interwove their deities with those of their rulers—along with the developing Christian beliefs among some of the Romans. Cults of Isis persisted in Egypt and spread with the Greek and Roman cultures—as far as Britian.

Contents

Regional pantheons during the Old Kingdom

Ancient Egyptian votive statues of the deities

In the Old Kingdom, the third through sixth dynasties dated between 2,686 to 2,134 BCE, the pantheons of individual Egyptian cities varied by region. Beliefs can be split into five distinct localized groups during that time and which arose later:

Later regional pantheons

List of deities of Ancient Egypt

See also

Osirus- God of the dead

External links