Ancient Egyptian religion encompasses the various religious beliefs and rituals practiced in ancient Egypt over more than 3,000 years, from the predynastic period until the adoption of Christianity in the early centuries AD. Initially these beliefs centered on the worship of multiple deities who represented various forces of nature, thought patterns and power, expressed by the means of complex and varied archetypes. By the time of the 18th dynasty they began to be viewed as aspects of a single deity who existed apart from nature, similar to trinitarian concepts also found in Christianity: the belief that one god can exist in more than one person.
These deities were worshipped with offerings and prayers, in local and household shrines as well as in formal temples managed by priests. Different gods were prominent at different periods of Egyptian history, and the myths associated with them changed over time, so Egypt never had a coherent hierarchy of deities or a unified mythology. However, the religion contained many overarching beliefs. Among these were the divinity of the pharaoh, which helped to politically unify the country, and complex beliefs about an afterlife, which gave rise to the Egyptians' elaborate burial customs.
Theology
Egyptian religion was not based on firm theological principles. Its primary focus was simply the interaction between humans and the gods. These gods were believed to be present in every aspect of the natural world, yet their true natures remained to some degree mysterious. Hundreds of gods were believed to exist, and the exact nature of their complex interrelationships is still the subject of scholarly debate.
Polytheism
Further information: Egyptian pantheonThe Egyptians saw the actions of the gods behind all the elements and forces of nature. However, they did not believe that the gods merely controlled these phenomena, but that each element of nature was a divine force in itself. The forces deified in this way included animals, as with Sekhmet, who represented the ferocity of lions, and inanimate elements, such as Shu, the deification of air. The gods could also represent more abstract things, as Horus represented the power of kingship. The Egyptians thus believed in a multitude of gods, which were involved in every aspect of nature and human society. Egyptian myths about the gods were intended to explain the origins and behavior of these phenomena, and the hymns, prayers and offerings given to the gods were efforts to placate them and turn them to human advantage. This polytheistic system was very complex, as some deities were believed to exist in many different manifestations, and some had multiple mythological roles. Conversely, many natural forces, such as the sun, were associated with multiple deities.
The depictions of the gods in art were not meant as literal representations of how the gods might appear if they were visible, as the gods' true natures were believed to be "mysterious" and "unknown". Instead, these depictions gave recognizable forms to the abstract deities by using symbolic imagery to indicate each god's role in nature. Thus, for example, the funerary god Anubis was portrayed as a jackal, a creature whose scavenging habits threatened the preservation of the body, in an effort to counter this threat and employ it for protection. His black skin was symbolic of the color of mummified flesh and the fertile black soil that Egyptians saw as a symbol of resurrection. However, this iconography was not fixed, and many of the gods could be depicted in more than one form.
Many gods were associated with particular localities within Egypt where their cults were most important. However, these associations changed over time, and they did not necessarily mean that the god associated with a place had originated there. For instance, the god Monthu was the original patron of the city of Thebes. Over the course of the Middle Kingdom, however, he was displaced in that role by Amun, who had originated elsewhere. The national popularity and importance of individual gods fluctuated in a similar way.
In addition to the major gods, there were also other, less-powerful supernatural beings. These included a profusion of minor gods, which in modern studies are sometimes referred to as "demons". They tended to be less universal than the major gods, and were often defined by specific behaviors or tied to particular locations, but the Egyptians did not draw a clear distinction between the two classes. Some demons were localized guardian deities, while others were servants of greater gods who performed specific actions on demand. Most of them were inhabitants of the Duat, the Egyptian underworld, although many others were present in the world of the living. The spirits of deceased humans, while distinct from the gods, were also believed to exist on the same plane, and could affect the world of the living in similar ways. Deceased pharaohs were believed to be fully divine, and occasionally, distinguished commoners such as Imhotep also became deified.
Associations between gods
The Egyptians recognized that different natural phenomena are interrelated, and they often placed deities in groups to symbolize this relationship. Sometimes deities were grouped into pairs, linked because of a relationship between the two phenomena they represented, or simply to give one deity a counterpart of the opposite sex. They could also be grouped into threes; often these triads formed mythological families consisting of a father, mother, and male child. There were also many larger groups, including two different sets of creator deities—the eight gods of the Ogdoad and the nine gods of the Ennead—and several sets of minor gods with similar functions but no individual identity, such as the deities representing each hour of the day and night.
The relationships between deities could also be expressed in the process of syncretism, in which two or more different gods were linked to form a composite deity. While early Egyptologists believed that the Egyptians did this to resolve conflicts between competing deities, syncretism was more of a recognition of the presence of one god "within" another where their respective roles overlapped. Sometimes this process combined deities that had similar characteristics, or that could even be seen as different aspects of the same god. At other times syncretism combined a foreign deity with a native one, or linked a localized god with a more important national one. Sometimes syncretism joined gods with very different natures, as when Amun, the god of hidden power, was linked with Ra, the god of the sun. The resulting god, Amun-Ra, thus united the power that lay behind all things with the greatest and most visible force in nature.
Monotheistic tendencies
At various times during Egyptian history, different gods, including Horus, Ra, and Isis, rose to be seen as the greatest of all the gods. During the New Kingdom, Amun held this position, and a theology developed in which he came close to being a truly monotheistic deity. His true identity was concealed from the visible world, even from the other gods, yet his power permeated the universe. Although they retained their individual identities, all the gods were ultimately aspects of this single hidden force.
Based on this, and upon instances in Egyptian literature where "god" is mentioned without reference to any specific deity, many Egyptologists have argued that beneath the polytheistic traditions of Egyptian religion there was an increasing tendency toward monotheism, while others have seen evidence of pantheism. In recent decades, however, Erik Hornung has disputed these claims, noting that each of the gods, even Amun, was only depicted and worshipped in a limited number of forms, so that Egyptian religion was never completely pantheistic. He also points out that at no point in Egyptian history were the traits of a supreme being limited to only one deity, and many Egyptian writings call particular gods "sole" or "lord of all that exists" even in periods when other gods were preeminent. He further argues that the Egyptians used the generic term "god" to refer to any god, or "whichever god you wish". His argument is that Egyptian religion was purely polytheistic, having no notion of a divine being beyond the immediate multitude of deities.
More recently, scholars such as James P. Allen and Jan Assmann have suggested that the Egyptians did to some degree recognize a single divine force. Allen's compromise approach states that the Egyptians could simultaneously be polytheists and monotheists, as demonstrated by the process of syncretism which, he says, "unites the view of god as simultaneously Many and One". Under this view, it is possible that only the Egyptian theologians fully recognized an essential unity behind the polytheistic system. However, it is also possible that ordinary Egyptians practiced a form of henotheism, identifying the single divine force with a single god in particular situations.
Atenism
Further information: AtenismThe Egyptians did have an aberrant period of true monotheism during the New Kingdom, in which the pharaoh Akhenaten abolished the official worship of other gods in favor of the sun-disk Aten, of which he himself was an aspect. This exclusivity was a radical departure from Egyptian tradition, and the Aten's impersonal nature did not appeal to the Egyptian people. Thus, under Akhenaten's successors Egypt
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