Did you know the Egyptian pantheon was huge?
The ancient Egyptians worshipped over 2000 deities.
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Hello and welcome to Ancient History Encyclopedia.
I'm Kelly and today we're going to explore
how religion was practiced in Ancient Egypt
and introduce the concept of the afterlife.
The religion of ancient Egypt was vast and multi-faceted.
I'm not going to try to explain it all today,
but introduce some of the main gods,
the way Egyptians interacted with different gods,
and introduce the concept of the afterlife.
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Egyptian religion was more than the our understanding of religion
as the belief in a higher power and life after death.
Back in ancient Egypt, religion incorporated practices and beliefs
which people today would associate with mythology, science,
medicine, spiritualism, psychiatry,
magic and herbology.
Religion was based on the concept of universal harmony,
between people and their gods, emphasizing gratitude
and relying on what we would call magic, personified by the god Heka.
Heka was present in the act of creation
and was the underlying principle for their religion.
He was the power that enabled the gods to perform their functions
and allowed people to commune with their gods.
Religion was completely incorporated into the lives of the Egyptians,
no matter their social class,
and informed every aspect of their daily routine.
The gods of ancient Egypt were perceived
both as lords of creation and as familiar friends,
who wanted to help and guide the people.
They were seen not as deities who lived far off in the Heavens,
but gods who lived with the people in their everyday interactions.
Trees were considered homes for gods and goddesses,
and were associated with mothering, protection and nurture.
The goddess Ma'at
was one of the most important goddesses in the Egyptian pantheon.
Ma'at personified the concept of harmony,
and people were expected to honour and uphold this principle
and recognize that their actions affected others
as well as the operation of the universe.
By honouring the principle of Ma'at,
one would align themselves with the gods and the forces of light
against the forces of darkness and chaos,
an important alignment for the soul when one passed on to the next life.
Some of the most popular deities
were Amun, Isis, Osiris, Horus, Bastet,
Anubis and Hathor, and they all had temples.
Some other popular deities were Ma'at,
Bes, the dwarf god of fertility,
Heka and Seshat, the goddess of writing and measurements,
although they did not have temples.
Ma'at was invoked when they crowned a new king and legitimized his rule,
Seshat, at the opening of a new temple,
and Heka and Bes to ward off evil spirits and to bring good luck.
Religious festivals were a part of the daily lives of the Egyptians
with some large festivals, like the beautiful festival of the Wadi for Amun
and smaller festivals, celebrated by towns or honouring lesser gods.
All classes of Egyptian society would attend religious festivals;
the poor, the wealthy, the ruling class and the slaves,
as religion was intertwined with everybody's lives.
The ancient Egyptian clergy did not preach or conduct services,
but were responsible for the god in the temple.
Both men and women could be clergy
and often women were priestesses for female deities
while men served males.
Although this wasn't always the case, as can be seen with the god Amun,
who was served by male priests and a powerful woman,
who held the title "God's Wife of Amun",
and provided balance to the male high priest.
Let's introduce now
two of the most important and recognizable deities of ancient Egypt:
Amun and Isis.
Amun was the ancient Egyptian god of the sun and air,
and was considered the lord of all, who encompassed every aspect of creation.
Amun had been growing in power in Thebes during the Middle Kingdom of Egypt,
between 2040-1782 BCE.
And after Ahmose I attributed his victory against the Hyksos to Amun,
linking him to the sun-god Ra, he became Amun-Ra,
creator of the universe and king of the gods.
In the New Kingdom he became
the most popular and widely venerated deity in Egypt,
and many temples and monuments were constructed to him in that time.
The goddess Isis, however, became the most popular and enduring deity
whose worship extended as far as Europe.
Isis was considered the mother of every pharaoh
and had many names depending on the role she was fulfilling.
For example, she was Sati when delivering
the yearly inundation of the Nile to fertilize the land.
She became the only Egyptian deity worshipped by everyone in Egypt
and had both men and women serving her.
Her image was housed in the temple,
and people of Egypt were encouraged to visit it and leave offerings.
And just like every other temple,
only the priests and priestesses were allowed to enter the sanctuary
where the statue of the goddess resided.
Ancient Egyptian society was a hierarchy strictly established by divine will
with the gods at the top and the people
descending from upper class to lower class.
This structure helped everyone know their place in society
and what their duties were,
and on a daily basis dictated how people of different classes
would address and interact with each other.
Social mobility was not encouraged,
because Ma'at, the universal harmony,
was believed to reflect this social structure
and maintained the stability and balance.
Just like the people,
each god in the Egyptian pantheon had their own specialty,
and each deity played an integral part in the people’s everyday lives.
This is why the choices
of the pharaoh of the 18th dynasty of the New Kingdom, Akhenaten,
upset the norms of the Egyptian socio-religious structure so greatly.
During his reign, known as the Amarna Period,
Akhenaten moved the capital of Egypt from Thebes,
to the city that he founded and named Akhetaten,
which is now known as Amarna, or Tell-el-amarna.
Akhenaten outlawed the old Egyptian religion,
closed the temples, suppressed religious practices,
and elevated the minor god of the sun disk, Aten, to supreme deity.
No pharaoh before him had told the Egyptians who to worship or how,
and he seems to have been hated for it.
His son, the famous Tutankhamun,
did not share the same ideals as his father,
and reversed the edicts, and restored the old order.
His later successor, Horemheb,
tried to erase all evidence that Akhenaten existed.
Akhenaten’s departure from tradition was so upsetting
because of the nature of their religious observance
which was so ingrained in the lives of the people
and was conducted both in public and private rituals.
In ancient Egypt, all gods were honoured
but not all gods were honored in the same way, or to the same degree.
There was a great diversity of worship, and much happened in the home
in the way that the individual saw fit.
The priests and priestesses had the responsibility
of the care of the statue of the deity they served
and to keep the temple and sanctuaries pure,
but they would not tell anybody how to worship any god.
The people believed that the gods gave them
the most perfect land in the world
and that they were owed gratitude on a daily basis.
Religious observance was therefore a personal, individual thing.
There was communal worship during festivals,
but mostly, people worshipped at shrines in their own home.
Temples were visited to ask for favours from gods
or deliver whatever valuables had been promised for granting a favour.
The gods were addressed with titles,
which could show the familiarity and informality of their relationship to people.
For example, Hathor was known as ‘Lady of the Sycamore’
because she liked living in Sycamore trees,
and as ‘Lady of Drunkenness’ who was present at parties, festivals,
and the after-funeral feast where people would drink a lot.
We know these titles,
as well as the freedom to worship however they saw fit,
from ostraca - which are inscribed ceramic shards from broken pots -
found at places like the city of Bubastis, sacred to Bastet,
inscribed with different types of prayers offered in different phrases,
suggesting each person had their own way of addressing the goddess.
Ostraca with similar inscriptions
have been found at cemeteries and outside of temples,
suggesting that a general understanding of how one approached a deity was a given,
but the way in which one expressed that understanding was individual.
An example of the individual nature of Egyptian religion
is the seers, or wise women, who were important aspects of the belief system.
They believed these women could see into the future,
and were instrumental in healing of physical, emotional,
spiritual, and psychological wounds
and could answer questions on the afterlife.
In ancient Egypt, the afterlife was a certainty.
When you died, your soul would go to another plane,
leaving the body behind, and you would hope for a merciful judgement
and admittance into eternal life in paradise,
the Field of Reeds,
which was an idealised version of one’s life on earth.
The principle of ma’at, so important in life,
was also important after death.
When you died your soul would travel to the Hall of Truth
and would make the Negative Confession,
all the sins you did not commit,
in front of Osiris, Thoth, Anubis and the 42 Judges.
Then, your heart was weighed on the scales of justice
against the white feather of truth (the feather of Ma’at).
If the heart was lighter, you continued to the Field of Reeds.
But if it was heavier, it was thrown to the floor
and devoured by the monster Ammut,
which resulted in the soul’s “Great Death" or non-existence.
The threat of non-existence was the greatest fear of the ancient Egyptians
and one's best chance at avoiding that fate
was a heart made light through gratitude.
It was believed that the sin of ingratitude
led to other kinds of negative thoughts and behaviours.
By maintaining balance and harmony through gratitude,
and keeping the heart light as a feather,
one would enjoy a productive, peaceful life on earth
and look forward to eternal paradise after death.
So, religion played an important part
in the civilisation of ancient Egypt
as it defined the social hierarchy, legitimized the rule of the king,
and formed the basis of social laws and social interactions.
It also provided stability in life
through the encouragement of harmony and balance,
and provided comfort in dealing with mortality
through the assurance of life after death.
So, do you see any correlations
between ancient Egyptian religion and your faith?
And do you think the Egyptians' vision of the afterlife
influenced later visions of a paradise after death?
Let us know down in the comments below.
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-- Subtitles by Rosa Baranda --