hey everyone welcome to mythology
explained in today's video we're going
to discuss three of the most powerful
monsters in egyptian mythology monsters
that guarded the underworld devoured the
hearts of the dead and sought to unmake
the whole world
let's get into it starting us off is a
moot either meaning female devourer or
female devourer of the dead amut was an
amalgam of three animals
she had the head of a crocodile the four
legs of a line and at the hindquarters
of a hippo a monstrous combination
she devoured the hearts of the sinful
dead which was where other epithets like
eater of hearts and great of death came
from but to really understand the role a
moot played in egyptian mythology will
have to turn our attention to the souls
of the deceased
specifically at the trials and
tribulations they faced after departing
the land of the living the underworld
what the ancient egyptians called the
duat bore an uncanny resemblance to the
mortal world
in it a great river with sandy banks
flowed through a plane encased in
mountains yet there were differences
most of them confounding or perilous
like lakes of fire and like fiendish
demons it could only be overcome by
knowing their true names unlike ra the
sun god who journeyed through the
entirety of the duarte each night
passing through all twelve of its gates
the souls of the deceased only had to
reach the sixth gate where osiris lord
of the underworld sat ensconced on his
throne set in a hall of judgment
the hearts of the deceased were weighed
against the feather of ma'at goddess of
justice truth and divine order and
osiris presided over the weighing of
each and every heart anubis checked the
scales and thoth recorded the results
but the weighing of the heart alone
wasn't the full process
in a ritual called the negative
confession the deceased professed their
innocence of several offenses including
deceit treason hubris and several crimes
of a more civic nature such as
infractions against the laws of property
if the scales tipped towards the feather
then the soul was saved but if the
opposite happened dipping towards the
heart then it was heavy with sin
saved souls became the blessed ed and
were brought before osiris a very
different fate awaited those laden with
sin
a moot ever ravenous lurked beneath the
scales where the hearts of those denied
salvation drop into her gaping more up
next we have apophis
usually depicted as a great serpent and
sometimes as a colossal crocodile
apophis was an incarnation of chaos and
destruction and the arch nemesis of ra
whom apophis fought ad nauseum for the
two of them met in the underworld each
night and battled for the fate of all
creation
the eyes of apophis were especially
perilous and his terrible roar was said
to be deafening able to resound
throughout the entire world
the movement of his body shook the earth
causing earthquakes and the hidden
sandbanks and the niled ruined ships
were equated with his coils medieval
dragons are thought to perhaps be
modeled after a hybrid representation of
apophis that conflated both his snake
and crocodile forms and the python which
could unhinge its jaw to swallow large
prey whole was a principal inspiration
for apophis in terms of both appearance
and action the latter being to swallow
and destroy the world creator gods such
as a tomb and a moon was sometimes
portrayed as snakes because of their
ability to shed their skin which was
viewed as a strong symbol of renewal
but this doesn't apply to apophis who
was purely a chaotic and destructive
force a fact corroborated by the litany
of infamous titles apophis was branded
with the great rebel and the evil one
among them
there was a plethora of fierce and
frightening phenomena associated with
apophis including thunder earthquakes
darkness disorder storms of every kind
and chaos
depictions of apophis varied sometimes
shown as a quilled serpent
but most often shown under attack by ra
and his supporters mao the divine cat
the guardian of the tree of life and one
of the manifestations of ra was commonly
shown knife in poor cutting apophis to
pieces there were many myths that
detailed apophis origins one had him
spring forth from the goddess neath's
saliva when she was still in the
primordial waters
neath was a creator goddess called the
great mother and supposedly
her saliva grew into a 120 yard long
snake
another had apophis as always existing
swimming the primordial waters of noon
before the moment of creation
and yet another had apophis as being
born
from ra's umbilical cord to understand
apophis you have to understand what
existed before the world was created
and all that existed before were the
primordial waters of noon which were
dark and infinite unharnessed by a
divine creator these waters were
boundless and made inert by their
homogeneity
all of the elements of creation existed
within them but combined as they were
they could not develop into anything
male and female light and dark water and
land none of these binaries existed so
they could not be used as the building
blocks to construct the world
that is until the emergence of a creator
deity
apophis as an agent of chaos and
destruction was bent on undoing creation
reverting it back to its previous state
and returning it to the primordial
waters
the world being reassimilated in this
way would have been like a drop of water
returning to the ocean
the countervailing force that opposed
apophis was ra the creator giver and
sustainer of life
as such apophis and ra were
diametrically opposed they were a
dichotomy with apophis representing
chaos and destruction and ra
representing order and creation
and although they were each
manifestations of antithetical forces
they were both necessary for life and
creation to be maintained which seems
counter-intuitive but makes sense
because binaries only make sense when
both sides exist to define each other
there can be no light without dark and
vice versa in this way the duality of
apophis and ra created a delicate
equilibrium that needed to be maintained
apophis needed to be repelled and
defeated each night but it would also
spell disaster if he was put to a
permanent end this dynamic was reflected
in the battle between apophis and ra
during the day ra sailed across the sky
on his celestial boat at night raj
descended down to the underworld on his
messectet which was also known as the
boat of millions
the underworld comprised a series of 12
chambers one for each hour of the night
and each chamber was home to challenges
and dangers that ra had to overcome only
by conquering this gauntlet each night
could ra rise again and graze the mortal
plane with his light apophis was the
main obstacle and the chief danger raw
had to contend with while traversing the
underworld even a single victory for
apophis would result in the end of the
world so it was paramount that ra
prevailed night after night but it was
equally important that ra not put
apophis to a permanent end which would
also result in the destruction of the
world
wrapping up this video is the sphinx
the sphinx was a mythical beast with the
body of a lion and the head of another
creature though the best known
combination has the head of a human with
the face of a king or queen there were
other versions such as the head of a ram
or hawk the human variety personified
the duty and power of the ruling monarch
to defend egypt while those with
beastial heads featured as frightful
defenders of temples and tombs
the enemies of egypt and the divine
order were often shown being trampled by
standing sphinxes and it is thought that
the female sphinxes of egypt and the
near east which were sometimes depicted
with wings inspired the female sphinx
that features in greek mythology for
those unfamiliar with this there was a
sphinx that terrorized the city of
thebes it asked people riddles and
killed those who didn't answer correctly
oedipus whom i'm sure you know for
killing his own father and bedding his
own mother figures out the riddle and
the sphinx in response to this
unexpected answer leaps from a cliff to
her death for his service to the city
oedipus is then made king of thebes
in the duat the egyptian underworld
there was a double sphinx called the
acre it guarded the two horizons the
entrance and exit of death's domain
a sphinx god tutu rose to popularity in
the first millennium bce
he was one of the monstrous offspring of
neath and people invoked him to ward off
enemies
of all the sphinxes though the best
known is the great sphinx of giza it was
carved to serve as a huge and imposing
guardian that kept watch over the royal
cemeteries of memphis
in time however the great sphinx massive
and majestic as it was engendered its
own mythology becoming associated with
the desert god in this form it even
became worshipped as a solar deity the
two great pyramids adjacent to it became
thought of as mountains and the great
sphinx as the sun rising between them
and that's it for this video if you
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