Any religion or just a belief appears when a person cannot explain many events from life or natural phenomena that he does not understand. Today science can interpret, if not everything, then a lot. In ancient Egypt, people turned to the gods for explanations through their servants on earth - the priests. The latter stood guard over the power of the kings. But you shouldn't blame the ancient Egyptians for this - their faith was subject to the realities of life.
What did the gods of Ancient Egypt "grow out of"?
Religion has been inherent in the social life of society since primitive times. Prehistoric people were just beginning to live in communities, but even then the first beliefs arose, called by some scientists protoreligion. It existed in the form of animism (the soul is an impersonal principle), totemism (the mystical connection between man and animals), fetishism (a certain object will become a mystical power) or magic (all three of the above).
Gods and Pharaoh. Ancient drawing
At different times, these beliefs were inherent in the peoples of Ancient Egypt. The so-called local deities later emerged from totemism. They have existed for millennia and disappeared with the development of the Egyptian religion - a system of beliefs and rituals.
The very first deities in these Egyptian lands of northeast Africa, in the minds of the Egyptians, looked like birds and beasts. They believed in them, because then the main occupation was hunting. When the importance of hunting diminished and they began to intensively engage in agriculture and fishing in the Nile, the heads of some representatives of the fauna that lived there were still “attached” to the human body of the gods.
Promotional video:
"Quid prodest" - who benefits from it?
Deities were fruitful for a reason. Who needed the ancient Egyptian pyramids, for the construction of which craftsmen and farmers, as well as slaves, were cut off from business and families for many years? Pharaohs! As evidence of the might of the tsarist government, that is, the dominant structure in class society. The people eked out a miserable existence and worshiped unknown idols.
Gods Isis and Osiris
And this power had to be constantly supported not only by brute force, but also “spiritually”. The people were constantly convinced that power was created by the gods forever. And they need to obey both the pharaohs and the common people. This was done by the idle priests. Therefore, the Egyptians silently awaited improvements from the gods - from Pharaoh to Pharaoh. From kingdom to kingdom.
Ancient pantheon of northeast Africa
Consider what the gods of Ancient Egypt were, their pictures and names, which of them are the main ones, and who are simpler. Their pantheon is vast. There were about one hundred and twenty deities. Of these, local (individual cities, relatively small territories), according to various estimates, - twenty five. Some of the local gods in different epochs of the development of the ancient Egyptian kingdom passed into the rank of national ones, for example, the goddesses Amaunet, Amentet, Maat, the god Beh (Bukhis). There were also generally so-called minor gods. For example, Duamutef is an astral deity.
Astral deity Daumtef
In the named list, there is also such a category of gods and goddesses when there is no image of them or at least a brief description. For example, the god or goddess Anedzhti, Bata, Bennu, Mafdet, Nebedzh and others. They are waiting for their researchers.
There were other transitions of the gods from category to category. Belief in the famous god Amun originated in the Old Kingdom, when the centralization of the ancient Egyptian state took place. In the Middle Kingdom, he turns into a local deity, in the New it becomes a nationwide god (18th century BC). At the beginning of our era, he was demoted to a "position" by the gods, who by that time had become common Egyptian: "husband" and "wife" Osiris and Isis.
Using the example of the god Amun, we will show how not only preferences for deities changed, but also their appearance on the stone and in papyri. They are found in greatest quantities on rock paintings, on the sarcophagi of the tombs of many pharaohs and priests. At first, Amon was depicted on them as a man with the head of a frog; in the other two kingdoms, the disk of the Sun was already adorned on his head.
How the gods "competed"
The same natural phenomena were personified by different gods of Ancient Egypt, their pictures and names were different, and what they mean. Consider the example of the sun gods.
The main ones in the hypostasis of the solar gods (mythologization of the luminary) in Ancient Egypt were the named Amon, Ra and Aton. Between them, or other deities, there was, as they say now, fierce competition for the minds of the Egyptians. It was, of course, developed by people, not mythological creatures.
God amon
Aton was portrayed in a non-traditional then religious way - not in the form of a man with someone's head or an animal with a human head. This was the only ancient artistic exception in the images of the divine pantheon. Aton is a drawing of a solar disk with rays, as modern kids like to portray it. It flourished during the reign of Pharaoh Akhenaten. Pharaoh in Ancient Egypt was considered a conductor of the idea of God on earth. Therefore, the name of God was added to the names of such kings.
Pharaoh Akhenaten in the image of the Sphinx in the rays of God Aton
Akhenaten recognized the role of only one god, Aton, under him the cult of dozens of famous gods was stopped. When Akhenaten was replaced in his post by the boy-pharaoh Tutankh, he immediately returned polytheism. In protest, Akhenaten added Amon to his name. Now the whole modern world knows this pharaoh named Tutankhamun.
God Montu
God Montu paid for the fact that the sun disk was also depicted on the falcon head of this deity. God accompanied any ruling dynasty of kings-pharaohs in Thebes.
Driven out of the pantheon by the god Aten.
Atum was also a solar deity. He, too, had a complex "relationship" with the god Ra from the solar pantheon. Atum passed from local gods to general Egyptian. But soon (at that time) Ra ousted him. All the solar gods of Ancient Egypt went the same way. But it was not the gods who competed with each other, but the people in power, as it is said about Akhenaten, and religious leaders (priests) helped the ascent of the gods and their fall.
God Ra
At this time, the sun god Ra became the main one, whom the ancient Egyptians endowed with the ability to create the earth, people, animals and birds, plants. Ra closes his eyes? This means that darkness and night come.
Special gods
Let's name the gods that can be translated into separate groups of the pantheon. For example, the Nile River, which is just right to be called the god of fertility and well-fed life of the Egyptians. The sun has become a deity! The Nile is the nurse and drinker of the Egyptians. If today the question arose of recognizing the Nile as a god, then the prefix - "honorable" would be added to it and extolled as a god.
Hapi God of the Nile
Probably, this opinion would be supported by believers from ten more countries of the African continent, through which an uncontrollable river flows from south to north.
In ancient Egypt, the Nile spilled fertilized the land with fertile silt. This turned the sands in the valleys closest to the river into fertile fields. But often in July, the Nile flooded and flooded the crops, dooming the people to starvation. Therefore, for the river, the ancient Egyptians invented a god - Hapi, so that he would help them. Hapi is depicted as a man with a female bust, which symbolized fertility.
Other gods also strengthen him: Sebek - the god of rivers and lakes, as well as the god of vegetation Osiris. The first was depicted in the guise of a crocodile or a man with the head of this aquatic animal.
But the cruel god demanded abundant and regular sacrifices. God Hapi did not manage to tame the Nile until its disappearance from the firmament with the introduction of Christianity.
Sebek - God of rivers and lakes
Osiris also leads a group of twelve gods of the so-called funerary cult of the ancient Egyptians. Five of them are his companions in the afterlife. What kind of god is this? In mythology, he is killed by an envious relative. The goddess Isis, almost like an experienced surgeon, collects Osiris in pieces scattered throughout Egypt and buries him. In the afterlife, he was resurrected and became a judge there. Other gods of the cult include Aker, Amentet, Geb and others.
Pharaoh plus god
Over time, the priests formed and spread in society the postulate that the pharaohs descended from the gods. After all, the mythical deities had the same fictitious families and relatives. And it was not for nothing that they did it in advance. Already in the Early Kingdom, the pharaoh was perceived as the embodiment of the god Horus, and the human image and its properties were transferred to the deities. Remember the Russian folk tale about Baba Yaga. She is the same anthropomorphic as the ancient Egyptian gods. Pharaohs supposedly received magical abilities, and a commoner could not approach him.