Faculty Profile prashantha K EEE dept Sri Sairam college of Engineering
Ancient Egypt Part II
1. Ancient Egypt: Part II
Religion & the Afterlife
Humanities I
Dr. Whitney Vandiver
Redlands Community College
2. Religion
polytheistic
centralized around aspects of nature and humankind’s
interaction with it
ranking system
officiated by Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten)
ranked Amon Ra/Aten as supreme above other gods
presented association of all pharaohs with Amon Ra/Aten—
other god associations were individual choice
3. Gods
Amon/Ra/Aten
representation:
Amon (Amun, Amen)--ram/ram head/man wearing ostrich-plumed hat
Ra—hawk head with sun headdress
Aten—sun (with hands)
Anubis
Horus
Isis
Osiris
Sekhmet
Set (Seth)
Sobek
4. Gods
Amon/Ra/Aten
Anubis
jackal/jackal head
watched over the dead and mummifying process
priests often wore jackal masks during mummification processes
Horus
Isis
Osiris
Sekhmet
Set (Seth)
Sobek
5. Gods
Amon/Ra/Aten
Anubis
Horus
hawk/head of a hawk/great eye
son of Isis and Osiris
lost his eye in a battle after Osiris’s murder,
which was restored later
protector of Egypt, protector of the living
Isis
Osiris
Sekhmet
Set (Seth)
Sobek
7. Gods
Amon/Ra/Aten
Anubis
Horus
Isis
woman in headdress shaped like
throne (queen)/cow horns with sun
disk
wife if Osiris
often looked at as protective female
with magic spells
Osiris
Sekhmet
Set (Seth)
Sobek
8. Gods
Amon/Ra/Aten
Anubis
Horus
Isis
Osiris
mummified man with cone-headdress
god of the dead and fertility, ruled
underworld
murdered by brother Set for throne,
resurrected by Isis, father of Horus
Sekhmet
Set (Seth)
Sobek
9. Gods
Amon/Ra/Aten
Anubis
Horus
Isis
Osiris
Sekhmet
woman with head of lion—sun disk
for association with royalty
sometimes referred to as the
daughter of Amon
goddess of war, protector of
pharaohs during war
Set (Seth)
Sobek
10. Gods
Amon/Ra/Aten
Anubis
Horus
Isis
Osiris
Sekhmet
Set (Seth)
name changed with Greek influence
man with ‘set animal’ face and
features
murderous brother of Osiris
god of chaos, desert, and storms
associated with disharmony or
anything disharmonious in Egypt
Sobek curved snout, rectangle ears, tail (occasionally forked),
and canine-like body
11. Gods
Amon/Ra/Aten
Anubis
Horus
Isis
Osiris
Sekhmet
Set (Seth)
Sobek
head of crocodile with headdress of feathers,
sometimes with sun
god of the Nile
live crocodiles were kept in pools in palaces to
protect the king in honor of Sobek
12. Gods
Compare to pg. 56 version regarding dramatic lighting of how internal
carvings and reliefs would have been seen (Pergamon Museum, Berlin).
13. Prayers
Prayers were said for special occasions to whichever god
applied to the situation, such as harvest, war, or the safety
of the Pharaoh.
Scrolls of prayers were often included in coffins, thought
to protect and guide the dead in the afterlife.
14. Book of the Dead
Funerary prayers to prepare the dead for judgment—not one canonical version and
perhaps spells combined individually for different versions
Some date it as far as ~4000 BC; others date it to early New Kingdom, ~1500 BC;
used until Greek influence, ~50 BC.
Initially thought to have begun with inscriptions on Pharaohs’ tombs, becoming
available for higher classes and priests toward the Old Kingdom and eventually
available to everyone
Mostly written in hieroglyphic with some hieratic
The dead were thought to recite a confession (pg. 53) before Osiris and Isis before
entering the underworld.
After the confession, the dead’s heart was weighed against the figure of truth to
determine if it was pure or not.
15. Afterlife
The majority of the idea of the afterlife is drawn from the
Book of the Dead’s prayers and illustrations.
The path to the underworld
required multiple encounters with dangerous creatures
had an Earthly terrain of mountains, rivers, and gates
could be improved with passages from the Book of the Dead
The afterlife
is illustrated as a form of paradisaical life
joining the gods and his/her parents
taking on some characteristics of the gods
manual labor is still required