Egyptian gods: from oblivion to study

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:43

The historical period of Egypt began at the turn of the third and fourth millennia before the birth of Christ. The ancient cultural tradition, undergoing the influence of invaders and internal upheavals, lasted until the adoption of Christianity in the fourth century AD. For almost three and a half thousand years, the list and functions of the Egyptian gods have undergone significant changes. The Egyptian gods acquired features and names characteristic of their neighbors - Assyrians, Hittites, Hyksos, Hellenes.

After the unification of Egypt under the rule of a single ruler, many gods of individual regions and tribes of the country entered the common pantheon, but most of them were revered only in the environment where their cult originated. Some gods gradually acquired a common Egyptian meaning. The goddess Bastet, who has a cat's head, no doubt grew out of a cult of veneration of cats as guardians of grain reserves from mice. Agriculture played a huge role in Egyptrole, unlike, for example, Hellas, which rose mainly due to trade and military conquests. Anthropomorphic Egyptian gods were often endowed with the head of an animal, on the basis of the veneration of which this or that cult arose. For example, the god Thoth had the head of an ibis, the goddess Sokhmet (Sekhmet) had the head of a lion, Anubis had the head of a dog.

As certain areas of the country rose, there was a change of dynasties or the “moving” of the capital to a new place, the Egyptian gods of the “first echelon” also changed. An interesting feature of the ancient Egyptian religion was the presence of a large number of cosmogonic myths (that is, versions of the origin of the world), and in each locality the local deity played the main role in this difficult matter.

Egyptian gods in such large numbers, becoming the basis for local separatism, no doubt, were not needed by a single country. In addition, numerous cults required the expenditure of a large amount of material resources, which could be spent with much greater benefit on the internal arrangement of the country, on the maintenance of the army, and so on. And having great we alth and influence, the priestly clans directly threatened the sole power of the pharaoh.

All things considered, Pharaoh Amenhotep IV, taking the name of Akhenaten, introduces the cult of a minor regional deity Aton (the deified solar disk) as a common Egyptian religion. But the inertia of tradition was too strong, and Akhenaten dies before reaching the age of forty. According to the most convincing version, he waspoisoned. True, the persecution did not touch the family, and his wife (the famous Nefertiti) remained alive many years after her husband's death.

After the Persian and later the Hellenic takeover of the country, the Egyptian gods and goddesses gradually begin to lose their former influence, fall into decline. They merge with the gods of the invaders. For example, Alexander the Great was revered in Egypt as the son of Zeus-Amon, a syncretic Egyptian-Hellenistic deity.

When the Egyptian gods, whose names had both local and mixed origin, began to give way to a new religion - Christianity, the oblivion of ancient Egyptian writing gradually began. In the reign of Emperor Constantine, the last bearer of the Egyptian religious tradition died, after which for many centuries the names of the ancient Egyptian gods were known only from the writings of Greek and Roman historians. But both of them got acquainted with the Egyptian culture at a time when it was already waning, and it is unlikely that the priests initiated strangers (often aggressive ones) into the secrets of their religion.

Attempts to decipher the ancient hieroglyphs were made repeatedly by both Arab scientists and Europeans, but to no avail. And only at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the brilliant linguist Francois Champollion managed to find the key to deciphering the Egyptian texts. From that moment, the modern era of studying the history and culture of Ancient Egypt began.