the “horologers,” or “priests of the hours of the day and night.” They were crucial to the functioning of the temple, since rituals pleasing to the gods had to begin at the correct time. By watching the progress

When performing funerary rituals at the time of mummification, a priest wore an Anubis mask. (Photo by Pat Remler)

of the sun or stars across the sky, the priests correctly determined the beginning and end of each season. Equally important to the horologers were the astrologer-priests. Unlike modern astrologers, they did not watch the procession of the stars and planets in order to predict what would happen on Earth. They were the keepers of the mythological calendar of lucky and unlucky days, and they determined which were the best days for anygiven activity. For example, they might consult the position of the stars and determine that during the season of inundation, the first day of the month, Akhet was the birthday of the god Re-Horakhty. On that day the Nile began to rise, and the people celebrated. Day one of Akhet was, therefore, a very favorable day. Lector or sem priests composed the prayers and incantations to the gods, and during the rituals, they chanted to the accompaniment of temple musicians. The priesthood of the goddess Sekhmet provided the best physicians in Egypt, for despite her ferocious nature, Sekhmet was an important goddess of healing. Wab priests were administrators and attended

prIMEvAl MounD
to the daily running of the temple. ka priests made daily offerings and recited prayers for the ka


of the deceased. When a mortuary temple was completed, an annuity or allowance was set aside to support the ka priest, and sometimes a portion of land was set aside to grow food for the offerings. Herodotus, the Greek historian, writes in his Histories, Book II that he found the Egyptians religious to excess and fanatical about cleanliness. He wrote that priests bathed in cold water four times a day, shaved their entire bodies daily to avoid body lice, and were required to be circumcised. Priests were forbidden to wear clothing not made from the finest linen, and their sandals were made only from papyrus. In spite of this rigorous routine, Herodotus says the priests had a good life, for they were provided with fine clothing and excellentfood and wine during the time they served in the temple.

primevAl mounD (hill) A key concept in the creation myths of ancient Egypt, the primeval mound is the hill of Earth that emerged from Nun, the primordial waters of chaos. In the creation myth popular at the religious center at Heliopolis, the creator god Atum emerged from the waters of Nun onto the primeval mound itself, where he created the ennead, the nine gods. At the religious center in Memphis, the primeval mound served as the symbol of creation, and the obscure god Tatenen (“He Who Raises the Land”) was the primeval mound. In the Pyramid Texts, the primeval mound is called the “hill,” and the Benben, the religious symbol from Heliopolis, may have been derived from the


primeval mound. The Egyptians must have been reminded of the primeval mound each year after the annual flooding of the Nile when the water receded and the first bit of land emerged.
As the creator god of Memphis, Ptah is shown in a tight-fitting garment and looks as if he is wrapped as a mummy. His close-fitting skullcap shows only his face and ears, and his hands protrude from the wrappings and he holds a staff that combines the following symbols: ’, the was scepter of authority; =, the djed column of stability; and Œ, the ankh, the sign of life. Throughout ancient Egypt’s long history, Ptah was easily recognized because his costume and shape barely changed. Although his cult center was in Memphis, Ptah was worshipped in allthe major temples in Egypt and Nubia. Ptah may have originated as a local patron god of craftspeople, for the invention of the arts was

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Ptah, the creator god, wears a tight-fitting cloak and a skullcap and holds a scepter with a djed pillar, the sign of stability, on top. (Photo by Pat Remler)

ptolEMy

attributed to him. Although he is rarely mentioned in the Pyramid Texts, Ptah was an important god who created the universe from his heart and tongue; he spoke the word and fashioned the world. The following is inscribed on the Shabaka Stone, translated by Miriam Lichtheim in Ancient Egyptian Literature.
Thus: it is said of Ptah: “he who made all and created the gods.” And he is Tatenen, who gave birth to the gods, and


from whom every thing came forth, foods, provisions, divine offerings, all good things. Thus it is recognized and understood that he is the mightiest of the gods. Thus Ptah was satisfied after he made all things and all divine words. He gave birth to the gods, He made the towns, He established the nomes, He placed the gods in their shines, He settled their offerings, He made their bodies according to their wishes, Thus the gods entered into their bodies . . .

Ptah-Sokar-Osiris Combined attributes of the gods became popular in the Late period (737– 332 b.c.), and this composite deity helped the deceased in his or her journey to the next world. Funerary goods included a carved wooden statue of the composite god that was placed insidethe tomb with the mummy. Ptah-Sokar-Tem Ptah’s association with Atum, the creator god from Heliopolis, and Sokar, a god of the dead, with many of the attributes of Osiris. Ptah-Tatenen Ptah’s most important link with the world of the dead is his relationship with Tatenen, a primeval god of barren earth. The association of Ptah and Tatenen is chronicled on the Shabaka Stone, a stele erected at the Temple of Ptah in Memphis. As a funerary god, Ptah plays an active part in the Book of the Dead and is associated with minor as well as major gods. In Chapter 11 the deceased proclaims he will, “stand up like Horus, I shall sit down like Ptah, I shall be mighty like Thoth, and I shall be strong like


army of Alexander the Great. When Alexander died in Babylon in 323 b.c., Ptolemy claimed Egypt for himself. He knew it was the most prosperous land in Alexander’s empire and that it would be the easiest to defend against foreign invasion. To ensure his control of Egypt, Ptolemy ambushed Alexander’s funeral procession, which was on its way to Greece, and instead escorted Alexander’s body to Memphis. A later Ptolemaic king moved Alexander’s body to the port city of Alexandria, where it was displayed in a great mausoleum. Ptolemy I proved to be a good ruler. Much to the relief of the priests, he supported Egypt’s traditional religion and maintained the temples and the priesthood. In keeping with the tradition of Egyptian kings, Ptolemy I and his successors wereall declared to be gods, and in temples throughout Egypt, they were worshipped along with the traditional Egyptian gods. Also known for their commercial interests, one of the early Ptolemies built the famed Pharos

pyrAMIDIon
Lighthouse, reputed to be the first lighthouse in history. It was situated less than a mile off the coast and cast a beacon by reflecting the light of a fire with huge mirrors. Today virtually nothing is left of the original lighthouse, and the fortress of Qait Bey now stands on the Pharos peninsula. Under the Ptolemies, Alexandria became a center for learning and ideas. The Ptolemies built one of the marvels of the ancient world, the great library at Alexandria. It was said that when ships sailed into the harbor, they were detained and


searched for books. If a volume was found that was not in the library, it was borrowed, copied, and returned to the ship. In spite of their personal excesses and family feuds, for which the Ptolemies were known, they maintained a tradition of scholarship and learning in Alexandria. The love of learning extended to Cleopatra VII, the last Ptolemy to rule Egypt, who was known for her literary interests and language skills. With the death of Cleopatra in 30 b.c., the Ptolemaic dynasty ended, and Egypt became part of the Roman Empire. dread time, but time dreads the pyramids.” When Napoleon was about to lead his men into battle, he pointed to the pyramids and shouted, “From the summit of these monuments, 40 centuries look down upon us!”And he wasn’t far wrong. Pyramids were magical structures built for the Old Kingdom pharaohs and were meant to house the king’s mummy until the time of his resurrection in the Netherworld. Much has been written about the pyramids, but perhaps the most amazing fact is that the Great Pyramid was built at the beginning of ancient Egypt’s long history, and all the largest and most famous pyramids were built over a period of about 200 years. When Tutankhamen was alive, the pyramids were already ancient. The pyramid shape has no particular significance. It began as a mastaba, a low rectangular structure over a tomb, and when one was placed on top of another it became a Step Pyramid. When the sides were filled in, it became a


true pyramid. Pyramids were the first large stone buildings in Egypt, and there are about 100 of them left, although today many are ruined and look like large piles of stone. The Step Pyramid, built by King Zoser, at Saqqara, was the first attempt at pyramid building. It is a series of mastabas, placed one on the other, creating six successively smaller steps. As each pharaoh tried to build bigger and better, his architect learned the art of pyramid building by trial and error. Sneferu, the greatest pyramid builder, had three built under his supervision. Two were unstable—the Pyramid of Meidum and the Bent Pyramid—and could not be used. His third attempt, the so-called Red Pyramid, at Dashur, was his burial place. It is the first true pyramid.Herodotus (c. 485–424 b.c.), the Greek traveler to Egypt, wrote that the pyramids were built by 100,000 slaves, who erected a mud brick ramp on which to drag the stone blocks, and that it took 20 years to build the Great Pyramid of Khufu (or Cheops, as he was called by the Greeks). Egyptologists now believe that the pyramid builders were Egyptian farmers and laborers who worked on pyramid construction during the season of inundation, when the Nile overflowed its banks and their fields were flooded. Ancient papyri show that the workers were paid in food, lentils, onions, leeks, and beer for the three months that they worked. There are competing theories as to how the stones were raised. Herodotus said the Egyptians used machines (perhaps a crane)


to raise the blocks. Modern thought suggests that a long mud brick ramp was built on one side of the pyramid, on which to pull the blocks into place. As the ramp was made longer and

pyrAmiDion Derived from the ancient Benben Stone in the court of the sun god at Heliopolis, the pyramidion is the small pyramid shape that rests on the top of an obelisk. King Amenemhet III (1855–1808 b.c.) capped his mud brick pyramid with a black granite pyramidion that was inscribed with his name. It has been suggested that the Great pyramid, when it was completed, was capped with a pyramidion of gold that was looted in antiquity. pyrAmiDS Of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Great Pyramid is the only one leftstanding. An old proverb says, “All things

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Imitating the burials of kings, private people often placed a pyramidion, a small pyramid like this one, on top of their tombs. (Photo by Pat Remler)

pyrAMIDs AnD Mythology

higher, the pyramid grew taller. Another idea is that a mud brick ramp corkscrewed around the outside of the pyramid in order to move the blocks higher. Many people disagree with each of these three ideas. A new and more promising theory by a French architect suggests that an internal ramp for moving blocks was built on the inside of the pyramid. When this theory is tested, it may prove to be the correct one.

The Great Pyramid at Giza is the last of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still left standing today. (Photo


by Pat Remler) their vertebrae were compressed from years of hard labor. As the excavations continue, Egyptologists are discovering what life was like for the men who built the pyramids.

King Sneferu

King Sneferu

King Sneferu

King Khufu

King Khafre

King Menkaure

Over the centuries, the pyramids of Egypt have been the focus of wild speculations about their purpose and power. Various myths have suggested that the pyramids held the secrets of the universe, were filled with gold and treasure, contained life-restoring energy, were the repository of all ancient knowledge, and were constructed by aliens or the inhabitants of the fabled island of Atlantis. Several years ago, the remains of a workmen’s village and cemetery were discovered near the site of the Great Pyramid. Excavators found bakeries, breweries, and everything needed for a city thatsupported the workmen who built the pyramids. The workers’ cemeteries show that many of the men buried there carried heavy blocks all their lives. X-rays reveal that

pyrAmiDS AnD mythology Ancient Egyptian creation myths tell us that when the first mound of earth emerged from the waters of chaos, the sun god was born on this patch of dry land. The Egyptians may have believed that the pyramid shape represented the primordial mound of creation called a Benben. Thus, the pyramid, designed to hold the mummy of the dead king, is a reminder and celebration of the creation of life. Architecturally, the pyramid shape evolved from the first mound of sand heaped over a Predynastic burial. Then a mud brick structure—the mastaba— was created to mark the burial of


early dynastic kings. As mastaba was stacked upon mastaba, the Step Pyramid of Zoser arose at Saqqara. Royal architects experimented and filled in the sides of a stepped pyramid, creating the first true pyramid. Today we can see the results of their early (Third Dynasty) miscalculations in the pyramid at Meidum—it collapsed because the sides were too steep. The Bent Pyramid of Dashur had to be changed halfway up, because the burial chamber inside was collapsing. Eventually the ancient architects got it right, and the first true pyramid was the Red Pyramid at Dashur. The golden age of pyramid building was the Fourth Dynasty, with the building on the Giza Plateau of the Great Pyramid, the Pyramid of Khephren, and the Pyramid of Mycerinus. With the rising importanceof the sun cult and worship of Re, Fifth Dynasty kings built small pyramids and big sun temples at Abusir—squat structures on a platform with a pyramidion shape on top. During the New

pyrAMID tExts
Kingdom, pyramid shapes emerged again, appearing on the top of elegant obelisks as small pyramidions. A thousand years after Egypt built pyramids, the flame was rekindled in Nubia, and today there are more pyramids in Nubia than in Egypt.

pyrAmiD textS

A collection of the earliest funerary texts, carved on the walls of the Fifth Dynasty (2375–2345 b.c.) pyramid of King Unas and Sixth Dynasty (2345–2181 b.c.) pyramids of Teti, Pepi I, and Pepi II at Saqqara (and in some queens’ pyramids). All the texts from all the pyramids total roughly 800 spells, but the 280 “utterances”


or spells in Unas’s pyramid are the oldest. The pyramids of his successors in the Sixth Dynasty are also covered with texts, but no two have exactly the same spells. The Pyramid Texts give us the first official version of life after death, which at the time of their writing applied only to the pharaoh. Unas’s pyramid, built at Saqqara, is part of the largest cemetery in the world. When it was discovered, the pyramid looked like those of earlier kings of the Fifth Dynasty, but inside, the walls were covered with hundreds of magical inscriptions. The hieroglyphs are painted blue and stand out clearly against the white limestone walls. Long vertical lines running from the ceiling to the floor separate each column of hieroglyphs. When the hieroglyphspower.” The spells tell us that in the second stage of the king’s resurrection, he ascends to heaven in a variety of ways: He flies (“The opener of the ways has let Unas fly toward heaven amongst his brothers the gods . . .”); he rises on incense (“. . . and he rises on the smoke of a great fumigation”); he ascends on a ladder, assisted by Re and Horus (“The ladder is secured by Re before Osiris. The ladder is secured by Horus before his father Osiris when he goes to his spirit . . .”).

Inscriptions found inside pyramids are called Pyramid Texts and consist of collections of prayers and spells to help the deceased king resurrect in the next world. (Photo by Pat Remler) The


west. The west was associated with the dead because each day the sun set there. Osiris, god of the Netherworld, was called “Lord of the West,” and the dead were called “Westerners.” Once the pharaoh completed his journey west, he would be welcomed by Osiris and begin his eternal life. Life would continue in the west much as it had in this world, and the pharaoh would be provided with everything he needed.

Q 8
qADeSh (qedeshet, qudshu)
Syrian goddess of ecstasy worshipped in Egypt during the New Kingdom (1550–1069 b.c.). Qadesh was identified with Hathor, the Egyptian goddess of love, pleasure, and music, and with Astarte and Anat, two other Syrian goddesses with a popular following in Egypt. Qadesh, breaking with the established artistic tradition in Egypt, is shown facingfront, in the nude, and standing on the back of a striding lion. She often holds flowers and snakes in her upraised hands, symbols that may originate in Syrian mythology.

qASr ibrim (castle of abraham) One of the last outposts of Egyptian religion in Nubia, Qasr Ibrim was built around 1500 b.c. and over the centuries was used by just about everyone—the Egyptians, Nubians, Greeks, Romans, Turks, Mamelukes, and Arabs. During the New Kingdom, chapels were dedicated to Horus of Mian (a Nubian form of the god Horus), Khnum, Satis, and Hathor. The shrines were cut into the rock cliffs on the west side of the Nile, and each one held a statue of a king accompanied by two gods. The rising water behind the Aswan Dam has completely


covered the shrines, so they are no longer visible. The Nubian king Taharka built a mud brick temple around 680 b.c. and dedicated it to several Egyptian and local gods. Centuries later it was converted into a church. When the Ptolemaic kings (332–32 b.c.) fortified Qasr Ibrim, it became both a religious center and a military stronghold for the Ptolemies and later the Romans. Situated just north of Abu Simbel, the settlement was so remote that it was one of the last Egyptian temples to worship the ancient gods after the spread of Christianity in Egypt. Eventually the fort became a center for Christianity and remained a place of worship for almost 2,000 years. qebeSenef
Qadesh, the Syrian goddess of pleasure, was adopted by the Egyptians. (Photo by Rama/Used
undera Creative Commons license)

One of the Four Sons of Horus, Qebesenef is represented with a hawk’s head and acts as the guardian of the intestines during mummification. He is represented on one of the lids of the canopic jars.

0 QEbuI

qebui

God of the north wind (see also Winds, Gods of the Four).

qerhet

A local nome goddess in the Delta (north), Qerhet is most often shown as a serpent. When Egyptologists excavated the Delta site called Pithom in the Bible (modern Tel al-Maskhutah), they found inscriptions for the “Holy Serpent,” and a portion of the temple was called “the house of the snake goddess, Qerhet.” Qerhet is also associated with the creator god Atum of Heliopolis.

queen There was no word for queen in ancient Egypt. What is translated as “queen” really


west bank of the Nile, the Temple of Amun in the Ramesseum has a large entrance pylon leading into the first courtyard, and the reliefs on the inside of the pylon tell the story of Ramses II’s famous victory over the Hittites in the Battle of Kadesh. When Ramses visited the complex he stayed in the small palace just west of the entrance. In the first century b.c. the Greek historian Diodorus visited the Ramesseum and described what he saw as the “tomb of Ozymandias.” The name appears to be a corruption of one of the five names of Ramses, usr-maat-re. Diodorus’s translation of the inscription on the colossal statues of Ramses, now toppled and broken, was the inspiration for the 19th-century English poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley,“Ozymandias.”

rAmSeS

rAm of menDeS A sacred ram that, like the Apis bull, was chosen to replace the previous ram only after an exhaustive search to ensure that the markings on the animal were auspicious. When the previous ram died, it was believed that its soul entered the new Ram of Mendes at the time it was installed in the temple with all the necessary ceremonies and rituals. The ram would then live the rest of its natural life in the temple precinct as a pampered and sacred animal. The Ram of Mendes was associated with the ram god Ba-neb-djed, who was believed to house the soul of Osiris.

the greAt (ramses ii) (NiNeteeNth dyNasty, 1279–1213 b.c.) One of the greatest warrior kings and builders in Egypt’s history, Ramses II, was


known as Ramses the Great. He possessed a great ego and declared himself the equal of the gods. In the holy of holies at his temple at Abu Simbel, Ramses carved statues of himself boldly sitting among the gods. Ramses was the only surviving son and heir to Seti I, and he was raised to accomplish great things. When Ramses was in his teens, he was proclaimed successor to the throne and was presented with his own palace and harem. Little is known about his beautiful wife, Nefertari, except that she was his “Great Wife,” and that he was devoted to her. When he built a temple for her at Abu Simbel, Ramses inscribed over the door the epithet “she for whom the very sun doth shine.” Throughouthis long life (he lived to be about 86 and fathered more than 100 children), Ramses distinguished himself with military expeditions and building programs. His name can be found in almost every major temple, for what he did not build or remodel, he usurped by inscribing his name on other kings’ monuments. Soon after he was crowned pharaoh, he chose a new site in the Delta for his capital city. Traditionally Egypt had two capitals—the administrative center in Memphis and the religious center in Thebes—but Ramses preferred to live in the Delta, north of Memphis. It is here that he built his “store city,” Pi-Ramses, which is mentioned in the Bible. He called his city “Domain of Ramses, Great of Victories.” It was the ideal location from which


to launch military expeditions into Syria and Libya, and some scholars believe Ramses the Great was the pharaoh mentioned in the biblical book of Exodus. The biblical story of the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt is one of the greatest archaeological mysteries of our time. There is no mention of the exodus

rAMsEs thE grEAt

Known as the Ramesseum, the funerary temple of Ramses II was dedicated to the god Amun. After Ramses died, it was here that worshippers would make offerings to honor him in his new status as deified former king. (Photo by Pat Remler) in ancient Egyptian records, and the Bible is the only written account of the event that exists today. It is found in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament,which tradition attributes to Moses; the second book of Moses is the account of the Israelites’ departure from Egypt. The earliest connection between Israel and Egypt is the story of Joseph. According to the Bible, Joseph’s jealous brothers sold Joseph into slavery. Taken to Egypt, his talent for interpreting dreams brought him great success, and eventually he became vizier of Egypt, a position equal to that of prime minister. Through his ability to interpret prophetic dreams, Joseph was able to save Egypt from starvation during seven years of famine, gaining the eternal gratitude of the pharaoh. Centuries later, when a new pharaoh came to power, he feared an uprising from the growing number of Israelites in Egypt and called for the death of their newborn male children.
There came


Ramses, which is Ra-messes: “Re is Born.” When Moses was grown, God appeared to him and commanded him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. But the pharaoh refused to release them, because by then they were building huge storehouses in his cities in the Delta. The Bible tells us that the Lord was angry and sent 10 plagues to Egypt. The first nine (blood, frogs, gnats, flies, death to the livestock, boils, hail, locusts, and windstorms) can be attributed to natural causes that sometimes occurred in Egypt. The 10th plague killed the firsborn son (and male animal) in every house. When the pharaoh’s firstborn son was struck by this plague and died, the pharaoh agreed to let the Israelites leave

rElIgIon

Egypt. Some scholars estimate that the firstborn sonof Ramses the Great (Amun-Her-Khepshef) died around the postulated date of the exodus. The name of the pharaoh of the exodus is never mentioned in the Bible. The best clue to his identity is in the cities the Israelites were forced to build.
Accordingly they put slave drivers over the Israelites to wear them down under heavy loads. In this way they built the store-cities of Pithom and Rameses for Pharaoh . . . The Egyptians forced the sons of Israel into slavery and made their lives unbearable with hard labor . . . (Exodus 1:11–14)

sun god Re became the universal deity in the form of the Aten (the sun disk), who enveloped all other gods.

re-Atum-khepri One of the forms of the sun god, this combination of Re, Atum


the creator god, and Khepri the scarab represented Re in the early morning.
reD crown A royal crown that symbolized Northern Egypt, the red crown originated in the Delta, and although there are many representations of the crown on statues and in tomb paintings, an actual crown has never been found. Scholars have suggested that only one crown existed at any time, and because of its magical powers, it was not buried with the deceased king but instead passed to his successor. The cylindrical crown with a peak at the back and a curled feather in the front may have been made of leather or reeds and perhaps disintegrated over the centuries. It remains a mystery as to what happened to the royal crowns of Egypt.

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The town name Ramsesis the primary reason Ramses the Great has been identified as the pharaoh of the exodus.

re (ra) The manifestation of the power of the sun, Re was the great creator god of Heliopolis. Re ruled the sky, the Earth, and the Netherworld. To strengthen the position of the cult gods they represented, priests associated their gods with the great sun god: Amun-Re, Re-Horakhty, Khnum-Re, and Sobek-Re, to mention a few. In Heliopolis (called On in the Bible), it was believed that Re emerged from the primordial waters on to the mound of Earth called the Benben. Re is also said to have arisen from the first lotus blossom. The Book of the Dead tells of Re’s self-mutilation (perhaps the first circumcision): He cuts his phallus and from the


drops of blood creates Hu, the god of authority, and Sia, the god of the mind. Re is most often characterized by the falcon with a sun disk on his head, encircled with a cobra head (uraeus), symbolizing the power of the god. In the realm of the dead, Re appears as a ram-headed god, and his title is “Sacred Ram of the West.” In the Destruction of Mankind myth, Re is described as elderly with flesh of gold, bones of silver, and hair of lapis lazuli. The Pyramid Texts describe the deceased king as ascending to the sky to join his father, Re. The Litany of Re describes how Re becomes lord of the Netherworld, where he makes his nightly journey in his solar barque (boat). Rewas joined with Amun to become Amun-Re, the great god of Thebes in the New Kingdom (1550–1069 b.c.). During the Middle Kingdom, the warrior kings associated Re with Montu, the god of war, and he was called Montu-Re. When Re was joined with Horus, he became Re-Horakhty. Under the reign of Akhenaten, the New Kingdom pharaoh who changed the religion of Egypt, the

re-horAkhty A composite god, Re-Horakhty resulted from the merging of two gods, Re and Horus. The name Horakhty means “Horus who is on the horizon.” He is shown as a hawk-headed man with a solar disk.
religion Ancient Egyptians believed in many gods (polytheism). Over Egypt’s long history, the gods in her pantheon were born, died, changed their characters, and combined with one another and with foreign


deities. The official state religion was concerned with a divine order, or maat, that kept Egypt safe from invaders and natural disaster. It was the duty of the pharaoh, the “living god on Earth,” to make sure that divine order was not disturbed. Building temples for a god, and filling each temple with a hierarchy of priests to serve the god, helped ensure that divine order was preserved. Priests performed daily rituals for the temple’s cult statues, which served as dwelling places for the essence of the deity. Aside from national gods and goddesses, there were local nome gods who sometimes rose to prominence and foreign deities who resembled Egyptian gods and who were also worshipped. Household gods were honored with small shrines in Egyptian homes. Since magicplayed such an important role in Egyptians’ daily lives, the statues of favorite gods were viewed much like good luck charms to help a family avoid disasters.

rElIgIon AnD MAgIc
Although there were more than 2,000 gods in the Egyptian pantheon, when it came to the realm of the dead, the Egyptians were united in their worship of Osiris. From the pharaoh to the common man, the greatest desire of all Egyptians was to resurrect and live again in the Netherworld. No civilization ever put more faith, energy, and resources into its belief in life after death. Because of that, most of what we know about ancient Egypt comes from the Egyptians idea that life did not end with this world. Funerary rituals, from mummification to the Opening of the


wrote in Alexandria. His sentiments were echoed by much of the rest of the ancient world. In the Old Testament, Exodus 7:8-23, Pharaoh summons his magicians, who match Moses and Aaron in performing “the snake trick,” changing their staves into serpents and water into blood. Even before Moses, Egypt had a long history of magic and magicians, many of whom appear in ancient writings (see Eucrates). Over the centuries, magic and religion became intertwined—so much so that it is often difficult to separate the two. Both magic and religion involve a belief in the supernatural and the realm of the unseen. Two characteristics, however, separate magic from religion and magicians from priests. First, magic has a quality of immediacy that is lacking in religion. When a magician recitesa spell, it is he who brings about the desired effect. When a priest prays for something, it is the god who is expected to answer the prayer, not the priest. The priest is an intermediary between this world and the supernatural or next world. That points to the second difference

renenutet Serpent-headed fertility goddess, particularly of the harvest, Renenutet was also associated with Isis. Her nurturing and supportive nature is like that of Isis, and like Isis, Renenutet was a guardian of the pharaoh. As the embodiment of the “divine mother,” Renenutet is often shown suckling the children of the gods, the king, or the royal children, and it was said that her fierce gaze vanquished all of their enemies. As a goddess of the harvest, Renenutet was


called the “Lady of the Granary,” and shrines were erected in the fields during the annual harvest to honor her. As a protector of the crops, Renenutet is shown as a cobra nurturing the crops in the fields and presiding over the harvest. renpet Goddess of the New Year, represented as a young woman with a palm frond. reShef (reshep, reshpu)
A Syrian war god adopted by the Egyptians during the New Kingdom (1550–1069 b.c.), Reshef was especially appealing to the warrior kings of Egypt because of his bold and warlike nature. He is mentioned on the stele of Amenhotep II (1427–1400 b.c.) erected near the Great Sphinx on the Giza Plateau. Reshef, along with the foreign goddess, Ashtoreth/Astarte, celebrates Amenhotep II’s prowess and skill in horsemanship, and they“rejoice in the crown prince’s diligence in caring for his horses.” During the early Eighteenth Dynasty, when Egypt was expanding its territory into Syria, the Egyptians must have recognized the foreign god who so closely resembled their own war gods. It is not surprising that Reshef is associated with Set and the Theban wargod Montu with whom he has the most in common. Interestingly, Reshef’s deadly force in battle could also be used in peacetime. Reshef’s power could be a source of help for the common people,

rosEttA stonE

Reshef, a war god from Syria, was worshipped in Egypt during the New Kingdom. He is often depicted carrying a mace or an ax. (Courtesy of Bob Brier)

reSurrection Ancient Egyptian religion was based on the idea of resurrection—the belief that the


the Netherworld, it was crucial that Isis find all the pieces of Osiris’s body and reassemble them so he could resurrect. Using her magic, Isis restored Osiris’s life force, and he arose to become the god of the Netherworld. During the Middle Kingdom (2055–1650 b.c.), the priesthood introduced the idea that when a person died, he or she could become one with Osiris, and it became the dream of every Egyptian to resurrect with Osiris in the Netherworld. The concept of resurrection was one of the most powerful ideas in Egyptian religion, and when the Greeks and Romans ruled Egypt, they practiced mummification and hoped for immortality as well.

roSettA

and they appealed to him for deliverance from their ills and diseases. He was particularly sought out to relieve stomachpains, and Reshef and his wife, Itum, were frequently called upon to “consume the demon causing the ailment.” So assimilated into the Egyptian pantheon was Reshef that he is shown in Egyptian garb, wearing the white crown of Upper Egypt, but with a gazelle’s head, which associated him with Set, rather than the traditional cobra head, uraeus. He is often shown wielding a club and wearing a Syrian-style beard. The only known carved stone statue of Reshef in Egyptian costume is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. A stele with the image of Reshef stands in the garden of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Stone A large inscribed stone discovered during Napoleon Bonaparte’s Egyptian Campaign (1798–1799), the Rosetta stone was one of the most important archaeological


finds in Egypt because it was the key to deciphering hieroglyphs. The Rosetta stone enabled early linguists to translate and read the myths of ancient Egypt. When Napoleon sailed for Egypt, he took with him a group of scholars whose job it was to record everything they could about Egyptian civilization. The most significant discovery of the expedition was an accidental one. In the summer of 1799, the French army was fortifying the northern coast of Egypt. While digging a few miles from the town of Rosetta, they discovered a large black stone that was covered with writing in three different scripts. The scientists recognized that the top script was hieroglyphs and the bottom script was Greek. Later they realized that the middle script was demotic, a lateform of Egyptian writing, and that the stone contained the same

rosEttA stonE
The stone was taken to Cairo, where Napoleon had established an institute to study ancient Egyptian civilization. Copies of the stone were made and sent to France before the original went to the house of General de Menou in Alexandria for safekeeping. In 1801, when the French army surrendered to the British, all Egyptian antiquities collected by Napoleon’s expedition were confiscated, and the Rosetta stone went to the British Museum, where it remains today. In 1808, Jean-François Champollion, who was then a teenager, obtained a copy of the Rosetta stone and began his life’s work deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs. One of the most important decipherers of the stone was the brilliant English physicist Thomas Young. A physician and


scientist by training, Young had made the study of ancient languages his avocation, and the Rosetta stone was just the kind of challenge he loved. By decoding it, he hoped to open the door to discovering the sciences of the ancient Egyptians. He decided to work on the demotic text first. Young quickly realized that groupings of signs in the demotic inscription corresponded to names of the pharaoh in the Greek text. Soon he deduced that the demotic signs were basically phonetic. But more important, he began to see similarities between the demotic-sign groups and groups of signs in the hieroglyphic text. This meant that the hieroglyphs were phonetic, and by 1818, he had determined with some accuracy the hieroglyphic alphabet. After this start at deciphering the Rosettasacred barque (boat) of Amun to sail on during his festivals. The temples of Armant, Dendera, Edfu, Medinet Habu, and Tanis all had sacred lakes that were used for the sacred barque of the gods and filled with ibises, geese, or crocodiles—the animals considered sacred to the temple. SAcreD treeS Because of the scarcity of trees in Egypt, the few varieties that thrived in the hot, dry land were associated with the gods. The sycamore tree is linked with Hathor—as the “Lady of the Sycamore”—and with Nut and Isis. Sacred trees were often shown in funerary scenes on tomb walls, offering food and water to the deceased. In the burial chamber of Thutmose III, the sycamore tree has breasts and suckles the king. The Persea tree is associated


with the god Thoth and goddess Seshat, who are shown inscribing the

Every day at sunrise, the priests of Amun gathered at the sacred lake, where they set a goose free on the water to commemorate Amun’s link with the Great Cackler who laid the cosmic egg. On festival days, the sacred boat of Amun sailed in a procession with other boats on the sacred lake. (Photo by Pat Remler)

sAItE rEcEnsIon
The sprawling necropolis for the city of Memphis takes its name from Sokar, a god associated with Osiris. The cemetery at Saqqara was used from the Predynastic to the Christian period (a.d. 395–540) and covers roughly four and one half square miles. It is one of the most densely populated cemeteries in all of Egypt. Because it was considereda sacred site, the tombs were reused over the centuries. During the Third Dynasty (2686–2613 b.c.), the architects began building in stone, and Imhotep designed the first large stone building, the Step Pyramid, over the tomb of Zoser. Part of a large funerary complex, the Step Pyramid was built on a plateau overlooking ancient Memphis. Successive kings erected smaller pyramids, many of which are still standing. The Pyramid of Unas, the last king of the Fifth Dynasty (2375–2345 b.c.), was the first to be inscribed with magical spells, known as the Pyramid Texts, that served as a guide to help the deceased king ascend safely to the heavens. Among the many tombs is the sacred burial place of the Apis bull, the Serapeum. A series of underground chambers,


the Serapeum housed the mummified bulls in huge granite sarcophagi. An avenue of sphinxes ran from the tomb to the mortuary temple some distance away. During the Ptolemaic period, the god Serapis was worshipped in a semicircular shrine that was built for statues of Greek poets and philosophers. Although nothing remains of the superstructure today, this shrine still stands near the entrance to the Serapeum.

SAqqArA

The goddess Nut pours water from the sycamore tree to refresh the deceased on their journey to the Netherworld. (Courtesy of Bob Brier)

name of the king and the number of years of his reign on its leaves. The date palm branch is the hieroglyphic symbol for year and is often linked with Heh, the god of eternity, and with Seshat when she records theall duplications that existed in previous versions of the Book of the Dead.

The sprawling necropolis Saqqara is best known as the site of the first pyramid (the Step Pyramid), built for King Zoser. (Photo by Pat Remler)

scArAb bEEtlE

outer stone coffin that holds the inner anthropoid, or body-shaped, coffin. A sarcophagus can be either rectangular, anthropoid, or oval. It was usually carved from hard stone, typically granite or basalt, and was often decorated with scenes of funerary goddesses protecting the deceased. Mummies were sometimes placed in “nesting coffins” (Tutankhamen had three) inside the sarcophagus. Although the sarcophagus is distinct from the coffin, they both served the same purpose—to protect the body of the deceased.

sa Sign Representing the hieroglyph for protection, the sa sign is enigmatic. It may represent a


of dung along the ground, and they saw this as an analogy for the sun moving across the sky. When they observed young beetles emerging from the ball of dung, it gave rise to the idea that the scarab reproduced without benefit of a mate. Actually, after fertilization, the female deposited her eggs in a bit of dung and rolled it into a ball so that when they hatched, the newborns had food. Since the emergence from the dung ball was the only part of this cycle that the Egyptians saw, they assumed the beetle was somewhat like the god Atum, who begot children without a partner. The Greeks were fascinated with the Egyptian culture and often wrote about their observations. The fifth-century Greek philosopher Horapollo from Alexandriain the earth for the space of twenty-eight days (for in so many days the moon passes through twelve signs of the zodiac). By thus remaining under the moon, the race of scarabaei is imbued with life; and upon the ninth and twentieth day after having opened the ball, it casts it into the water, for it is aware that upon that day the conjunction of the moon and sun takes place, as well as the generation of the world. Horapollo, Book 1, X

SAtiS A member of the Elephantine Triad, Satis was either the daughter or the wife of Khnum the ram-headed god, depending on the period in Egyptian history (see family of gods). She was a goddess of the cataracts (boulders in the Nile) and a water


goddess, with the Nile part of her domain. As guardian of Egypt’s southern frontier, Satis was believed to fend off Egypt’s invaders with her arrows. As a fertility goddess, Satis was worshipped in all of Nubia. She is shown as a woman wearing the tall white crown of Upper Egypt decorated with antelope horns on either side. Elephantine Island at Aswan in southern Egypt was the main cult center for Satis, although her name is mentioned in the Pyramid Texts as a goddess of purification of disease.
ScArAb beetle For the ancient Egyptians, the common scarab beetle, Scarabaeus sacer, was a daily reminder of Khepri, the manifestation of the sun god Re in the early morning. Khepri’s job was to help the rising sun journey across the sky eachday, and he is often portrayed as a beetle rolling the sun in front of him. The Egyptians noticed that the scarab

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For thousands of years, scarab amulets were carved in Egypt. It was believed that wearing a scarab amulet brought protection and a long life. It was actually a pun, for the word kheper in hieroglyphs means both “scarab” and “to exist.” Egyptians wore scarabs as protection from harm and evil, and they sometimes carved the name of a pharaoh because the pharaoh was under the protection of all the gods. A scarab with the name of Thutmose III was a favorite.

0 scArAb bEEtlE
princess from the land of Mitanni; the construction of a pleasure lake for Queen Tiye; and the marriage of Amenhotep III and Tiye. The scarab


was also crucial in Egyptian funerary rites. Starting in the Middle Kingdom and continuing into the Ptolemaic period, scarabs were used to protect the heart of the mummy. When the deceased entered the Netherworld, he or she was judged and his or her heart was weighed against the feather of truth. Heart scarabs, usually carved in stone and about four inches long, were inscribed with a magical spell on the bottom designed to keep the heart quiet during judgment. It was feared that the heart might speak out against its owner and testify against him or her. This is why part of the spell reads:
O heart of my mother, O heart of my mother. Do not stand against me as a witness. Do not outweigh me before thewere protective. Royal commemorative scarabs were issued to celebrate events and to send messages about the power of the pharaoh. Usually large, sometimes nine inches long, they were carved on the bottom with details of the event. These scarabs were sent like proclamations to rulers of foreign countries and to high Egyptian court officials. The most famous commemorative scarabs are those of Amenhotep III (1479–1425 b.c.). These scarabs celebrated five major events: a wild bull hunt; a lion hunt; the arrival of one of his minor wives, a

The heart scarab of the Middle Kingdom mummy of Wah was solid silver. On the top, Wah’s name and titles were inlaid with gold. On the bottom was an ankh sign with a few other hieroglyphs. Before the heart scarab was


thy nose [?], that can eat [?] the herbage that is trampled [?], the fieldplants [?] that are injured for the great images of the men of Egypt. I dispatch thee to N. born of N. to strike her from her heart to her belly, to her entrails, to her womb; for she it is hath wept [?] before the Sun in the morning, she saying to the Sun, ‘Come not forth,’ to the Moon, ‘Rise not,’ to the water, ‘Come not to the men of Egypt,’ to the fields, ‘Grow not green,’ and to the great trees of the men of Egypt, ‘Flourish not,’ I dispatch thee to N. born of N. to injure her from her heart

sEkhMEt unto her belly, unto her entrails, unto her womb,on a blood lust across the land. Only the gods’ trickery stopped Sekhmet’s fury, and humankind was saved. In the capital city of Memphis, Sekhmet was the wife of Ptah and mother to Nefertum (see family of gods). In the Delta, she was associated with the cat goddess, Bastet. Sekhmet is shown as a lioness or as a woman with a feline head, wearing the solar disk and a uraeus. Her garment is a long sheath dress with rosettes over her breasts. When the Theban Triad—Amun, and his wife, Mut, and their son Khonsu—rose to prominence in Thebes, Mut became associated with Sekhmet and assumed many of her attributes. Numerous statues of Mut-Sekhmet were erected in the Precinct of Mut at Karnak Temple. If a plague swept through


Egypt, it was said to be carried by a “messenger of Sekhmet,” and the Egyptians believed that if Sekhmet could bring

Sekhmet, the lioness-headed goddess, was known for her violent nature. (Photo by Pat Remler)

sElkEt
pestilence, then she could also ward off illness. So Sekhmet became a goddess of healing as well as of destruction. the rule of the Greek Ptolemies (332–32 b.c.). The huge underground chambers held massive granite sarcophagi of the mummified Apis bulls. One of Ramses the Great’s sons, Prince Khaemwaset, took an interest in preserving the serapeum, and his own tomb, as yet undiscovered, is believed to be nearby. The Greek writer Strabo (63 b.c.–a.d. 21) mentioned the serapeum and the sphinxes. The serapeum in Alexandria was a temple serving as the cult center for thecomposite Greek and Egyptian god Serapis. When the Christian emperor Theodosius II (a.d. 379–395) ordered the destruction of all ancient religious monuments, the serapeum in Alexandria was destroyed. Ancient writers frequently praised the beauty of the Alexandria Serapeum, which was built in two stages. The first part was built during the reign of Ptolemy III, when worship of Serapis became popular, and a large enclosure wall was built around the temple of Serapis. The second part was built during the reign of the Roman emperor Hadrian. Like all Ptolemaic temples, the walls and foundations were set in trenches cut into the rock, but the most unusual features of this temple were the two fireplaces used to heat the air that was circulated through pottery ducts. Because of the


interest in the serapeum, for it was in this temple that she dressed as Isis, assumed the role of the “living goddess,” and presided over religious rituals and festivals. It was also where Antony presented her with the captive royal family after his conquest of Armenia. Rufinus, one of the ancient sources of information on the serapeum, mentions that the upper floors of the temple contained lecture halls and that there was a window through which the sun’s rays bathed a statue of Serapis.

Selket (also serket

or selkis) A scorpion goddess, Selket is usually shown as a woman with a scorpion on her head, and her name is derived from a term that means “she who causes the throat to breathe.” Perhaps the rest of the phrase might havebeen “for the last time,” as a scorpion sting is extremely dangerous and can cause death. Selket is one of the most ancient goddesses in Egypt, having been associated with the Predynastic King Scorpion. In the Old Kingdom, she appears as a protector of the throne and the king, but her most important role is with the funerary cult and the deceased. She is called “Lady of the Beautiful House,” a reference to her assistance in the embalmer’s tent during mummification. In the Book of Two Ways, she watches over the “dangerous winding path,” a reference to moving the mummy to its tomb. She is one of four guardians of the canopic chest and assists Isis as she performs the funerary rites over Osiris. In the myth of


the seven scorpions, the seven appear as a manifestation of Selket when they accompany Isis to the Delta.

Sept

A nome god, Sept was worshipped at PerSept (house of Sept), the capital of his home. He is a warrior god, and his titles include “Lord of the East,” “the Bull That Tramples Menti,” and “Sept, the Smiter of Menti,” a tribe from the Eastern Desert. When he is portrayed as a man, Sept can wear different attributes as his crown: the sun disk, the double plume, or the tall triangle symbol º, meaning “to give.” Sometimes he wears a menat on his back. He can also appear as a mummified hawk with plumes on his head and with a menat. As the “lord of battle,” he appears as a hawk-headedlion holding a bow and a club in his human hands. Sept is mentioned in the Book of the Dead as the one who “drives away the crocodiles of the south,” among other epithets, and appears on the walls of Edfu Temple as “the hidden sign of Sept.”

SerApeum There were two serapeums in ancient Egypt, one at Saqqara and the other in Alexandria. The name “serapeum” comes from a corruption of the names of Osiris and Apis, Osir-Ap. The older of the two is at Saqqara, near modern Cairo, and is the best preserved. The Saqqara Serapeum served as the tomb of the sacred Apis bulls from the Eighteenth Dynasty (1550–1295 b.c.) through

sErpEnt goDs

The cult of Serapis was introduced by the Ptolemies and was the result of merging


the Egyptian gods Osiris and Apis. When Ptolemy I became ruler of Egypt after the death of Alexander the Great, he embraced Serapis, the new composite god, and gave him a Hellenized or Greek appearance, making Serapis a more appealing god to the Greek population in Alexandria. Serapis was shown wearing a chiton, a

SerApiS

Greek garment, and long hair and a beard. He carries a basket on his head as a symbol of Egypt’s bountiful harvests. Because Serapis was a combination of the names Apis and Osiris, and because Osiris’s wife was Isis, the goddess also became the wife of Serapis. Isis and Serapis were often shown together with their new “Hellenistic” look.

SerDAb (per-twt) The Arabic word for “cellar,” the serdabs of the Old Kingdom (2686–2181 b.c.) were roomsthe primordial waters before anything was created and who proclaimed in the Pyramid Texts:

l

The Egyptian name for Serapis is usr ap, a combination of the gods Osiris and Apis. Shown with the body of a man and the head of a bull, Serapis has a sun disk between his horns and an atef feather headdress, and he holds the crook and flail of the king. (Courtesy of Bob Brier)

I extended everywhere, in accordance with what was to come into existence . . . I bent around myself, I was encircled in my coils, one who made a place for himself in the midst of his coils.

sEshAt
The primeval serpent is a symbol for creation. In a sense, the primeval serpent is an aspect of Atum the creator. Once the


creator god, Atum, was manifest, the primeval serpent returned to the days of chaos. There was a belief that when the world came to an end, it would fall into a state of chaos, and Atum would once again become the serpent. This prophecy is mentioned in Chapter 175 of the Book of the Dead. It was common for leaders in the First Intermediate period (2181–2055 b.c.), a time filled with turmoil, to equate themselves with “the great surviving serpent [who remains] when all mankind has reverted to slime.” The cosmic serpent played many parts in Egyptian mythology. Not only was he the ancient being who existed before the world was created, the cosmic serpent also was the archetype of evil who had to be vanquished each dayto keep order in the world. In the Book of the Dead, the serpent serves both as a guardian of the Underworld and as Apophis, who represents darkness and is the archenemy of the sun. He became Sito, the serpent whose coils encircled the Earth and who stretched around the Earth until his tail met his mouth. He claimed he would exist for all time: “I am Sito, with many years, I die and am reborn every day. I am Sito who dwells in the farthest regions of the world.” The cosmic serpent was associated with the Nile and its hidden caverns that were thought to produce the annual flood and with fertility and the corn god, Neheb-kau. Judging by the number of curses to ward them off,


thy youth; thou shalt flourish again like Aah-Thoth when he is a child.” During this time, her attribute changed and she carried a notched palm frond that marked the passing of time. Seshat was sometimes shown writing the name of the king on the leaves of the Persea tree, following the tradition of Thoth, the god of wisdom, who was her male counterpart or consort. The god of evil, chaos, and darkness, Set began with a peaceful and benign nature. He was the son of Geb and Nut, husband and brother of Nephthys, and brother of Osiris and Isis. Images of Set appear in the Early Dynastic period (c. 4000–3500 b.c.) on an ivory fragment and on the mace head of King Scorpion (c. 3150 b.c.). He wasfavored by the Second Dynasty kings Peribsen and Khasekhemwy, who adopted Set as their benefactor. The Set animal adorns the top of their serekhs (rectangular shapes symbolizing the king). The serekhs also included the image of Horus, the traditional protector of the king. Set is mentioned in the Pyramid Texts as ruling the sky with Horus, the falcon god. Early mythology refers to a platform of iron resting on four pillars that formed the floor of heaven and declares that Set and Horus worked together to help Osiris reach the floor of heaven. But a rivalry soon occurred. Horus was the god of the sky by day, and Set was the god of the night sky, but he was not satisfied. Their conflict was viewed as the battle


between good and evil. The opposition of day and night was manifested in a battle called the Contendings of Horus and Set. In one version of the myth, Set wished to stop the sun from appearing in the sky each morning, and he changed into various forms, one of which was Apep, the evil serpent of the Underworld, in order to stop the sun. Set also had an association with Sobek, the crocodile god, who had an evil side to his nature as well. The Set animal … has never been identified, but scholars have suggested that it is a mythical creature. It has a canine body, with a long nose resembling that of an anteater; the ears are tall and squared off; the tail is long andforked. The Set animal was associated with the color red, the color of the desert, and animals with red fur, even men with red hair, were believed to be followers of Set.

Set (seth)

SeShAt

The goddess of measurement and writing, Seshat presided over the Stretching of the Cord Ceremony, particularly when the foundations of the pyramids were aligned with true north, south, east, and west. She was the patron goddess of builders, and in her capacity as goddess of measurement and writing, Seshat is often shown wearing a panther skin and a headband with a seven-pointed star and bow. In the Eighteenth Dynasty (1550–1069

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sEvEn goDDEssEs of chIlDbIrth

In spite of his evil nature, a cult of Set existed that seems to have developed early in Egypt’s history. It was sometimes considered


auspicious to make sacrifices to Set during certain seasons of the year when his influence was considered the greatest. An antelope was sacrificed to stop Set from attacking the full moon. Sometimes birds and fish associated with Set were caught and hacked to pieces while priests chanted, “Ye shall be cut to pieces, and your members shall be hacked asunder, and each of you shall consume the other; thus doth he triumph over all his enemies.” It has been suggested that in killing Osiris, Set contributed to the idea of resurrection, which became the basis of Egyptian religion and, as such, it appears that followers of Set were not discriminated against in ancient Egypt. In fact, the father of Ramses the Great, Seti I, was named for thegod: His name means follower of Set.

Seti i, temple

As god of chaotic forces, Set was both respected and reviled. The Set animal has never been identified and may be a composite or mythical animal. (Drawing by Mary Jordan)

of Built by Seti I, the father of Ramses the Great, the temple of Seti I is at Abydos, next to the osireion, the symbolic burial place of Osiris. Seti built his temple to emphasize his piety and his support of the traditional gods of Egypt. Inside the temple the seven chapels are dedicated to Seti as a god, Ptah, Re-Horakhty, Amun-Re, Osiris, Isis, and Horus. Each chapel is decorated with scenes of offerings and the daily life of the gods. In a corridor known as the Gallery of Kings, Seti


I and his son Ramses II are reading the names of the previous kings of Egypt, their ancestors, to ensure that they will have food and drink for the coming year in their continued existence in the Netherworld.

One of the most popular Egyptian tales, the Isis and Osiris myth, relates how Set, the archetype of the devil, killed his brother Osiris, dismembered the body, and scattered the pieces. To avenge his father’s death, Horus battled with Set for 70 years, and finally the gods settled the dispute, making Set ruler of the desert, foreign lands and the night sky. Each year the Festival of Victory was held at Edfu Temple, the cult center for Horus, to celebrate Horus’s victory over Set. In the drama that was enacted eachyear, Set took the form of a hippopotamus or a pig. The temple wall shows scenes of Horus harpooning Set. An allegory for good triumphing over evil, the triumph of Horus is complete when he inflicts 10 wounds on the body of the hippopotamus: the snout, forehead, neck, back of the head, ribs, back, testicles, haunches, legs, and hocks.

Seven ArrowS

of Sekhmet In the myth of the Destruction of Mankind, Hathor and Sekhmet represent the dual of good and evil. When the sun god Re asks Hathor to destroy humankind, she becomes Sekhmet, a bloodthirsty lioness. The Seven Arrows of Sekhmet symbolize the evil or corrupt nature of the goddess, while the Seven Hathors represent the warm and loving aspect of her nature.

Seven goDDeSSeS

of chilDbirth Bes, Hathor, Heket, Meskhenet,


in front of her, Nephthys behind her, and Heket hastened the childbirth. Isis then said: Do not be strong in her womb in this your name of Wo-sr-ef. This child slipped forth upon her hands as a child, one cubit long, whose bones were firm, and covering of whose limbs was of gold, and whose headdress was of real lapis lazuli. They washed him, his umbilical cord was cut, and he was placed upon a cushion on bricks. Then Meskhenet approached him, and she said: A king who will exercise the kingship in this entire land! Khnum caused his limbs to move. Next Isis placed herself in front of her [Reddedet], Nephthys behind her, and Heket hastened the childbirth. Isis said: Do not kick in her womb inthis your name of Sa-hu-re. And this child slipped out on her hands as a child, one cubit long, whose bones were firm, and covering of whose limbs was of gold, and whose headdress was of real lapis lazuli. They washed him, his umbilical cord was cut, and he was placed upon a cushion on bricks. Then Meskhenet approached him, and she said: A king who will exercise the kingship in this entire land! Khnum caused his limbs to move. Then Isis placed herself before her, Nephthys behind her, and Heket hastened the childbirth. Isis said: Do not be dark in her womb in this your name of Keku. And the child slipped forth upon her hands as a child, one cubit long, whose bones were firm, and


as seven goddesses, sometimes called “the Seven Celestial Kine” (cows). The names of the Seven Hathors varied from temple to temple. Representations of the Seven Hathors appear in the tomb of Nefertari, the wife of Ramses II.
Seven SAcreD oilS Magical unguents used in embalming and preserving mummies were the same seven sacred oils the Egyptians used in their daily lives. Traditionally the seven sacred oils were: festival perfume, Hekenu oil, Syrian balsam, Nechenem salve, anointing oil, best cedar oil, and best Libyan oil. The importance of sacred oil is evident from the Old Kingdom. Utterance 72 of the Pyramid Texts ensures that Unas has a supply of sacred oil for the next world:
Osiris Unas, I make full thy eye (for thee) with ointment—festival perfume Osiris Unas take theoutflow of his face— Hekenu-oil Osiris Unas, take the Eye of Horus, on account of which he fought—Sefeth oil Osiris Unas, take the Eye of Horus of which he took possession—Neshenem Oil Osiris Unas take the Eye of Horus, which brought the gods to him through it—Tuat-oil Oh ointment, O ointment, arise, hurry! Thou who art on the brow of Horus, arise! First quality Cedar oil . . . Osiris Unas, I bring thee the Eye of Horus which he takes, which is on thy brow, First quality Libyan oil . . . Unas is called Osiris Unas because he is being associated with Osiris, god of the dead, who will help Unas resurrect in the next world. The seven sacred oils were kept in small jars, many


of which were carved from alabaster. Cosmetic chests were often fitted with seven small pots to hold the oils. Besides being used in mummification, sacred oil was used to anoint cult statues in temples and as perfume and unguents in the home.

Here we see the importance of repetition in ancient literature—to say it is to make it happen for

Seven ScorpionS Manifestations of the scorpion goddess, Selket, the seven scorpions were the companions of Isis when she fled into the Delta to hide from her evil brother Set.

shEsMu

Stone A black basalt stone slab inscribed in the Twenty-fifth Dynasty by the Nubian king Shabaka, the slab describes the creation of the world. It proclaims that the god Ptah created the world and everything in it. The introduction on the ShabakaStone says it was copied from the original document (probably written on papyrus), which was damaged with worm holes:
. . . This writing was copied new . . . for his majesty found it to be a writing of the ancestors that was eaten by worms [and] could not be understood from beginning to end . . .

ShAbAkA

Shen { A circle without beginning or end, the shen symbolizes eternity, protection, and infinity. The shen hieroglyph represents a length of rope looped into a circle, folded and tied at the bottom. The shen sign is used in funerary decorations to symbolize eternal life for the deceased and on royal jewelry as amuletic protection to the wearer. The shen is associated with the sun disk and is called the first


round cartouche, the magical oval that encircles the name of the pharaoh. In many royal ritual scenes, Nekhbet, the vulture goddess, appears with wings outstretched and grasping the shen sign in her claws.

The text is archaic (an early form of the language), perhaps dating from the time of the Pyramid Texts. It talks about what is today called the “Philosophy of a Memphite Priest,” or The Memphite Theology—one of the three main creation myths in ancient Egypt. Most important in the Memphite Theology are the ideas that Ptah was unifier of the country and king of Egypt; Memphis is the capital of Egypt and oversees Upper and Lower Egypt; and Ptah created the world and everything in it. Part of the inscription reads:
The gods who came into beingin Ptah . . . they took shape in his heart, they took shape on his tongue . . . for the very great one is Ptah, who gave life to all the gods and their kas through his heart and through his tongue . . .

SheSmu (shezmu, sesmu)

In other words, Ptah created the world and everything in it by thinking (the Egyptians believed a person thought with the heart) the thing and speaking the name. The text is badly damaged because in the nineteenth century, Egyptian farmers recut the stone to use as a grindstone. Also, the scribes left blank spaces on the stone where the original papyrus copy was damaged. Religious texts are usually read from right to left, and at first the script did not


make sense to Egyptologists until they realized that the columns of text were retrograde—written backward—left to right. Although the Shabaka stone is terribly damaged, it remains one of the most interesting documents in ancient Egypt’s 3,000-year history, for it suggests an earlier version of the creation story found in the New Testament.

or Best known as the god of the wine press, Shesmu has a complex personality. From the Pyramid Texts of Unas, we learn of his generous nature—he offers grape juice to Unas with which to make wine in the next world, and he ferociously attacks the enemies of Unas: “. . . He casts wickedness on him that is wicked and truth upon he who follows truth. . . .” Shesmu directs the pressing of grapes andoils of all kinds, including olive, pine, castor, almond, and oil from the seeds of the moringa tree, which grows in the desert and is quite rare. Oil from the moringa tree was used for making perfume, and Shesmu also became a god of perfume and sacred oils used in temple rituals and embalming. Egyptian mythology interchanges the idea of red wine and blood. It was the color, rather than the actual substance, that was important to the Egyptians. When Shesmu is portrayed as a friend of the dead, he offers them wine to ease their journey to the Netherworld. At the same time, he is linked with Apep, a terrible demon of the Underworld, and is shown tossing the heads of enemies into his wine press to


extract the blood as if it were grape juice. For the Egyptians, red wine was synonymous with blood. In the Cannibal Hymn, Shesmu helps Unas gain power in the next world:
. . . Behold, Shesmu has cut them up for Unas, he has boiled pieces of them in his blazing cauldrons. Unas has eaten their words of power, he has eaten their spirits.

FgÉ £

Shehbui

God of the west wind (see Winds, Gods of the Four).

The Book of the Dead tells us that one of Shesmu’s titles is “Lord of the Blood,” and in Chapter 175, Osiris commands that Shesmu dismember the evil ones and place their heads in a wine press to be pressed like grapes and create wine.

shIpwrEckED sAIlor, Myth of thE
Most often Shesmu appears as a lion-headedor a hawk-headed man with a uraeus on his head. His main cult center was in the Fayoum, but he was also worshipped at Edfu and Dendera, where he is shown on the temple walls traveling in a solar boat wearing a uraeus and two stars on his head. Shesmu is linked with Re (as the setting sun for the red color), Apep (the evil god of the Underworld and enemy of Re), Herishef (who shares his title, “Lord of the Blood”), Horus (when he assumes the head of a falcon), Thoth (as a god of wisdom), and Nefertum (as a god of perfume).
seen. When I was hungry there were fruits and vegetables of every variety and birds and fish of every kind. I ate from all the


the reign of Amenemhet I, the king who had restored peace and prosperity to Egypt after years of civil war and strife. One day an Egyptian sailor wandering in the courtyard of the great palace at Thebes spied the king’s vizier and rushed to his side to ask for a favor. The vizier, or prime minister, was not accustomed to such requests and spoke sharply to the sailor. But the sailor continued to beg for an audience with the pharaoh so that he could delight the king with his strange tale. Finally the vizier agreed to hear the tale himself and judge whether the tale would please the pharaoh. So the sailor began his tale.
We set off for the mines of the pharaoh, in a fine ship rowedreturn with them because as soon as I left the island it would disappear and never be seen until the gods decided to reveal it again to some wanderer like myself. I lived happily on the enchanted island and the four months passed all too quickly, and one day I saw a ship sailing toward me. I sought the serpent king, but he knew of the ship already, and he bid me farewell, and gave me many precious gifts. When I boarded the ship, the island seemed to float away. Eventually we landed on the shores of the Red Sea in Egypt, and I have hurried across the desert to Thebes to tell my story to the pharaoh. The vizier was greatly impressed and said, “Whether or not


two basic styles: the naos, shaped like a shrine, and the “hoop” type. The naos style is the earliest, dating from the Old Kingdom (2686–2181 b.c.). The top of the handle (of the naos style) is a Hathor head, and on top of that is the naos, or shrine shape. Three or four wire rods with loose rattles (similar to those on a tambourine)

0 sItulA
extend horizontally through the naos. The hoop sistrum has a tall loop on top of the handle, in place of the naos, but the wires and rattles are similar. The decorations on either style varied over time, but the favored motifs were Hathor and Isis heads, serpents, and cats. A sistrum could be made of bronze, faience (ceramic), wood, gold, or silver, although faienceand bronze seem to have been favored. The sistrum may have been derived from bunches of papyrus flowers, which were a favorite offering to Hathor. When the bouquets were presented to Hathor, they were shaken so the papyrus stalks made a swishing sound.
(One day) Sobek, the crocodile, surprised a band of enemies and massacred them. A victim of his natural inclinations, he unhesitatingly devoured them all; but he carried their heads back home with him as proof of his exploit. The gods rushed toward him, shouting, “Prevent him from eating them (the heads), give him bread!”

SitulA A sacred vessel used for religious ceremonies, the situla is a very small round-bottomed bucket or pail, usually cast from bronze and decorated with mythological motifs. During the Ptolemaic and Roman periods,


the situla was carried by the priests of Isis and used in rituals and processions. The situla held holy water from the Nile or milk as a symbol of Isis in her form as a mother goddess.

Sobek could not control his desire for meaty dishes and was sometimes overwhelmed by sudden cravings. When the dismembered Osiris was cast into the Nile, Sobek yielded to temptation and gulped down part of the body. He was punished for this lapse, due to his boundless hunger more than to a desire to harm the body of his fellow god: He had his tongue cut out. In Egyptian mythology, this is why crocodiles have no tongues.

SokAr

Sky goDDeSS

See Nut.

or suchos) The crocodile god, Sobek was worshipped in two cult centers: Crocodilopolis in theFayoum, a marshy area southwest of Cairo, and Kom Ombo, south of Luxor. There were also numerous shrines and smaller temples dedicated to Sobek throughout Egypt. According to Herodotus, the Greek writer, crocodiles were sacred in some parts of Egypt but in other areas were hunted and killed. In the precincts where they were sacred, they were kept in sacred pools in the temple complex, adorned with gold and crystal earrings and jeweled bracelets on their front legs. When the Twelfth Dynasty kings built their capital in the Fayoum, Sobek rose from a minor god to become the patron god of the kings. Sobek is the son of Neith, the warrior goddess, and is shown as a man with a crocodile’s head or a crocodile resting on a


shrine; he wears animal horns and the sun disk as his crown. Sobek was closely associated with the sun god Re and was often referred to as Sobek-Re. Sobek was generally viewed as a gentle god, in spite of his vicious nature, but mythology tells us that at one time the gods became angry with him. It is said that the gods ate sparingly, often dining only on bread and cool water, and although roasted meat was eaten from time to time, eating large quantities was frowned upon.

Sobek (also sebek

The necropolis or cemetery for Egypt’s ancient capital city, Memphis is called Saqqara after the mortuary god Sokar. He was closely associated with Osiris, the most important funerary god in Egypt, and with Ptah, the leading god of Memphis.Sokar appears in the Old Kingdom (2686–2613 b.c.) and in the Pyramid Texts is called the creator of “royal bones.” The Book of the Dead says he fashions a “foot-basin of silver,” the material of the bones of the gods. The Amduat, a guidebook for the dead, calls him “He Who Is Upon His Sand.” Sokar is usually shown as a man with a hawk’s head. One of the most impressive images of Sokar is from the silver coffin of the Twenty-second Dynasty king Sheshonq II (c. 890 b.c.), discovered at Tanis.

SolAr bArque The sacred boat of the sun god Re, the solar barque was actually two boats: Mandet, which sailed across the sky during the day, and Mesektet, the boat that sails through the Netherworld, the land


of the dead, each night. Mythology tells us that Mesektet, the boat of the “west,” became the right eye of the sun, and Mandet, the boat on the eastern horizon, became the left eye of the sun. Frequently mentioned in the Book of the Dead, the solar barque ferries the souls of the dead on their way to the Netherworld.

SopDu (sopdet) An Egyptian star god identified with Isis, Sopdu was known to the Greeks as Sothis, the Dog Star. Signaling the annual rise of the Nile, the season of Akhet or inundation, and the celebration of the new year, the appearance of Sopdu was cause for great rejoicing in Egypt.

souls of pE

SoulS of nekhen It was believed that pharaohs in ancient Egypt were protected by the souls, orbas, of mythological kings who lived before time began. When the mythological kings died, they became celestial beings, or stars, who were called the souls of Nekhen, and were associated with the jackal. (The souls of Pe were associated with the falcon.) Nekhen, modern Hierakonpolis in Upper Egypt in the south, was the cult center and the ancestral home of the souls of Nekhen. They are shown as three jackal-headed men in a ritual pose on one knee, with one arm held to their chest and the other arm raised. This posture resembles the hieroglyphic sign henu (() meaning “jubilation” or “praise.” It has been suggested that the posture, kneeling on one knee, is a final pose in a ritual dance called the “Recitation of the Glorifications.” Decorations


on temple walls show the souls of Nekhen carrying the shrines of the gods. One of the scenes carved on the wall of the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak Temple depicts the souls of Nekhen carrying the sacred boat of Amun in a coronation procession. The souls protect Ramses I on his tomb wall, and in Edfu Temple they shield the falcon god from harm. The souls of Nekhen and the souls of Pe served as protectors of Upper and Lower Egypt. Egyptians believed that the souls were very

powerful and could protect both deceased and living kings from danger.

SoulS of pe The souls of Pe appear as three men with falcon heads. Their domain is the city of Buto (ancient Pe), the capital of the Delta (in the north).The Egyptians believed that the pharaohs were protected by the souls, or bas, of mythological kings who lived before time began and who in death became celestial beings, or stars, called the souls of Nekhen and the souls of Pe. The souls of Pe are sometimes seen as stars themselves, forming a ladder upon which the deceased king can ascend to the heavens where he will become an akh, a “radiant light”—a star. In the Pyramid Texts, the souls of Pe are angered over the murder of Osiris, the symbolic father of the king, and mourn by tearing at their flesh and pulling their hair and urging Horus to seek revenge for their father’s murder. In the Isis and Osiris myth, their evil brother Set tricks Osiris and


murders him. When Osiris’s son, Horus, grows up, he seeks revenge for the murder of his father, and he fights Set. When Horus’s eye is torn out by his evil uncle Set, Horus is given the town of Pe as compensation by the gods, thus creating a close bond between the souls of Pe and

The souls of Nekhen have the head of a jackal and body of a man and were believed to be an embodiment of Predynastic rulers who protect the living king. (Photo by Pat Remler)

spElls

The souls of Pe have the head of a falcon and the body of a man and were believed to be an embodiment of Predynastic rulers who protect the living king. (Drawing by Mary Jordan)

Horus. Decorations on temple walls show theMiddle Kingdom temples cut into the living rock at Beni Hassan. The Speos Artemidos is located on the east side of the Nile and dedicated to the lion goddess Pakhet, whose titles include “She Who Scratches” and “She Who Guards the Entrance of the Wadi.” When the Greeks ruled Egypt (Ptolemaic period, 332–30 b.c.), they identified Pakhet with their goddess Artemis and renamed Pakhet’s temple the Speos Artemidos, or the “Grotto of Artemis.” Inscriptions dedicated to various gods covered the walls of the temple, and during the New Kingdom, when the temple had fallen into disrepair, Hatshepsut, the

SpeoS ArtemiDoS

Sphinx One of the icons of Egypt, the sphinx is a mythical beast usually with the head of a king (occasionally a queen or the head of a ram) and


the body of a lion. The most famous is the great sphinx

strEtchIng of thE corD cErEMony

The embodiment of royal power, the sphinx on the Giza Plateau was carved for the pharaoh Chephren from a large outcropping of rock. (Photo by Pat Remler) at Giza, which is carved from an outcropping of rock in the funerary complex of King Chephren (Khafre) (2558–2532 b.c.). The great sphinx represents “Horus of the Horizons,” the sun god when he rises in the east. It is believed that the face of the great sphinx is a likeness of Chephren. While a sphinx is not a god, it is the embodiment of royal power, and in the case of the ram-headed sphinxes at Karnak Temple, the power of the king is closely associated withthe god Amun. The Egyptian sphinx is viewed as male and benevolent, although it sometimes represents the king smiting his enemies. The Greek sphinx, in contrast, is shown as female and malevolent. In fact, in ancient Greek the word sphinx meant “strangler.”

Stele (stela, plural: stelae) A round-topped slab of wood or stone often erected in front of a temple as an offering to the gods, a stele might commemorate a special event or serve as a funerary monument. The earliest stelae are of the funerary type and show the deceased making or receiving offerings. Commemorative and votive stelae are associated with temple offerings and have been found in great quantities at Abydos and near the serapeum. Our tombstones are derived from ancient Egyptian stelae.

pyramid builders “openers of stone.”


Situated on a plateau overlooking the ancient Egyptian capital city, Memphis, the pyramid began as a simple mastaba, and as the pyramid neared completion, the architect Imhotep added five more stepped-in platforms, thus creating the Step Pyramid. Because it was the first building in stone, the architects did not know that it was important to square the blocks with smooth, even sides, and the pyramid became unstable. Visitors can still see cedar logs imported from Lebanon that were used to shore up the sides during construction. Surrounded by a stone enclosure wall, carved to imitate the mud brick walls of earlier mortuary complexes, the space inside the walls is the temenos, or sacred space. This is where the king’s heb-sed festival, or “jubilee,” took place at least every30 years. Recognized as a holy site after Zoser died, the magnificent funerary complex that grew up around the Step Pyramid became a pilgrimage destination, and for centuries the faithful came to the Step Pyramid to pray, to be healed, and to be buried. In the Eighteenth Dynasty, Imhotep, the architect of the Step Pyramid, was deified, declared to be a god of healing and medicine. Egyptologists have recently found the tomb of Qar, a physician, near the Step Pyramid, and inside they found the most ancient copper medical instruments ever discovered. This is an indication that the area was associated with Imhotep. Zoser’s mummy was never found in his burial chamber, but in the 1920s and 1930s, Egyptologists excavated parts of the burial chamber and discovered six


vertebrae and part of the right hip of a man and, later, rib fragments and a left foot. Egyptologists question whether the findings belong to Zoser.

Stretching

Step pyrAmiD

Built for the pharaoh Horus Net-jer-ik-het, better known as Zoser, the Step Pyramid was a sacred site for centuries after Zoser’s mummy was sealed in the burial chamber. The Step Pyramid represents a milestone of achievement in ancient architecture. It was the first time stone was used in a large-scale building project. A New Kingdom inscription found at south Saqqara calls the

of the corD ceremony A measurement to decide where the foundation of a building should be dug by determining the four cardinal points: north, south, east, and west. Officiating at the Stretching of the Cord Ceremony was Seshat, the goddess ofmeasurement and writing. The ceremony, recorded on a granite block during the reign of the Second Dynasty king Khasekhemwy (c. 2686 b.c.), tells how ancient architects aligned the four sides of the temples with the four cardinal points. Egyptian astronomers took sightings from the stars called the Great Bear and Orion using an instrument something like an astrolabe, which measures the position and altitude of the stars. With great accuracy they oriented pyramids and sun temples to true east, west, north, and south.

sun goD
Sun goD See Re, Horus, Khepri, and Aten. Sun temple From Egypt’s most ancient history the sun was worshipped as a life-giving force, and solar gods played an important role throughout ancient Egypt’s 3,000-year civilization. The first sun temple was dedicated to the sun god


Re in Heliopolis (today a modern suburb of Cairo). Nothing but fragments have survived from the first sun temple, but the solar temples of the Fifth Dynasty (2560–2420 b.c.) at Abu Ghurab and Abu Sir must have been based on the original Heliopolis temple. As the solar cult (worship of the sun god) became an important aspect of Egyptian religion, Fifth Dynasty kings moved away from traditional burial sites at Saqqara and the Giza Plateau. They built small pyramids and impressive sun temples at their new mortuary sites, Abu Sir and Abu Ghurab (just north of Saqqara). This break with tradition seems to have been predicted in the papyrus Westcar. As the story goes, a magician was brought to King Khufu (Dynasty IV) to predict the future, andwhat the magician saw was the beginning of a new dynasty. The Papyrus Westcar says a new dynasty will begin with the birth of triplets, who will become the first kings of the Fifth Dynasty. We do not know if triplets were born to the royal family, but Dynasty V began with a lot of changes. The new kings were called solar kings, or re nes-sut, and six of them built sun temples. Userkaf, the first king of Dynasty V, started the sun temple trend. He remained loyal to Saqqara and built his small pyramid in the shadow of the step pyramid, but then he built the first sun temple at the new site, Abu Sir. His son, Sahure, is the first of five kings whose names end


in “Re”—all of them sonamed to honor the sun gods, and they all built sun temples dedicated to Re in addition to their funerary complexes. Sahure built the first complete mortuary complex at Abu Sir, which includes a pyramid, a mortuary chapel, a valley temple, and a sun temple. Like pyramids, the new sun temples had restricted access (only one way in and out). They were built on the west bank of the Nile, the believed “domain of the dead,” so there must have been a connection between solar temples and the next world. Only two of the six sun temples have been excavated, but from the ruins it appears that the sun god was worshipped in the open air rather than in an enclosed sanctuary. Ne-user-ra’s suntemple had a large temenos wall with an entrance on the east side. Opposite the entrance stood a sacred benben, a short
obelisk resting on a limestone podium with granite base. The sacred benben (whose exact meaning is not known) was the focus of religious rituals and prayers directed to the sun god Re. In front of the obelisk was an alabaster altar for making offerings, and on all four sides was the hetep-hieroglyph, meaning “to offer” or “to give.” Situated around the courtyard were storerooms and an animal enclosure. Inscriptions tell us that at U-ser-kaf’s sun temple, two oxen and two geese were sacrificed on the altar every day. Covered corridors (large hallways) leading out of the sun temple and to other mortuary buildings were decorated with scenes


from daily life and with scenes from the king’s heb-sed festival and the seasons of the year. Scenes of netting birds, fishing, making papyrus boats, and working in the fields all celebrated the bounty of nature and the benevolence of the sun god. Almost a thousand years later, sun temples reappeared in the New Kingdom when Akhenaten, the heretic king (1352–1336 b.c.), denounced the traditional gods of Egypt in favor of one god, the Aten. In his first sun temple complex, erected in the huge sprawling Karnak Temple in Thebes, Akhenaten employed an innovative construction technique. Using talatat blocks (a small block that could be carried by one man), the construction time of his new temples was cut perhaps by one-third. In the 1960s, the Akhenaten Temple Project,undertaken by a group of archaeologists, painstakingly sorted the blocks of the dismantled temples, photographed them, and made a computer record of each one. They could not rebuild the temple, but they managed to match photos of the blocks to re-create scenes carved on the walls. At Karnak Temple, the ruins of four Aten temples have been identified. Gem-pa-aten (“The Aten Is Found”) is the largest of the newer sun temples, with several open-air courtyards for making offerings to the Aten. Instructions for the priests were inscribed on the walls of the temples. One inscription lists the offerings to be made to the Aten each day: “the gods offering which His Majesty laid down for his father [the Aten] as an offering list for every day on the


altar of Re . . .” The list included 40 loaves each of bit-bread and pisn-bread, 87 loaves of other bread, 33 jugs of beer, a quantity of pigeons, incense, vegetables, and milk. The smaller temples presumably had similar instructions for daily offerings. They were named Rudmenu (“Enduring in Monuments”), Tenimenu (“Exalted in Monuments”), and Hutbenben (“Mansions of the Benben Stone”).

sycAMorE trEE

After a few years, Akhenaten moved his court from the capital city Thebes (modern Luxor) to a desolate spot in the desert, some 200 miles to the north. There, Akhenaten established his city, Akhet-Aten (modern Amarna), and built open-air sun temples for the worship of the Aten. The Great Aten Temple, Gem-pa-aten, was the center of all official ceremonies pertaining to the Aten. There was a smallerchapel for family use near the palace. The Great Temple was surrounded by a rectangular temenos wall and was one of the only buildings in the city to be faced with white limestone—everything else was built of mud brick and covered with plaster. Inside the temple courtyard were mud brick altars—365 for offerings from Upper Egypt and 365 for offerings from Lower Egypt. Each day vegetables, fruits, breads, ducks, geese, and beef—products from the north and the south—were piled on the altars and offered to the Aten. After a time the food was removed and distributed among the priests and workmen. One curious change occurred at the Great Aten Temple. The age-old sacred benben stone, associated with the sun god Re at Heliopolis, was replaced with

round-topped stelae resting


on a base. Carved on the stele are scenes of the royal family bowing down to the Aten. Scenes on an Amarna tomb wall show the benben having been destroyed and replaced with a tall, round-topped stele. It seems that the stele became a focus of devotion in the great Aten temple after the benben was discarded.

SycAmore tree (ficus sycoMorus) Symbolizing the goddesses Hathor and Nut, the sycamore tree is important in both mythology and religion. Trees are rare in Egypt, and the sycamore offered a cool resting spot in the desert. A large tree with dense foliage and a small, sweet fruit, the sycamore was considered magical and was sacred to the goddesses. An ancient tree cult thrived in the capital city of Memphis, where Hathor’s titletree that the evil snake god Apep was killed by the sun god Re, who changed himself into a cat. To commemorate this victory over evil, branches of the sacred sycamore tree drooped down to form a shelter for the souls of the dead when they journeyed to the Netherworld. Nut offered them food and water while they rested in the shade of the holy tree. Today a sycamore tree in Heliopolis at Matariya is believed by many to have been the resting place of the holy family during their flight into Egypt. The Bible says the holy family took shelter under a sycamore in Egypt during their journey and that Jesus created a well and blessed it so they could drink from it.

T 8
tAniS
A northern cult center


for Amun, Tanis was the royal residence and burial place of the Twentyfirst and Twenty-second Dynasty kings (1069–747 b.c.), surrounded by a large enclosure wall that also included a sacred pool and a temple to Horus. Because of the large number of statue pieces and material inscribed for Ramses II found at Tanis, some early Egyptologists thought this was the site of Pi-Ramses, the ancient capital city mentioned in the Bible. Modern excavations have so far found nothing to indicate that Tanis was the ancient Pi-Ramses. Scholars believe the statues of Ramses II were moved to Tanis by the Twenty-first and Twenty-second Dynasty kings to decorate their temples.

tAuret (also taweret, thoeris) A household deity, Tauret the pregnant hippopotamus goddess was the patron of pregnant women. She assisted inchildbirth and watched over young children. Because of her calm nature and kindly disposition, she was a favorite household goddess. Amulets in the shape of the goddess were produced by the hundreds and worn by pregnant women. Small figurines of Tauret were frequently kept in household shrines. It was thought that her fierce appearance—the head of a hippopotamus, the arms and legs of a feline, the tail of a crocodile, and long pendulous breasts—would ward off any evil spirits and keep the women and children of the house safe. Stone vases were carved in her image with a perforation at one of her nipples so that milk could be poured from the vase while magical spells were recited to cure children stung by scorpions. Her name means “the


great one” and her attribute is the sa sign, a protective sign in the shape of a papyrus life preserver used by sailors, held in her left paw. The Greek writer Plutarch says she was the concubine of the evil god Set but that she eventually deserted him for Horus the falcon god.

Tauret, the pregnant hippopotamus, was the goddess of childbirth. (Drawing by Mary Jordan)

The goddess of weaving and patroness of weavers, Tayet is associated with bandages and especially with bandaging of mummies. Utterance 81 in the Pyramid Texts calls to her: “Thou awakest in peace, The goddess Tayet awakes in peace, Tayet awakes—two rolls of linen—in peace.”

tAyet

tEfnut
When Tayet was shown with Osiris, she was called Isis-Tayet and prepared bandages for the mummy. In the myth of Sinuhe,the pharaoh invites Sinuhe, an Egyptian living abroad, to come home to Egypt. He reminds Sinuhe of the importance of a proper funeral on Egyptian soil, saying that after Sinuhe’s death there will be a night of unguents and “wrappings from the hand of Tayet,” referring to her skill at bandaging. Tayet was the goddess of the Akmin nome in Upper Egypt (south). large rectangle about the length of two football fields with four walls and no roof. Inside were rows of offering tables, one for each day of the year, at which the Aten received daily food offerings. The new “open-air” temple did have one similarity to the old Theban temples: massive entrance pylons like those in front of Karnak and Luxor temples. The other temples to


the Aten varied only slightly in design, and some were smaller. Akhenaten vowed never to leave his city and remained there until his death in about year 17 of his reign. One of the most important archaeological discoveries of Tell el Amarna was the new art style that Akhenaten initiated in his city. In 1824, John Gardiner Wilkinson, an early British archaeologist, traveled to Tell el Amarna and found the remains of the ancient city. Among the ruins, he discovered that the art, the paintings, wall carvings, and sculpture were different from any other in Egypt. The royal family appeared to be deformed, with wide hips, sagging bellies, drooping breasts, long and spindly arms and legs, and elongated heads. It was also at Tell el Amarna that oneof the most beautiful portraits in the world was discovered, the famous bust of Nefertiti, Akhenaten’s queen.

tefnut

The personification of life-giving dew, Tefnut was the goddess of moisture. Her tears, when they fell to Earth, caused incense plants to thrive and grow. In the Heliopolitan Ennead, Tefnut and her brother-husband, Shu, were the children of Atum, the primeval god who created himself. They were born of his semen or his spittle and were so close that they shared one soul. They were the parents of Geb the earth god and Nut the sky goddess. As the mother of Nut, Tefnut helped her support the sky, and together they greeted the sun as it rose each day in the east. In the Memphis creation myth, Tefnut is called the “tongue


of Ptah,” who created the universe by speaking it into existence. In other myths Tefnut is associated with the left eye of Horus and the Eye of Re. In later myths she is said to have married Thoth.

tem

See Atum.

tell

el AmArnA Modern name for the remote desert site of the ancient city Akhet-Aten, “the horizon of the Aten.” The pharaoh Akhenaten built the new capital city when he changed the religion of ancient Egypt from the worship of many gods to the worship of one, the Aten. Akhenaten selected virgin territory for his new capital, unsullied by shrines and temples for other gods. Initially, perhaps a thousand people followed him into the desert, and they camped along the Nile while the city was being built. The plan of thecity was dictated by the geography; the Nile was on the west and the cliffs were on the east. The land between was a crescent about three miles wide and six miles long, and a royal road ran through the center. The royal residence and several temples dedicated to the Aten dominated the city. A private temple, the “Castle of the Aten,” situated near the palace provided a sanctuary where the royal family worshipped privately and were rejuvenated by the rays of the Aten. Unlike traditional Egyptian temples, in which an open courtyard led to a succession of small, dark rooms, the Great Aten Temple was a

temenoS An ancient Greek word meaning “sacred space,” the temenos is the area that encloses a temple and adjacent buildings associated with


the temple. It separates the sacred precinct of the gods from the mundane world. Excavations of Egypt’s earliest temples revealed a temenos wall surrounding the space belonging to the gods. As Egyptian religion became more complex, auxiliary buildings like the mammisi, sacred lake, and purification kiosks were added to the temple complex in order to perform the new rituals honoring the gods. Priests purified themselves with Nile water in the sacred lake or in a purification kiosk before entering the temple, and the elaborate processions honoring the gods assembled in the temenos. Archaeological excavations of First Dynasty temples at Abydos have shown that early temenos walls were not substantial and were built with unbaked mud bricks. Later additions to the temple reveal mud brick walls up to 30feet thick, with entrances to the temenos made of fine stone. Temenos walls were often decorated with battle scenes, mythological stories, and hieroglyphic inscriptions.

thEbEs

templeS Ancient Egyptian temples were dedicated to a particular god, with chapels dedicated to other gods in the same temple. Temples were, for the most part, dark and mysterious places that were closed to the public. Each temple had three main sections, one leading into another. The first was an open courtyard where commoners could come and pay their respects to the gods on feast days. The second room was usually roofed and was reserved for the nobility when they came to make offerings at the temple. The inner room was called the holy of holies and was reserved for the priests. Inside each holy


and the four corners of the temple were determined by the location of four stars in the sky. This was done with the king’s help, and the king also oversaw the digging of the four corner foundations. When the four ceremonial bricks had been molded from mud and straw, the king placed them in the ground and covered them with sand. This represented the primordial soil that was the base for every temple. Ha, the god of the western desert, presided over the difficult task of transporting the virgin sand. Foundation deposits—small, magical objects made of clay, faience, gold, silver, copper, iron, and stone, including small plaques inscribed with the name of the king—were placed in the foundations. Once these rituals had been faithfully performed, the construction ofTenen was the symbol for the rich Nile silt that emerged when the river receded after the inundation. His name means “illustrious Earth.” He is represented as a man with two plumes and rams’ horns on his head. Sometimes his skin is painted green, symbolizing his connection with vegetation. Originating in Memphis, Tenen was soon associated with Ptah in his manifestation as a creator god. See knot of Isis.

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thebAn recenSion

Copies of the Book of the Dead written when Thebes was the religious capital of Egypt are called the Theban Recension. During the New Kingdom (1550–1069 b.c.), when all of the prayers, rituals, and incantations that make up the Book of the Dead were compiled, there was little attempt to organize the material. When scribes made copies of the