E | Religion and the Afterlife |
Temple at Luxor
The ancient Egyptian temple at Luxor on the east bank of the Nile River was built to honor the gods. Begun in the 1200s bc, it was added to by each succeeding dynasty. The use of colossal statues and obelisks was a standard for all Egyptian temples at that time. This temple was connected to the temple at Al Karnak by a street about 3.5 km (2 mi) long, lined with hundreds of sphinxes. Once a year the image of the god Amon was transported by barge from Al Karnak to Luxor, as part of a huge festival.
Bernard Cox/Bridgeman Art Library, London/New York
Excavations of ancient settlements have uncovered traces of religious practices and beliefs in Egypt from as early as 6000 bc. Some sites near the modern border between Egypt and Sudan include areas that were devoted to rituals and festivals, as well as sections for burials. Little is known about the early religious practices and beliefs. Graves of cattle have been found, indicating some degree of veneration of those animals. Human graves dating to Predynastic times include artifacts, weapons, vessels, and other materials. The inclusion of these objects in graves indicates a belief in some type of afterlife during which the items would be put to use.
By the time Egypt was unified, the early religious practices had developed into a formal religion involving the worship of many gods and goddesses. The environment played a significant role in shaping the nature of the deities the Egyptians worshiped. Their gods and goddesses took the form of humans, animals, or combinations of humans and animals. These forms represented the forces of nature and the elements of the Egyptians’ physical world. By picturing the natural powers as recognizable entities and creating mythological stories about them, the Egyptians tried to reach an understanding of the complicated interactions within their universe.
Egyptian Mummy
The ancient Egyptians are believed to be the first people to practice embalming, in which a dead body is artificially preserved to retard the decaying process. The Egyptians believed that it was necessary to preserve a body in order to allow the soul to survive. Ancient embalming methods included covering the dead body with carbonate of soda and injecting natural substances such as balsamic herbs into its cavities before wrapping the corpse with cloths, creating a mummy. Today embalmers use prepared chemical substances to preserve a body for funereal viewing and to prevent the spread of infection.
C. Canet/Liaison Agency
The deities of ancient Egypt can be organized into several groups, but the boundaries are not fixed, and some deities may belong to several groups. Some of the divinities associated with aspects of the Sun were Ra, Horus, Atum, and Khepri. Those identified with the Moon were Thoth and Khonsu. Geb was associated with the Earth. Nut was the goddess of the sky. Shu and Tefnut were identified with the air and moisture. Osiris and Isis were the rulers of the underworld. Many of these deities were also part of myths of creation, of which there are several versions. Each story has a primary deity, such as Amun, Ptah, Atum, or Khnum, as well as several lesser divinities. Amon and Ra became combined into a composite form, Amon-Ra. As king of the gods, Amon-Ra was revered on a national basis. A few other deities also attained this status. Most, however, had a local origin and were worshiped only in the provincial area where they originated. The concept of order and balance, Maat, had as its counterpart Seth, who personified chaos and disorder. A large group, including Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, Selket, Anubis, and Thoth, fell into the class of funerary deities, who figured prominently in funerary rituals. In addition, on a more individual level, there were local, personal, and household gods, and even patron deities for certain professions. Deities of foreign origin were sometimes included among the Egyptian gods. See also Egyptian Mythology.
Section of the Egyptian Book of the Dead
The Egyptian Book of the Dead was a text containing prayers, spells, and hymns, the knowledge of which was to be used by the dead to guide and protect the soul on the hazardous journey through the afterlife. Beginning in the 18th Dynasty, the Book of the Dead was inscribed on papyrus. This section of one such book, from the early 19th Dynasty, shows the final judgment of the deceased (in this case Hu-Nefer, the royal scribe) before Osiris, god of the dead. Hieroglyphs as well as illustrations portray the ritual of weighing the deceased’s heart to determine whether he can be awarded eternal life.
Bridgeman Art Library, London/New York
Statues and other images of the deities represented the abstract powers of the gods in concrete form. The ancient Egyptians believed that their gods occasionally resided in the statues. They maintained that the essence of a god could inhabit a statue and then a ritual could complete the process of animating the image. Such a ritual would include recitation of sacred text and all sorts of attention paid to the statue, such as cleansing, dressing, feeding, and anointing.
In the temple the king was in theory the high priest. In practice, his participation in temple rituals occurred primarily on specific festivals, while the priests performed the daily obligations at other times. Ordinary people had immediate access to their personal gods, but they could not enter the temple at will. However, many Egyptians served as lay priests in the temple when they were not working in the fields. During their service as lay priests, they could enter certain areas of the temple. On some holidays, such as the Feast of the Valley, a portable shrine housing the image of a deity was paraded around outside the confines of the temple at Thebes. The people could then express their piety.
Religion permeated life in ancient Egypt. Many of the daily activities of the people related in some way to their beliefs. The afterlife and preparations for it are a good example. To achieve eternal life after death, an individual had to do many things while he or she existed in this world. One of the most important was to live a just and moral life. In addition, some practical preparations were necessary, including making and furnishing a tomb, providing appropriate tomb decorations and texts, and establishing a mortuary cult to guarantee perpetual care and offerings. After death, the individual had to be carefully preserved as a mummy. Mummification was a process performed by an embalmer, who would carefully remove the internal organs, subject the body to different ointments and resins, dry it out with salts, and then wrap it with linen. Amulets, or charms, were often interspersed among the layers of linen, and other amulets might be placed in the coffin along with the mummy. Magical texts were sometimes written on the wrappings themselves, and they could also be written on papyri or inscribed on the walls of the coffin or of the tomb. These texts served as protection and as a guide for the deceased on the way to and in the afterlife.
