Geb Egyptian God of Earth

Perhaps the best known activity of Shu and Tefnut was to give birth to two children, Geb and Nut; Shu was then responsible for separating the two and creating fro them the earth and sky. Geb was the god of the earth. The coffin Texts told of Ra's boredom the chief god complained he had been too long at leisure, and had grown weary of it:" If the earth were alive,"Ra thought, "it would cheer my heart and enliven my bosom." so the earth was created both to make Ra's life more interesting and to give him a place to rest when he became weary.

The usual depiction of Geb was as a male figure wearing on his head either the white crown of Lower Egypt or a goose. The goose was his sign and he was known in the Book of the Dead as the Great Cackler.
Since he was the god of the earth, which was known as "the house of Geb," he was involved with life on the surface and with death beneath. On the earth's surface he was responsible for trees,plants and seeds that put their roots into his soil. Beneath the ground he was responsible for dead bodies buried in tombs. Since he was intimate with the dead, he was shown in many papyri as one of the gods sitting in judgment when the heart of the deceased was weighed on the scales before Anubis and Thoth .

On one occasion Ra called Geb before him to complain that the snakes of the earth were causing him trouble. As they came from Geb's territory, they were his responsibility, and Geb was ordered to keep a watch over the snakes and inform the other gods of their plans and activities. Ra promised Geb help in this matter, in the form of spells and charms for people intelligent enough to make use of them to draw the snakes out if their holes in the earth. The assumption must be that Geb did as he was commanded since nothing else seems to have been said on the subject.

Much of Geb's fame lay in the children he fathered , since his offspring were to become the next generation of powerful gods. he and Nut produced, as we have seen, Osiris, Isis , Seth , and Nephthys, the gods who were to rule over the earth, skies , and underworld. A hymn to Osiris described the manner in which Geb turned over the rule of the earth to his son: Geb " assigned to ( the leadership of the lands for the good of affairs. he put this land in his hand, its water, its air, its verdure , all its herds , all things that fly, all things that flutter, its reptiles , its game if the desert, legally conveyed to the son of Nut. " later , when Osiris was confronted by enemies and in serious trouble, his father came to his aid.

The Pyramid Texts tell us that Geb put his foot on the head of Osiris' enemy , who then retreated2a . Another document placed Geb in the conflict between Horus ( his grandson ) and Seth ( his son). he tried ti separate his warring heirs and assigned Upper Egypt to Seth and Lower Egypt to Horus, but he made it clear in a speech before the Great Ennead that he was giving the choice territory ti Horus because he was the son of Geb's first-born and therefore very dear to him.

Geb and Nut were accorded no temple of their own, though Geb was apportioned parts of major temples, such as the one a Dendera. Most likely he was chiefly worshiped at Heliopolis where he was the ground in which the temple to Ra was built. In the Tutankhamun collection at the Egyptian Museum, there is gilded wooden statue of Geb that had been placed in the tomb to protect the Boy-King.

Amun King of Gods Facts

Like Ra, his peer from the north, Amun was identified as the sun god who created the universe and was the source of all life. In his most elemental form he can be found in the creation myth of Hermopolis (see Chapter Ten, “Thoth and Maat”), where he and his female partner, Amunet, represented the air, as two of the group of gods who gave shape to the world. Eventually Nun, the primeval ocean, was absorbed into the concept of Amun, perhaps (in the view of Siegfried Morenz) because the people preferred a system of creation in which there was both a specific act of creation and a divine figure, such as Amun, responsible for it.

As a national god, Amun was believed to have important political duties as protector of the king and guarantor of success against enemies. A fragment from the period of the Ramesside kings tells of the earlier attempts of the Hyksos king Apohis to disrupt the empire of the Theban ruler Seknenre (the entire manuscript was perhaps intended to advance Amun-Ra’s prestige). Apohis, a follower of Seth, observed that Seknenre relied only on Amun-Ra, king of the gods, and he designed a test of the god s power and willingness to protect his prince. Apohis sent a messenger to Seknenre complaining that the nightly noises of the hippopotamuses in a nearby canal kept him awake and he asked the king to see that he got some sleep. Unfortunately the king’s solution to the problem was lost along with the rest of the manuscript, but Amun’s responsibilities for his earthly kingdom are clear.

Further evidence of the belief in the bountiful grace of Amun toward the king is found in the story of “The Taking of Jopp3’ 

from the reign of Thutraose III. Earlier the king had defeated Joppa (modern Jaffa), but later the city rose up in rebellion. Thutmose sent his general Djehuty to retake the city, and the general arranged to parley with the rebel leader outside the city. Once alone with the rebel, Djehuty took his king’s cane, which he had brought into battle, and smote the man on the forehead while testifying aloud that Thutmose’s strength came from Amun. Once the leader had been captured, Djehuty set about taking the city. He deceivingly sent word to the city that Djehuty had fallen and was delivering tribute. Djehuty’s soldiers then hid in two hundred baskets that were to be taken to the city as peace offerings.

Once brought inside the city, the men escaped from the baskets and quickly subdued the rebels (the ruse of hiding soldiers inside a present is here about two centuries older than the story of the Trojan horse). Djehuty then sent his king a message that gave Amun credit for the victory: “Be of good cheer! For Amun, y0ur good father, has given to you the rebel of Joppa and all his people, as well as his city. Send men to take them away as captives that you may fill the house of your father Amun-Ra, King of the Gods, with male and female slaves, who have fallen beneath your feet forever.”

Amun was usually depicted as a ram with curved horns, a man with a ram’s head, or a man with two upright plumes as a headpiece. Herodotus explained how this association with the ram came about in a myth that also explained the meaning of the name Amun-the “Hidden One.” The Greek traveler claimed that the Egyptians had told him a story in which Khons wanted to see what his father looked like, but Amun was reluctant to grant this special favor even to his own son. Amun had heretofore hidden his appearance from everyone, but when Khons persisted with his request, Amun devised a trick to satisfy the son and still not reveal all his secrets. He skinned a ram and cut off its head. Just before showing himself to Khons, he covered himself with the skin and put the ram’s head in front of his own face. All the young god saw was the likeness of a ram. According to Herodotus, this myth explained why Egyptians revered and refused to sacrifice the ram, except once a year when, in celebration of this story, they killed one ram and used the skin to clothe a statue of Amun just before it was revealed to a statue of Khons.

According to the famous Harris Papyrus from the reign of Ramesses III, an inventory of Amun’s great wealth listed “5,000 divine statues, more than 81,000 slaves, vassals, and servants, well over 421,000 head of cattle, 433 gardens and orchards, 691,334 acres of land, 83 ships, 46 building yards, and 65 cities and towns.” Obviously this wealth could have been accumulated only by a god of wide influence. Possibly as a result of Amun’s association with the air and wind, he came to be seen as the patron o mariners; he was the “pilot who knows the water.” A hymn told 0f Amun’s great power on the waters-even the crocodile feared the mention of his name. His aid to mariners extended to help for all in distress, and Amun gained wide respect as the god to whom anyone could turn for assistance. As a result he was worshipped by king and commoners alike; he was a national god and a personal god at the same time. Connected with this concept was the idea that he controlled the lifespan of individuals. He could lengthen or shorten a life, and was known to give additional years to those he loved

Egyptian Bastet Goddess

Bastet ( Ancient Egyptian Goddess )
Bastet was on of the ancient Egyptian Goddess in 2nd Dynasty , scholar use this name today to refer to feline goddess .

• Ancient Egyptian God : Bastet
• Other Name : Baast , Bast, Ubasti and Baset
• The Symbols : The sistrum , The lioness and The cat
• Bastet's Parents : Atum and Ra

The particular Egyptian cat-headed goddess, Bastet had been strictly a solar deity till the particular arrival of Greek influence on Egyptian society, whenever she was a lunar goddess due to the actual Greeks associating her alongside their Artemis. Dating within the 2nd Dynasty (roughly 2890-2686 BCE), Bastet had been primarily portrayed as either a wild desert cat and / or as a lioness, not to mention only turned into associated with all the domesticated feline about 1000 BCE. She had been commonly paired with Sakhmet, the particular lion-headed goddess of Memphis, Wadjet, and Hathor. Bastet ended up being the "Daughter of Ra", a designation that placed her within the exact same ranks because such goddesses because Maat and Tefnut. In addition, Bastet was one of several "Eyes of Ra", the actual title of an "avenger" god whom typically is sent out specifically with lay waste to the particular enemies of Egypt and also her gods.


Bastet
The cult of Bastet ended up being centered throughout Bubastis (positioned within the delta area, near modern- day Zagazig) from at least the actual 4th Dynasty. Within the Late Period Bubastis had been the particular capital of Egypt for a dynasty, not to mention a very few kings took her identity into their royal titles. Bubastis was created famous by the actual traveler Herodotus within the 4th century BCE, whenever he described with regard to his annals among the festivals that occurs within honor of Bastet. Excavations with regard to the ruins of Tell-Basta (the particular previous Bubastis) come with yielded lots of discoveries, including a graveyard with mummified holy pets.


Because the Greeks equated Bastet alongside Diana and even Artemis and additionally Horus alongside Apollo, Bastet was adopted into the particular Osiris-Isis myth because their daughter (this particular association, but bear in mind, had been never earned previous to be able to the particular arrival of Hellenistic influence on Egypt). She is actually reported to be able to become the mother associated with the lion-headed god Mihos (whom ended up being in addition worshipped within Bubastis, along with Thoth). She is depicted the majority of commonly because a female with the head of the domesticated and / or wild cat or alternatively lion, or alternatively because a cat itself.

Hapi God the Nile

Mythologies from most ancient cultures were often concerned with nature’s renewal, from the daily reappearance of the sun, to the coming of spring or the flood, to the replacement of the king at his death, to the achievement of the afterlife. The continuation of life was of great importance to early people and the mysteries of renewal became the catalysts of many basic myths. Egyptian mythology was rich in gods and myths associated with renewal, and the various forms of the sun god, the survival of Osiris, and the concepts of kingship were all manifestations of it. Three additional gods were closely connected with fertility, and each in his own way illustrated some aspects of rejuvenation.

From the border south of Abu Simbel, through the cataracts near Aswan, north toward Cairo and the sea, the river Nile flows through Egypt for over a thousand miles. The river has brought life to the desert and created a thin strip of green that provides water and food to millions of Egyptians and their animals. The source of all Egyptian life, the Nile was also the source of great mystery: where did it begin? What made it flood each year? What determined how high the waters would rise? It is not surprising, therefore, that this great and mysterious river would be the source °f much mythology. From almost the beginning of human life along the river, it played a role in religion and mythology; that role took its most concrete form in the personification of the river as the god Hapi. 

In this poem Hapi was compared with Ptah and, later, with Khnum because the poet thought of all three as creation gods who brought life to the earth. Since both humans and the land receive nourishment for life from the river, Hapi was said to be so important that if he were somehow to fail, all the gods would fall from heaven and all people would die.

Hapi was thought to live in a cavern in the region of the first cataract from which the waters flowed, and the annual flood was called “the arrival of Hapi.” The god was depicted as a man with long hair and the heavy breasts of an old woman. This androgynous form combined the male and female life-producing forces. Actually there was a Hapi of the southern river and another for the northern river. The one from the south wore a headpiece of a clump of lotus flowers; the northern one wore papyrus flowers- When the two were depicted as a single god, he would carry both flowers as a sign of the union of Upper and Lower Egypt; wall carvings knotting the flowers together are also often seen.

Because Hapi was the Nile and the river brought food, many other gods were associated with him. A hymn to Ra claimed that the sun god created the river, supposedly at the same time as he save shape to the watery abyss. In the Coffin Texts Hapi referred to himself as “the Primeval One of Earth.” This text made Hapi coeval with Nun, the watery abyss that existed at the beginning, and early in Egyptian mythology Hapi assumed the attributes of run. In addition, the story of Osiris connects the river to the great Sod of vegetation. It was on the waters of Hapi that Osiris floated Until Isis found the pieces and took them to be reunited.

Primarily, Hapi was thought of as the source of food. In the Pyramid Texts he was to provide the food King Unas needed in the next life. There is also a prayer to the god of the river asking him to provide the grains that will nourish the king.

By the time of the Coffin Texts, the concept of Hapi had been more fully developed. There was a spell intended to assist the recently dead soul in attaining the attributes of Hapi

Khnum Egyptian God Facts

The chief god in the mythology of Elephantine Island in the Nile at Aswan was Khnum God, who headed his own triad. He was the god of the cataract region, which included the sources of the Nile guarded by Hapi. There is evidence in the Pyramid Texts that he had been known long before the time of those writings, but no one knows for sure just how long he had been worshipped- Apparently he came to be known as a creator god rather late, but he survived until two or three centuries after Christ. He was rep resented on monuments as a man with a ram’s head, holding scepter and ankh. Often the white crown of Upper Egypt was on his head, and sometimes the crown was decorated with plumes, disk, or cobras. Occasionally a jug of water, representing the Nile, rested over his ram’s horns.

Like most chief gods, he was later considered a creator. His followers thought that on his potter’s wheel he molded an egg from which sprang the sun. Wall carvings at various temples in the Luxor area show him sitting at his potter’s wheel on which he is fashioning a child; he was thought of as the master craftsman who molded children out of clay and then implanted them as a seed in their mother’s womb. In this manner he was considered the “father of fathers and the mother of mothers.” It was said he created the gods in a similar manner.

Khnum God was thought to be the combination of the forces that made up the entire world; he was Ra, the sun; Shu, the air; Osiris, the underworld; and Geb, the earth-all wrapped up in one figure. In this form he was represented as a man with four ram’s heads.

A Ptolemaic inscription preserves for us an interesting myth about Khnum’s role in a seven-year drought that must have been an old story when it was finally written down. The story supposedly took place during the reign of a king of the Third Dynasty,

Khnum Egyptian God fashioning a human and double on this potter's wheel possibly Djoser, who became increasingly concerned about the drought that plagued his country year after year without relief for seven years the Nile had failed to rise enough to flood sufficient land to grow the needed crops, and so the king sent a message to the governor of the south, inquiring about the source of the Nile. On being told that its waters, the source of all good things, came from a double cavern, which was compared to twin breasts, the king decided to visit the Nile god who watched over the river and emerged at the time of the flood. The gatekeeper of the flood was Khnum God, who guarded the doors that kept the water in and then, at the right moment, threw open the doors to let the floods loose on the land.

The king went to Elephantine Island and made proper sacrifices to Khnum God who then appeared in front of the royal visitor from the north: “I am Khnum God,” he said, “the Creator. My hands rest upon you to protect your person and to make your body sound. I gave you your heart... I am he who rises at his will to give health to those who toil. I am the guide and director of all mortals, the almighty, the father of the gods, Shu, the mighty possessor of the earth.” The god went on to complain that no one took care to keep his shrine in good repair even though there were plenty of stones in the neighborhood to use in the work. The king promised that this wrong would be corrected, and the god promised in return that the Nile would once again rise every year as it had in the old days. The king ordered a tax to be levied annually on local produce and the proceeds applied to the maintenance of priesthood for Khnum God (dare we now speculate that the entire myth was made up by latter-day king and priests, who conspired to raise a tax and needed justification?). It must be assumed that both king and god kept their promises.

The triad of Elephantine was completed by two goddesses associated with fertility. Satis was Khnum’s consort, giver of the waters used in the rituals of purification of the dead. Called dis penser of cool water coming from Elephantine,” she was 1st associated with Isis and Hathor. Her sister Anuket was the third member of the triad. The name of this human-shaped goddess meant “to embrace,” and she was possibly the goddess of lust.

Khons God of Youth

Khons Ancient Egyptian God of Youth and the Moon
The son of Mut and Amun was Khons God, whose name probably meant “to travel, to move about, to run.” Although Amun was sometimes referred to as the Traveler, it was his son who was assigned duties as the messenger of the gods. He was associated with Thoth, who also served as a divine messenger at times, and because of this connection, Khons God was thought of as a god of the moon. In one of his forms he caused the crescent moon to shine upon the earth. In this capacity he helped women conceive children; cattle become fertile, and filled the nostrils and throats of living creatures with the air of life.

The typical representation of Khons God showed him as a man with the head of a falcon, and often on his head he wore a lunar disk sitting in the crescent moon. One of the more interesting representations of him was as a man with double falcons’ heads, on for the sun and the other for the moon. He had four vulture wings and stood on the heads of a pair of crocodiles.

The priests of ancient Egypt used numerous devices to encourage belief in the gods and maintain a steady flow of offering. One such practice was the oracle, through which the god spoke words of wisdom to supplicating humans who came for advice.

At Kom Ombo, for instance, one can see an underground tunnel used by the priests to transmit the voice of the “god” from the inner sanctuary, where no one but the high priest went, to the front where the supplicant awaited the god’s message. Carvings on a stone stele tell of a similar device used to enhance the power of Khons God . The form of Khons God involved in this myth was known as Khons God Neferhetep, who was supposed to have complete power over the evil spirits of the air who caused pain, sickness, and death.

There was a distant country called Bekhten that lay so far from Egypt the journey there took seventeen months, but even so, the Prince of Bekhten married his eldest daughter to the king of Egypt, thereby creating special ties between the two countries. Some time later the prince himself paid a visit to the court in Thebes and told the king that his younger daughter, the sister of Sypts queen, was seriously ill. None of the treatments prescribed in Bekhten had been effective and the prince asked that an Egyptian physician be sent to treat the girl. When the physic-arrived, he discovered that his patient was under the influence of an evil spirit, and since his medicine had no effect n the spirit, he eventually admitted defeat. The prince then returned to Thebes to ask for new assistance.

When the king of Egypt heard the details of the problem, he went to the temple of Khons God Neferhetep and prayed: “0 my fair lord, I have come once again to pray to you on behalf of the daughter of the prince of Bekhten.” The king begged the god Khons God himself to go to the country to deal with this extraordinary illness: “Grant that your magical power may go with him and let me send his divine majesty into Bekhten to deliver the daughter of the prince of that land from the power of the demon.”

This prayer was made in front of a statue of Khons God Neferhetep, and on the stele it is recorded that the god nodded twice to give his consent. Apparently the statue was rigged by the priests in such a manner as to permit the head to nod-at their command, of course when the answer to the request was to be positive. When the answer was negative, the statue probably sat there, still as stone. On this occasion, the statue nodded its assent and was asked to transfer magical powers to a second statue that would then act as a god and travel to cure the girl. It was believed that a god could transfer his power to a statue that represented him, and the statue of Khons God   Neferhetep was probably equipped so that when a statue of Khons God was brought near, the first statue-with priestly assistance-could lift an arm and give divine blessing to the second statue.

Assured of Khons God Neferhetep’s power, Khons God left on the long trip to Bekhten. He went straight to the sick room where the princess suffered and soon used his magical powers to drive the evil spirit from her body: the girl arose cured. Moreover, the evil spirit was so impressed by Khons’ powers, that he surrendered easily and volunteered to return to his own land without creating problems. He did ask before taking his leave, however, to sit with Khons God at a feast given in their honor by the prince of Bekhten- This was arranged: god, demon, and prince spent a pleasant day in each other’s company. Afterward the demon went home as had promised.

When the prince saw the power of Khons God , he determined to keep the god in Bekhten as long as possible and did, in fact, persuade him to stay for three years, four months, and five days. Eventually the god became ready to return home and flew out of his shrine in the form of a golden falcon. The prince then sent back to Thebes Khons’ chariot full of gifts for the Egyptians who had saved his daughter’s life. These presents were taken to the temple and laid at the foot of Khons God Neferhetep, who was thereafter worshipped as the god “who could perform mighty deeds and miracles and vanquish the demons of darkness.”

The chief shrine for the worship of Khons God was inside the complex of the Temple of Karnak. Ramesses III began the Temple of Khons God there and it was finished by his successors. Its wall carvings show the various kings responsible for the temple as they worship Khons God and his parents.

Maat Goddess of Truth and Justice

Maat was perhaps the least mythological of the Egyptian gods because she was the visual form given to a philosophical concept. Her physical form was a woman carrying the ankh and scepter, and she was most readily identified by the feather she wore on her head. No one knows for sure the origin of her association with the feather, usually described as an ostrich feather, but somehow the ethereal qualities of the feather seem well suited to a goddess of her characteristics. It has been suggested that the feather became her symbol because it is equally balanced along each side of the quill, suggesting the fine judgment required of a goddess who sat to judge truth in the trial of the dead.

The philosophical quality that the goddess represented was also known as Maat and our loose translation is “truth,” but no single word will suffice to explain all that was indicated by the concept. Maat was the key to the Egyptian view of ethical behavior for humans while alive and of divine behavior in the judging of souls after death. As Siegfried Morenz has further explained: “Maat is right order in nature and society, as established by the act of creation, and hence means, according to the context, what is right, what is correct, law, order, justice, and truth. Maat was a guide to the correct attitude one should take to others.

In its simplest form, Maat was represented as an early hieroglyphic made up of intersecting straight lines, which stood for the king’s throne, suggesting that his decisions rested on Maat.

The name probably translated originally as “that which is straight.” The nineteenth-century American romantic Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his essay “Nature” that one of the uses of nature is to provide metaphors for moral behavior. This is just what seems to have happened with Maat. Straightness, which is a physical, geometric term, was perceived as symbolic of moral rectitude and then made visible in the hieroglyphic symbol used to indicate the concept. Straightness implies order, and the presence of Maat stamped order on chaos at the moment of creation.

As Morenz suggested, when looking at ancient religions, one is always justified in asking whether belief in the gods carried implications for human moral and ethical behavior. In Egyptian religion and politics the answer for the concept of Maat was clearly yes; Maat reflected an attitude that order in law was influenced by truth and justice, and that respect for order, truth, and justice was required of those in positions of authority. In later periods, Egyptian judges hearing a case were expected to carry the feather as a sign of their dedication to the eternal principles of the concept. An ancient text proclaims of Maat: “Its good and its worth was to be lasting. It has not been disturbed since the day of its creation, whereas he who transgresses its ordinances is punished. Maat, then, represented, as E. A. Wallis Budge wrote, “the highest conception of physical and moral law and order known to the Egyptians.”

It was to embody this concept that the goddess Maat was conceived. She was the personification of truth and justice, but she was given only minimal human characteristics. She was more o^ a metaphor for this important quality than a “flesh and blood figure, as most other gods were. Her mythology says that she was supposed to have been the daughter of Ra and to have risen with him from the primeval waters at the moment of creation.

In other words, the moral concepts Maat represented were as primordial as Ra and the waters from which he created himself; and throughout Egyptian mythology her father was associated with her in order to explain his fairness. In the Coffin Texts there was a brief, curious myth that brought the two together. Ra was old and tired and asked Nun for advice. Nun told the chief god that he should bring Maat close to him and kiss her in order to gain renewed life and vitality. It was the Book of the Dead that said that Maat and Thoth stood beside Horus in Ra’s solar boat and set the course each day and that Ra “lives by Maat, the beautiful.” Budge thought this meant that Ra “lives by unchanging and eternal law and order.”

In her mythology Maat also played an important role in the underworld. During the trial of the deceased soul, Maat was Ways Present. In some drawings her feather sat on top of the ales to guarantee fairness, and the heart of the deceased was ways weighed on the balance against the feather. If the heart were found to balance perfectly with truth and justice-being neither too heavy nor too light for it the dead person was judged to

have passed the first test and to be nearing immortality. Then the deceased progressed to the Hall of Maat, or the Hall of Judgment in which he or she had to give forty-two denials of sin and identify the magical names of the various parts of the door. Maat supervised these activities and, if the deceased completed these tasks correctly, she certified that the soul was ready for admittance into the presence of Osiris for final acceptance.

Mut Goddess of Queens

Mut Egyptian Goddess 
Amun ’s consort at Thebes was Mut Goddess, whose name means “mother.” She was considered a great world mother who conceived all things and brought them into existence. She was usually drawn in the form of a woman, and she wore the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. In her hands she held a papyrus scepter and an ankh.

Mut Goddess was associated with the vulture, which indicated that she was a protective goddess; and the hieroglyphics for her name contained this bird. Often the vulture sits on her head under the double crown, but in the Book of Dead there is a drawing that probably represents Mut Goddess in which she stands with arms outstretched and covered with vulture’s wings. Beside her head are the heads of two vultures. The same chapter of the Book of the Dead associated her with dwarves, and it was said that she made souls and bodies strong and delivered them “from the abode of the fiends that is in the evil chamber.” She was also identified with Maat, and in some representations she was shown standing beside Maat’s plume.

The best-known seat of worship for Mut Goddess was her own temple at Karnak. Built about 1450 B.C. by Amenhotep III, this small temple today is in ruins, but at one time it was constructed around two inner courtyards, packed with over six hundred black granite statues of the goddess Sekhmet, and it was here that Ptah’s consort from Memphis was associated with her Theban counterpart. There were other shrines to Mut Goddess from Upper Egypt.

Nut Egyptian Goddess

Nut Goddess was almost always depicted as a woman with remarkable j physical proportions. Most of the drawings showed her nude, with j large breasts and detailed anatomy. Nut Goddess was pretty and appealing. If she wore any headdress, it was a vase of water, and her name derived from the phonetic sound of the word for vase. Sometimes she was shown standing in a sycamore tree, her symbol, pouring out water to purify the souls of the dead.

The myth that was basic to her explains her relationship with the sun. Nut Goddess was supposed to give birth daily to her son, the sun. He then passed over her body until he reached her mouth, whereupon she ate him, and he disappeared until it was time for him to be born again the next morning. This myth was frequently represented in Pharaonic ceiling paintings, such as that of the temple at Dendera or the tomb of Ramses VI at Luxor. Here she is shown nude; her limbs and trunk so extraordinarily long that her body covers in some paintings-the outline of three edges of the ceiling.

Her hands begin in one corner and her arms take up the length of one wall. The second and third wall-lengths are taken up by her body and legs respectively, with her feet reaching to the end of the third wall. The sun, in the form of a ball, is depicted rolling over her body from the point of birth to her mouth, where it was to be eaten. Elsewhere, Nut’s ceiling appearance is more symbolic: in the Pyramid of Unas at Saqqara it is made up of thousands of small stars, creating a sky-like background for the hieroglyphics, which form part of the Pyramid Texts.

Another version of this myth is again concerned with Nut Goddess eating her own children. This story tells how the stars followed Ra into the mouth of their mother, and thereby disappeared during the daytime. Geb became angry at the thought of his wife eating her own children and he quarreled with her, comparing her to “the sow that eats her piglets.” Her father, Shu, however, intervened and sent a message to Geb not to be angry. Shu insisted that the eating of the children each morning assured that they would be born again that evening and would therefore survive safely.

Nut Goddess was often connected with Hathor, the cow goddess. In one myth Ra had fallen into serious trouble with the residents of earth. Nun advised him to mount the back of Nut Goddess in her cow form and ride away through the sky to escape the anger of the humans. In typical drawings of this story, the boats of Ra can be seen beside her front legs where they join her body, and also to the rear beside her udder. Ra himself rides in the foremost of the two boats. Nut’s belly is lined with stars, and Shu stands under her supporting the sky. This one scene illustrates four different concepts of the sky held by ancient Egyptians: the woman, the cow, the ocean (through which the boats sail), and the ceiling over Shu that must be supported.

The Pyramid Texts were full of prayers to Nut Goddess to provide protection for the dead, since the gods flying daily through the sky in their boat were under her protection, as were the souls of the dead. As a sign of this role for Nut Goddess, many sarcophagi have her image carved on the undersides of their lids. While the dead person lies there eternally, he looks up at the personification of the sky. As a result, one of her many names was “the great protect tress.” Examples of this image of Nut Goddess can be found in both the Egyptian Museum and the British Museum.

Nut’s greatest role, however, was as the mother of the main body of gods in the Great Ennead. Myths told us that she and Geb, the earth, entered into an embrace each night; and the Pyramid Texts told us that the earth was an island that lay between the legs of Nut Goddess. The inevitable result was that she gave birth to the major gods of the next generation. For this Nut Goddess was known in the Coffin Texts as “she with the braided hair who gave birth to the gods.”!

In her capacity as the sky, the protector of men and gods, the ocean through which Ra made his daily journey, and the mother of the gods, Nut Goddess was one of the most highly revered of the Great Ennead. She was probably depicted in more different scenes and myths than any of the others, yet her personal power was small. She served and protected others more powerful than herself.

Sekhmet Egyptian Goddess

Sekhmet Egyptian Goddess

Ptah ’s consort, Sekhmet Goddess, was called the “Great Lady, beloved of Ptah, holy one, powerful one.” She was both wife and sister to Ptah, a common situation in Egyptian mythology. Usually she was depicted with the body of a woman and the head of a lioness. Her headpiece consisted of a solar disk, which associated her with the sun god, and a uraeus (or cobra), and she was often dressed in red. Her physical description and her name, which meant “to be strong, mighty, violent,” reflected her character: she was renowned for her violence and power. The Book of the Dead attributed her power to her use of the destructive forces of the sun s heat and also associated her with the hot winds of heaven. Other sources associated the hot winds of the desert with her breath.

Sekhmet Goddess was a goddess of war and accompanied the king into battle-her weapons were arrows, swift darts, and the fiery heat of her own body, which supposedly derived from the heat of the sun. She said of herself: “I am the fierce heat of the fire for a distance of Millions of cubits between Osiris and his enemy, and I keep away from him the evil ones and remove his foes from his habitation.”

Apparently her power was great enough not only to assist Osiris but at times to dominate even him according to the Book of the Dead, at the times of storms and great floods she had power even over the great god of the underworld.

Sekhmet’s father was said to have been Ra himself, and many of her attributes connected her with the sun god. In the early Egyptian writing she was often called the Eye of Ra, which was supposed to have represented the god when he was forced to take action against his enemies and was vindictive and fierce-the traditional evil eye. Judging from the hieroglyph for this eye, we can assume that its power was derived from the combativeness of the uraeus and the heat of the sun. As we saw in Chapter 7 (“Hathor”), when Ra sent Hathor out to avenge his mistreatment by human beings, he sent her in the form of Sekhmet Goddess , the lioness. This merging of the two goddesses accentuates the fact that in later years Sekhmet Goddess was connected with the character of numerous other goddesses, including Hathor, Nut, and Bastet (who as a domestic cat was sometimes said 

to represent the gentler aspect of Sekhmet). Amenhotep III placed several hundred

There were two minor characteristics of this goddess that seem at odds with her predominantly violent nature. First, she was often depicted holding or carrying the ankh, the sign of life; an second, she was renowned for her role as a healer because of her knowledge of magic and sorcery. These indications of care and concern for others are not easily reconciled with what else i knew about her activities.

Tefnut Egyptian Goddess Facts

Etymology of Tefnut  - Tefnut Egyptian Goddess of Mist

Tefnut Goddess meaning Literally as "That Water", her name has been linked to the verb 'tfn' definition 'to spit' and models of the creation myth say that Atum (or Ra) spat her out and Tefnut Goddess name was written as a mouth spitting in later texts.

Unlike most Egyptian gods and goddess , including Tefnut's brother, Tefnut Goddess has no single ideograph or symbol. Tefnut's name in hieroglyphics consists of 4 single phonogram symbols t-f-n-t. Although the n phonogram is a representation of waves on the skin of water, it was never taken as an ideograph or determinative for the word water, or for all things connected with water.

Tefnut Goddess Facts

Shu and his twin sister were said by the Book of Dead to have but one soul between them. Tefnut Goddess, Shu's female principle, was usually considered the goddess of mist, the source of moisture in the newly created universe. in the story of creation we saw that the eye of Ra, which Shu and Tefnut Goddess brought with them , played a crucial role, but an additional part of the story says that Nun made for Ra a second eye , an act that made the first eye angry . Ra had to use all his diplomacy to keep both eyes content and , as a result, divided their duties. One eye became responsible for the daylight hours and had considerable power and splendor; the second accepted responsibility for the hours of night and also had splendor but less power. This is one version of the myth of the creation of the sun and moon , and often Tefnut Goddess was associated wit h the moon , Ra's lunar eye . Later this clear distinction became well, sometimes being called "the lady of flame."

In her role as the eye of Ra she played a part in a very interesting myth that has been pieced together from references at the temples of Edfu and Dendera. Tefnut Goddess became very angry with her father and left Heliopolis for Nubia ( the are now covered by Lake Nasser ) in a very bad mood. There Tefnut Goddess took on the form of an angry lioness and became the terror of the neighborhood, attacking both men and animals.

Dragon like, Tefnut Goddess blew smoke and fire from her nostrils and eyes and fed up the flesh and blood of her victims, Ra missed his daughter and perhaps believed that he could use her new-found ferocity to his own advantage against his enemies, so he sent Sh and Thoth as his emissaries to ask her to return home. Thoth, disguised as a baboon- which may account for his later association with the animal - found her first and tried to persuade her that Egypt was a much civilized place than the wild of the Nubian desert. In Egypt , he said , her worshipers would serve up to her on altars the game Tefnut was now having to run down and kill for herself . he described the festivals and joy that characterized Egypt and generally made the case for a superior life there.

Shu finally caught up with his brother and joined Thoth in encouraging his sister and mate to return to Egypt. The two gods ultimately prevailed on Tefnut to go home, and her return trip became a triumphant progress through the Egyptian villages. The goddess was accompanied by Nubian musicians, clowns, and baboons; the people turned out to rejoice in her presence, and wild drunkenness accompanied the festivals in her honor. As Tefnut progressed through the villages, Tefnut lost her ferocity and became much kinder and gentler.

The myth was presented as an explanation of the civilizing power of culture: while she was in the desert ,she was wild and uncontrollable. but when Tefnut returned to the niceties of civilization, she calmed down and became a good citizen. The myth also reflected ancient ideas about the sun and moon. As the eye-whether it represented at this moment the sun or the moon makes little difference- her absence caused the absence of light, and the people became afraid . her return indicated the victory of light over darkness and was a signal for rejoicing . This story is one version of the return of the eye of the good, a central theme too in the Osiris-Horus-Seth myth.

Tefnut was sometimes presented in the drawings in the shape of a woman wearing the solar disk encircled by a cobra. While it is usually assumed that her disk represented the sun, there was nothing about it that might not also have represented the moon.At other times Tefnut Goddess had woman's body and lioness' head, and elsewhere Tefnut Goddess was depicted simply as a lioness. Not much is known about her role in mythology but she did have a place in the court of judgment during the trials of recently departed souls before the gods ,her role was minor, nut the papyri of both Ani Hunefer contain vignettes in which she sites as judge.
 

Thoth God of Knowledge

Thoth God of Knowledge and Writing Part 1
Although the numerous irreconcilable accounts of Thoth’s birth are indicative of the lack of a systematic mythology for him. Siegfried Morenz supports an account that associated him Ra. An ancient passage ascribes Thoth’s birth to the powers of the chief sun god: “I am Thoth, the eldest son of Ra, whom Atum has fashioned; created from Khepri ... I descend to earth with the secrets of 'what belongs to the horizon.’ ” Since this version credited the birth not just to Ra alone, but to Atum and Khepri, other forms of Ra, Thoth was provided with a powerful trio of fathers, and it was significant that Thoth came into the world bearing powerful secrets.

While Thoth was viewed as the god of wisdom in general, he was known more specifically as the god of science and medicine, primarily because he was remembered for giving Isis the charms that brought Osiris back to life long enough to father Horus, and that later cured the sick Horus of his scorpion stings. He was also thought of as the source of rhetoric, names for objects, and the alphabet. He invented hieroglyphic writing, arithmetic, and astronomy. Despite these lofty attributes, Thoth could be one of the most amusingly and charmingly down to earth of the gods. He was slow and garrulous when Isis needed him to cure Horus’ stings. He was as confused as any of the other gods during the trial of Seth and Horus. On the other hand, he was fierce and bloody in the defense of any of the gods he thought wronged.

Much of Thoth’s authority over men and gods came as a result of his being appointed deputy to Ra. We have seen that when Ra became tired of the burden of all his work, he delegated some of his duties to other gods and appointed Thoth his assistant: “Inasmuch as I shall act so that the light may shine in the underworld ... you shall be scribe there and keep in order those who reside there and those who may perform deeds of rebellion against me .... You shall be in my place, a place-taker. Thus you shall be called Thoth, the place-taker of Ra.” Thoth was also the heart of Ra, which means that he was Ra’s source of wisdom, and he had his place in the solar boat, where along with Maat, he set the course each day.

Ra gave Thoth the moon to balance Ra’s own sun. As a moon god, Thoth used his knowledge of mathematics to measure the seasons and regulate time. He surveyed the heavens and planned the shape of the earth; it was his will that kept the earth and everything on it in equilibrium. The universe’s stability depended on his knowledge of celestial mathematics. These attributes led him to be considered the god of science.

The wide powers of Thoth involved him in numerous duties in behalf of both humans and gods. The oldest surviving references to Thoth are found in the Pyramid Texts, in which he was assigned a role in the underworld. He was to ferry the dead across the “winding waterway” on his wings. Once in the underworld on the other side of the water, he became a champion of the dead king and protected him from those who would does him harm? Later, many of the vignettes in the Book of the Dead gave him further underworld duties, standing beside the scales at the trial with a quill in hand to record the verdict on a papyrus scroll.

In another role Thoth was considered protector and messenger of the gods. He was expected to sharpen his knife and cut out the hearts and remove the heads of those who would do harm to god or king. His specific duty was to protect the Eye of Horus and see that it was conveyed to the king as he sought immortality- Additionally, he was to protect justice and assure peace. The Pyramid Texts contain a prayer to him as peacemaker “Hear, 0 Thoth, in whom is the peace of the gods.” One of the spells in the Coffin Texts claims he was the “Bull of Justice,” able to satisfy even Horus and Seth, in whose struggles his role as peacemaker among the gods was most evident.

In order to fulfill these and other duties, Thoth invented the craft of writing, perhaps to the modern mind his most appealing contribution to learning. He kept written records of the seasons and celestial geometry; he was responsible for keeping the records of judgments on the dead and for writing letters on behalf of the gods at Heliopolis. This function was described in the Book of the Dead: “I have brought the palette and the inkpot as being the objects that are in the hands of Thoth; hidden is that which is in them! Behold me in the character of a scribe.” It is interesting that even his ability as a writer involved hidden knowledge, but Thoth’s use of this art went far beyond performing secretarial services for the gods: he was also Heliopolis’ chief author. At times he was considered to be the author of the whole Book of the Dead, but more widely he was thought to have written only sections of it. One late papyrus claimed that Thoth wrote parts of the Book of Breathings “with his own fingers,” and through this enabled souls to breathe for ever.

His most ambitious writing project was called the Book of Thoth and contained his magic formulae, although the length of this book remains a matter of controversy. One version of the myth claimed only two pages for the book one dealing with magic to charm nature, and the other giving the magic to control the world of the dead. Another version of the myth claimed that there were forty-two books dealing with law, education of priests, history of the world, geography, hieroglyphics, astronomy, astrology, religion, and medicine.

Nefertem Egyptian God of Perfume

Nefertem Egyptian God of Perfume
The last of the triad of Memphis-as it was constituted in pharaonic times-Nefertem was an unlikely son of Ptah and Sekhmet, for his demeanor was quite the opposite of his mother’s. The texts found in the Pyramid of Unas at Sakkara associated him with the lotus flower: “Unas has risen like Nefertem God from the lotus to the nostrils of Ra, and he goes forth from the horizon on each day, and the gods are sanctified by the sight of him.”

Later the Book of the Dead was to confirm this picture of Nefertem God. He seems to have been the god of fragrance or perfume, charged with preventing offensive odors from reaching the solar god during his passage each day through the sky. His mild manner was mirrored in the prayers spoken to him by the dead. As part of the ritual of purification before entering eternal life, the souls addressed the gods singly, pleading their innocence of some forty- two grievous sins. The prayer to Nefertem God demonstrates respect for his lack of guile: “Hail, Nefertem God, who comes forth from [Memphis]; I have not acted with deceit, and I have not worked wickedness.”

Aside from these few references, not much is known about the child of the chief parents of Memphis. The usual representation of him was that of man holding an ankh and wearing lotus blossom on his head. Sometimes he was depicted standing on a recumbent lion 0r with a lion’s head; the lotus headdress was invariable. The treasures of king Tutankamun include a wooden statue of the boy king emerging as the Sod Nefertem God from a lotus flower.

Seth Egyptian God of Evil and Chaos

Seth Egyptian God of Evil and Chaos
All in all, the activities of the Great Ennead as a family rank them high with other historical and fictional families renowned for their corrupt and evil ways. Various members of the Great Ennead were at one time or another guilty of drunkenness, theft, incest, torture, matricide, and mass murder. But every family needs a black sheepi and every story needs a villain. In Egyptian mythology this role is given to Seth God, whose misdeeds make those of the rest of his family look innocent by comparison.

The worship of Seth God in Upper Egypt is quite ancient, and in the earliest times he was considered a beneficent god who assisted the; dead. When his worshippers came in conflict with the cult of Horus somewhat later, they lost the political battles and his influence declined. The followers of Horus demoted Seth God to a god of evil and ordered his shrines and images to be destroyed. Through the major part of Egyptian mythology Seth God therefore represented evil, and in the Egyptian view of a universe made up of a duality of evil and good, Seth God played an important role in his opposition to the good gods.

In this role he was to be defeated, even maimed, in battle, but he was never killed or eliminated, for his power was too great and of too much use to other gods. Much like Milton’s Lucifer, he is a fascinating and compelling incarnation of evil, the manifestation of a recognized and necessary component of human behavior, and ultimately an agent of other gods who ironically accomplish their good through him. Most of the myths concerned with Seth God depict him in this role.

The Pyramid Texts credited Seth God with a violent nature from the moment of his birth: “You whom the pregnant goddess brought forth when you clove the night in twain you are invested in the form of Seth God, who broke out in violence.” Early in his career Seth God used his fierceness on behalf of other gods. He was placed in the] front of the solar boat in order to fight off the enemies of Ra. In reticular, he was responsible for successfully defeating Apophis nightly with the curse: “Back, Villain! Plunge into the depths of the abyss, into the place where your father ordained that you should be destroyed! Keep far away from this station of Ra, at whom you should tremble.”

Eventually, however, his jealousy at the success of his older brother Osiris led him to murder him and persecute Isis in an attempt to take over the empire of the god of corn and vegetation. In the many different texts from the period, there were varying stories that placed Seth God in combat to gain power for him. The earliest of the stories told of the battle as a simple contest between day and night. A later story personified that idea: it showed Ra and Seth God locked in combat, with Seth God attempting to prevent the sun from rising each morning.

In this version, strangely enough, Seth God was associated with Apophis and attacked the solar boat he had earlier defended. His weapons were clouds, mists, rains, and darkness-a mythical explanation of natural phenomena that obscure the sun. In the third version of the conflict, Seth God was pitted against his brother Osiris in an attempt to take over his powers. Finally, in the fourth version, Seth God fought his nephew Horus the Younger in a battle that began with Horus’ attempt to avenge his father's death, and ended as a fight for the territory once controlled by Osiris.

As the personification of sin and evil during this later period, Seth God was god of storms and winds and was particularly associated with the desert, which was thought of as a place of death. One myth identified him with the sun as it set in the evening, and another related how he stole the fading light from the sun god, causing untold evil and harm. Thoth, the lunar god, brought renewed light with the rising of the moon, but Seth God fought him too for the light of this heavenly body. Using storms, Winds, earthquakes, and eclipses, Seth God was able at times to gain a brief advantage over the sun and moon, but Ra and Thoth always won in the end.

The result of these character traits was that the Egyptians, as Plutarch recorded, held Seth God “in the greatest contempt, and do all they can to vilify and affront him.” At various times, specific rituals were observed to keep him from gaining) power over light and vegetation. At one point, a black pig (an animal often associated with Seth God) was brutally cut into pieces on a sand altar built on the river bank. At another time a model of a serpent was hacked to pieces. At another festival, recently captured birds and fish representing the god were trampled underfoot, to the chant: “You shall be cut into pieces, and your members' shall be hacked asunder, and each of you shall consume the other: thus Ra triumphs over all his enemies ....”

Sometimes, however, Seth’s ferocity was respected. Kings in the Ramesside period of the Nineteenth and Twentieth dynasties took him as their patron, and the name Seti of several of the kings-including the father of Ra messes II was derived from the name of the god.
  

Herodotus told a story of the time Seth God went to visit his mother Nut at the temple at Papremis. He had grown up elsewhere and the guards of the temple did not know him. When they refused him admission, he went to a nearby town, raised an army to storm the walls of the temple, and succeeded in forcing his way in. Herodotus said that in later years a ceremony was performed at the temple to commemorate the event. One group of priests carried a small, gold-plated wooden statue of Seth God on a four-wheeled cart. They tried to gain admission to the temple, but were denied it by another band of priests. A mock battle ensued in which thousands of men engaged each other with clubs. Herodotus believed that some were killed even though he had been assured that all this was done as part of a religious festival.

The physical form given to Seth God was often that of a human body with the head of an animal. (Today the animal is called the “Seth animal” because it is not otherwise identifiable.) The nose looked rather like that of a camel or an ass, and it had a tail that stood straight up and forked at the end. Some scholars think it might have been some sort of desert animal that was hunted to extinction at an early period, but others identify it as an aard- vark, canine, or some other surviving creature. In truth, it does not look quite like any animal we know today. At times Seth God was simply portrayed in animal form without the human body.

He was also associated with the serpent, ass, antelope, pig, hippopotamus, crocodile, and fish. Seth God was a red god. His domain was the red desert, and only red oxen were sacrificed to him. Red- haired men were distrusted as his representatives on earth. He was married to Nephthys and their child was Anubis, the jackal-headed god of death, although there is some questions of his paternity. After Seth’s murder of Osiris, however, Nephthys was usually depicted as supporting Isis against Seth God.

In the Valley of the Kings, Seth God can be seen pouring libations over Seti I in his tomb, placing the crown on the head of Ramses II, and teaching the young Thutmose III to use a bow and arrow. He was remembered at Kom Ombo, and at Edfu there are famous wall carvings that depict the battle between Seth God and Horus. His fame spread from the oases in the desert to the fertile land of the Delta, where he was worshipped at times. There are not many surviving statues of Seth God , but the Egyptian Museum in Cairo contains one of Seth God and Horus crowning harnesses III. Seth’s figure in this piece was damaged, perhaps deliberately, but has now been restored.

Osiris Egyptian God

Of all the gods of Egypt Osiris God was the best known; a famous hymn to him from the Book of the Dead captured his essence:

 Glory be to you, Osiris the great god within Abydos, king of eternity and lord of everlastingness, the god who passes through millions of years in your existence. You are the eldest son of the womb of Nut, you were engendered by Geb, the ancestor of the gods, you are the lord of the crowns of the north and the south, and of the lofty white crown. As prince of the gods and of men, you have received the crook and the whip and the dignity of your divine fathers. Let your heart which is in the mountain of [the underworld] be content, for your son Horus is established upon your throne. You are crowned the lord of Mendes and ruler in Abydos. Through you the world waxes green in triumph.

Osiris God is perhaps the most easily recognized of the gods. He was always dressed in white mummy’s clothes; he wore a beard and held in his crossed arms the crook, the flail (whip), and sometimes the scepter-all signs of authority and power. Most often he was depicted as the judge of the dead person’s soul. He was shown either standing on the platform throne of Maat (depicted as a shallow rectangle) or seated upon a throne floating on water out of which sprouted lotus flowers. On his head Osiris God wore either the white crown of Lower Egypt or the atef crown, which was a combination of the white crown and two white plumes. The color of his skin helps to identify his qualities: sometimes it was painted white like a mummy, sometimes black to suggest death, and at times green to symbolize vegetation and resurrection.

Some scholars believe that Osiris God may have been an actual human ruler early in civilization, but it is fairly certain that in prehistoric times Osiris God became a minor fertility god associated with Anedjti, the chief god of the Delta village of Busiris. From Anedjti he took the crook and flail as symbols of power. In this! Form he apparently had the character of a dangerous god, and! Some suggestions of this trait the crook and flail, for example- survived into later times. Sometime before the historic period j began and Lower and Upper Egypt were united into one country,] his image was transformed into that of a kind ruler who acted as! Guide to the underworld. His fame spread from the Delta into j Upper Egypt and eventually Abydos became the center of his worship, although he was respected and worshipped throughout the country.

According to the myths, Osiris God had become very successful as a ruler and leader on earth, teaching human beings to give up bar1baric practices and to learn to grow grain. His brother Seth grew jealous and killed him by sealing his body in a casket and throwing it into the Nile. Isis,Osiris God  ’ wife and sister, sought the body of her husband, but even after she found it, Seth continued to plague her. This time he cut the body into pieces and threw each piece into the river. Isis faithfully began the long search for the pieces. When she found them, Thoth and Anubis wrapped them in mummy’s clothes and restored his shape; Osiris God then became the god of the underworld.

In the meantime, Horus, the son of Osiris God and Isis, had grown to maturity and sworn to seek revenge for his father’s death and mutilation. He sought out Seth and they fought the epic battle of Egyptian mythology. Horus eventually won and the rest of the gods made peace.

As god of the underworld, Osiris God became respected above all other Egyptian gods. He was responsible for receiving reports from other gods of the recently dead person’s soul as it progressed through the trials of the underworld, and for rendering final judgment on the fate of the soul. He was usually attended by Isis and Nephthys and assisted by Thoth and Horus, who spent only part of their time in the underworld; having earthly responsibilities as well the jackal-headed god Anubis was responsible for embalming and generally preparing the body and, as such, was Osiris God ’ chief assistant.

Before the recent building of the High Dam at Aswan, the waters of the Nile annually flooded the entire river valley. By June the land had dried out and the people had begun to worry about the next flood: when would it come? Would it bring enough water this year? Then about mid-July the water would begin to rise, irrigating the low-lying areas near the river bed.
 In early fall, if all went well, the flood reached its peak, inundating the gardens of the farmers. By winter the receding waters had left a layer of silt, rich in minerals that fertilized the soil for the coming season’s crops. In spring the crops would be growing, ready for harvest just before the dry season in early summer when the cycle began again. Osiris God became identified with the river and the growing crops. He had earlier been viewed as a fertility god, but later he was naturally associated with the river that had been his deathbed on two occasions. He became a vegetation god, symbolic of the river’s life-giving force and the annual renewal of crops. He was especially connected with the grains that nourished the gods of Heliopolis as well as the people of earth; when turned into liquid form, the grains became beer that was sacred to the gods and joy- giving to human beings.

Many festivals were held in his honor, since his worship extended from the Delta to the first cataract in the south; a Graeco-Roman text on the walls of the temple at Dendera described an ancient ritual performed annually in Osiris God ’ honor as early as the Middle Kingdom. At the time when the flood was at its height, the Feast of Khoiak began with the celebration of an effigy of the dead god, cast in gold and filled with a mixture of sand and grain. As the waters were receding and grain was being Planted in the land, the effigy was watered daily.

Then for three days it was floated on the waters of the Nile, and on the twenty-fourth day of the month of Khoiak it was placed in a coffin and laid in a grave. On the thirtieth day, the effigy was actually buried. This seven-day delay represented the god’s seven-day gestation in the womb of Nut, his mother. On the last day, the king and priests raised a djed pillar a phallic symbol of the rejuvenation and strength of Osiris God as a sign that he had been born again and that the land would be fertile for yet another year.

Since Osiris God was the god of the underworld, he was not worshipped in the same sense as were the sun gods, but numerous temples were built in his honor. His chief cult sites were Abydos, with its remarkable temples built by Seti I and his son Ramesses II; Dendera, with the text of the ritual mentioned above; and Philae, where Osiris was revered in the Temple of Isis. Many of the tombs and temples of Upper Egypt contain depictions of Osiris as the god of the underworld and as the god of renewed life. A large number of statues of Osiris from these sites have found their way into museums around the world.

Much of what we know about Osiris, however, comes in textual form. The Pyramid Texts, the Coffin Texts, and the Book of the Dead contain the basis of our knowledge about Osiris’ role in the treatment of the dead. The Book of the Dead’s vignettes provide us with drawings of the god that are especially vivid (and often reproduced). The basic myth of the murder of Osiris and the search for his body, as well as the war between Seth and Horus, is told in Plutarch’s essay “Isis and Osiris" date from the first century after Christ.