I would like to begin this presentation by noting that the material upon which this lecture is based was taken in part from The History Guide and from the Tehuti Research Foundation web pages, available at www.historyguide.org and www.egypt-tehuti.org, respectively. Now on to our content. Religion was integral to Egyptian life. Religious beliefs formed the basis of Egyptian art, medicine, astronomy, literature and government. Let me give you some examples of the centrality of religion to these areas of Egyptian culture. The first example is the great pyramids. The pyramids were tombs for the pharaohs, who originally were revered as gods on earth. Another example is the fact that prayers and incantations were an important part of medical practices, since disease was attributed to the gods. The science of astronomy was first developed to determine the correct time to perform religious rites and sacrifices. The earliest examples of literature dealt almost entirely with religious themes. The pharaoh was considered a sacrosanct monarch who served as the intermediary between the gods and man. Justice too, was conceived in religious terms, something bestowed upon man by the creator-god. Finally, the Egyptians developed an ethical code which they believed the gods had approved. Ancient Egyptians were in fact so faithful and devoted to religious practice that the Greek historian Herodotus (ca 500 B.C.E.) said about them that "Of all the nations of the world, the Egyptians are the happiest, healthiest and most religious." Because it was shared by most Egyptians, religion served as the unifying agent in ancient Egypt. That is, religion and religious practices made Egyptians a single people with a common religious tradition. This unifying nature of religion is reflected in the fact that the pharaoh indicated his concern for his people by worshipping the local deities in public ceremonies. Another reflection is the fact that the gods were believed to protect all Egyptians and to guarantee them an afterlife. The Egyptians believed they were living in a fixed, static or unchanging universe in which life and death were part of a continuous, rhythmic cycle. Certain patterns came to be expected - grain had to be harvested, irrigation canals had to be built and pyramids had to be built. Just as the sun rose in the east and set in the west, so too all human life and death passed through regular and predictable patterns shaped in great part by religion.
The most important attribute of ancient Egyptian religion is that it was polytheistic. As we discussed previously, when talking about Mesopotamian religion, the word polytheism denotes the belief in many gods, who collectively control and manage the created world. In polytheistic religions, each god is believed to have control of specific natural phenomena - such as the rivers, the heavens, and the seasons, as well as lightning, flooding, and volcanoes, for example. The gods also guide human experience, helping or hindering man's everyday life, as well as deciding the nature of man's life after death, as we shall see below. A second characteristic attribute of religion in ancient Egypt is that it was quite inclusive in terms of gods. That is, the common ancient Egyptian was ready to accept any and all gods and goddesses that seemed appropriate. Such inclusiveness reflected the understanding that if x or y gods existed, then any number of other gods were also likely to exist. In fact, considering the infinite number of existing natural phenomena, an almost unlimited number of gods to control it all made sense. Many gods became part of the Egyptian pantheon through territorial conquest. In other words, if a new area was incorporated into the Egyptian state, its gods and goddesses would be added to the pantheon of those already worshipped. In part this facilitated the incorporation of new territories, as each region had its own patron deity, whom locals would have not wanted to reject. While some of these local or regional gods were worshipped only locally, others gained notoriety throughout Egypt. For example, the god Ptah gained power when the city of Memphis became the capital of Egypt. Later, the god Amon rose to supremacy in connection with the political authority of the pharaoh. A third attribute of Egyptian religion is that, from its earliest beginnings, Egyptian religious cults included animals. It is no accident that sheep, bulls, gazelles and cats have been found carefully buried and preserved in their own graves. Finally, Egyptian religion focused almost exclusively on the afterlife. That is, although gods controlled every aspect of life and the natural world, Egyptian religious practice was centered on achieving a positive life after death, one in which one would enjoy for eternity the best that life had to offer. I'll discuss this in greater detail in the slides that follow.
As I mentioned previously, ancient Egyptians believed in many gods. In the earliest stages of Egyptian civilization, these gods were believed to have animal shape (the term for this is zoomorphism). As a consequence, Egyptian gods were often represented as animals - as falcons, vultures, a cobra, dog, cat or crocodile, for example. For the Egyptians, because animals were non-human, they must have possessed religious significance. As time passed, however, the Egyptian gods came to be understood differently; they became anthropomorphic. That is, these gods came to be believed to have human form, although they often retained the animal's head or body. Among the Egyptian pantheon a number of gods stand out as particularly important, because of their role in the creation of the world or due to their role in deciding man's life after death. The god Ra, to begion, was the god of the sun, as well as the creator god. He created the heavens and its hosts merely by thinking and giving names to things;as Ra uttered its name, the thing came into being. Ra also represented the power given to the pharaohs, who were originally thought divine and later were believed to be intermediaries between mankind and the heavens. Osiris was the Egyptian god who judged the dead. Osiris first emerged as a local deity of the Nile Delta in Lower Egypt. Osiris was believed to have been the god who introduced agriculture into Egypt and who taught Egyptians how to cultivate the land. Osiris was also important because he was believed to judge men after death, deciding their eternal fate. Isis was Osiris's wife. Where Osiris was identified with the life-giving, fertilizing power of the Nile, Isis was identified with the fertile earth of Egypt. Animal-headed Seth was Osiris's brother and rival. Jealous of Osiris's power, Seth killed Osiris. However, Isis persuaded the gods to bring Osiris back to life, after which time he came to rule the underworld. Horus, the god of the sky and son of Isis and Osiris, defeated the evil Seth after a long struggle. But Horus was only one kind of sky god. There was also Ra, the sun god whom I mentioned above, as well as the baboon-headed Thoth, who was the god of the moon, as well as the god of wisdom, magic and numbers. Despite the ever-increasing number of deities which could be added to this hierarchy of deities, one thing is certain: Egyptian religion, unlike the religion of Mesopotamia, was centralized. In Sumer, the temple was the focus of political, economic and religious organization. Indeed, it was often difficult to know where one aspect began and another ended. By contrast, the function of an Egyptian temple was focused on religion. One last thing to remember: Egyptians believed that the gods created the cosmos - they created order out of chaos. The Sumerians, as we've seen, had a similar belief. But the life of the Sumerian was filled with anxiety and pessimism because the gods themselves were unstable and the idea of an afterlife was unknown. In contrast, Egyptian religion inspired confidence and optimism in the external order and stability of the world, for the gods guided the rhythms of life and death.
As I mentioned above, ancient Egyptians were preoccupied with life after death, and many of their most intriguing rituals centered on assuring one's gratifying afterlife. What really distinguished Egyptian religion from that of Mesopotamia, was that any man or woman could share in the benefits of an afterlife. As one historian has put it: "death meant a continuation of one's life on earth, a continuation that, with the appropriate precautions of proper burial, prayer, and ritual, would include only the best parts of life on earth - nothing to fear, but on the other hand, nothing to want to hurry out of this world for." At the core of Egyptians' preoccupation with the afterlife lay a crucial belief about the nature of the human. Egyptians believed that man was made up not only of body and soul, but also of a third nature, the ka. The ka was believed to be the indestructible vital principle of each person, which left the body at death but which could also return at other times. This explains why the Egyptians mummified the dead: so that the ka, on its return, would find the body not decomposed. This also explains why tombs were filled with wine, grain, weapons, sailing ships and so on - this way the ka would find everything it needed in the afterlife; otherwise, it might come back to haunt the living. The transition from life to death and afterlife was a complex one. Egyptians believed that, upon death, each human being would appear before Osiris to be judged. In effect, one needed to assert truthfully that one had not committed any sin, making a negative confession that justified admittance into the blessed afterlife. Judgment Day went something like this: Upon death, the body was mummified. This is the process by which the body was preserved for the ka to find and use in eternity. Mummification required first the careful removal of all internal organs which Egyptians believed crucial to the functioning of the body. These organs included the lungs, liver, stomach and upper intestines, and lower intestines. Each of these organs would be placed in special containers called canopic jars. Interestingly, note that the list of important organs did not include the brain, which we now know to be the center of cognition and all body functions. Instead, thinking it worthless, the brain would simply be pulled in bits through the nose and thrown out! The rest of the body would then be desiccated. That is, all fluids would be removed, including water in the skin, which would be removed by placing the body in salt. Once desiccated, the body would be anointed with oil and wrapped in strips of fabric, placed in a coffin, and sealed. While the body was being mummified, one's ka was being led by Anubis, the jackal-headed god of mummification, to the presence of Osiris and a tri-bunal of 43 other gods. The proceedings were recorded by Thoth, god of wisdom and scribe of the gods. Standing before the tribunal the ka was then asked to name each of the judges and make the Negative Confession. One's utterance of the Negative COnfession would be measured for its truthfulness, literally, by weighing one's heart, believed to be the center of man's human existence, against the feather of the goddess Ma'at, which stood for truth. If one's heart was lighter than the feather, one was judged worthy of the afterlife; if the heart was heavier, then the heart was eaten by a hybrid crocodile monster and one's existence came to an end. If judged worthy, the ka comes back to find its body, as well as the material goods it will need in the afterlife. Upon finding its body, the ka enters it through the mouth, which was ceremonially opened by priests during a special celebration. The re-entry into the body was so crucial to the afterlife that if anyone really wanted to ruin your eternal life, all they had to do was crush the mouth of your mummy. This actually happened, and archeologists have found mummies which have had their mouths destroyed! The final slides in this presentation show ancient depictions of this process and should help you better understand how Egyptians envisioned the passage from life to death to afterlife. Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask me.
