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The Spirits of Nature
Religion of the Egyptians
By
Ottar Vendel
Clothing Headgear Regalia Legends of Creation The Myth of Osiris
Court in Underworld Book of the Dead Ka and Ba Solar boat of Re Burial customs
Ancient Egypt had by tradition a great variety of gods and what today can be labelled as "spirits" and "forces".
The total number of them was over 2.000 but many had similar characteristics and appeared all over the country by different names. This great diversity is due to the fact that before the country was united the Nile Valley was split up into about forty self ruling areas (later to be provinces - so called nomes) where the ruling tribes had their own deities.
Almost all gods had two things in common - they were family members with counterpars from the opposite sex and they manifested themselves on earth through animals.
Thus the local wild fauna of birds, crocodiles, snakes, turtles, frogs, plus cattle, dogs, cats and other domesticated animals were considered to be the living images of a particular god or goddess and a natural and indestructable part of the en- vironment in which people lived.
All parts of life were covered and there were gods for - beer, plants, digestion, the high seas, female sexuality, gardens, feasting etc. Many of them had lots of duties and were with time combined with each other in a great number of ways.
Some of them could appear in rather unusual forms like a goddess (curious even by Egyptian standards) having a head of a bee and body from a hippopotamus.
When having a glace at a depiction of them shown in upright position with human bodies, the goddesses are easy to single out since they always had their legs joined together, while the males used to be seen on the move - striding.
Taueret
Different towns struggled to have just their local gods at top of the state religion and thus we have many different religious legends over the years depending upon which town had the greatest politi- cal influence during the period. To increase the number of sup-porters nation wide they could "borrow" abilities from popular gods and give to their own. Because of this over the years different gods came into fashion and later went out of style, with exception of a group that was in front right from the beginning and never lost its popularity. These were responsible for basic and vital things in life like love, joy, dancing, childbirth, justice, and life after death.
All aspect of daily life were covered by at least one of these deities, and like people on earth a vast majority of them were married (of- ten to their siblings) and had children.
Many ingredients made it possible for common people to identify themselves with them since their personalities were made of both divine strength and human weakness. They did most of the things that ordinary people did, like harvesting, hunting, eating, drinking, partying and even dying. Most of them were depicted as men and women combined with the head of the animal by which they were represented and they could appear in different costumes and be represented by several animals in the Egyptian fauna.
In other words - they could appear in many ways and yet some of them were so alike looking that it's impossible to identify them without reading the connecting text. Just looking at the dresses and the regalia they carry along isn't always enough, because they used to borrow objects from each other. This guesswork is a part of the charm when looking in to their in many ways, to us, unlikely world.
As to their names, today we use a blend of both their original Egyptian ones like Re, Ptah and Amon, and the Greek forms like Isis, Osiris and Horus.
As for the veneration of the gods science doesn't know how this was performed during the oldest times, or when in history the main gods had temples of their own. One exception is Min (see him) who obviously had a cult center at Koptos in Upper Egypt where two statues of him larger then life size were found in the late 1800s.
It's most likely that small local temples made of clay and reed originally were the cult buildings fore tribes along the Nile, and with time two national shrines were specified in where the national gods could be venerated. These types help scholars to locate the origin of the oldest fragments of depicitions found, and they were incorporated into the hieroglyphic signs which lasted to the end of Egyptian culture (picture above). Per-wer meaning "the Great House", stod for Upper Egypt and is present on the macehead of Narmer (see him), and Per-nu meaning "the House of Flame" was the nation temple of Lower Egypt and is known from predynastic times.
Clothing
When the goddesses and gods were depicted with a human body the variety wasn't so big in the way they were dressed. Less then half a dozen types of garments covers almost all of them. From the beginning they all wore white dresses, or at least single colored. This tradition slowly changed over the years and with time the colours and patterns became elaborated. The peak was reached during the Greco-Roman period when they were seen in outfits like actors in a costume spectacle in a theatre.
Excluding the mummy-like creations, here is a type description in brief:
Tunic with suspenders.
Male garment, ending above the waist
and popular in all times. Example: Re.
Dress with suspenders.
Female garment, ended above the waist,
and was usually white. Example: Hathor.
The short loincloth
Short and skirt-like garment and popular from earliest times. Example: Asar-hap.
The short-sleeved overall
From the earliest times very common
tight female garment. Example: Isis.
The full-length dress
Unusual, sleeve-less and for goddesses.
Went up to the neck. Example: Seshat.
Notice that long sleeves were not in fashion in any era of Egyptian history, at least for the gods and goddesses. Their dresses were to a great extent similar to those worn by the upper classes in society during daytime and evenings, and mostly indoors.
Headgear
The gods had a lot of different things to put on their heads, and they surely did. In bright contrast to the stereotyped positions of their bodies the painters and sculptors were keen on giving the heads as much attention as possible. This was obviously initiated by pharaoh himself or the priesthood in order to give their favourite gods as much promotion as possible. The different crowns could give a hint where the god originally came from, and by wearing the combined crown for the whole country, the message was given that this god or goddess was important to all Egyptians. To make them conspicuous all crowns, hats etc. were adorned with plumes, horns, snakes, flowers, sun discs, leaves etc painted in bright colours. Especially during the Greco-Roman era the fantasy and elaboration was significant.
Deshret Hedjet Peshent Peshent Atef Atef with horns Khepresh
EGYPTIAN CROWNS: The red one was from Lower and the white from Upper Egypt.
The double crown represented the whole country. The Atef-crown was worn by Osiris and the type with horns and the sun disc by Re-Horakhte and other gods. The blue helmet-like came during dynasty 18 and was worn by kings and the god Amon.
Besides royal crowns the gods had a lot of other symbols and things to wear upon their heads. In some cases the headgear was necessary to identify the deities in ques- tion, when they were dressed the same, as they often were. Here is a selection of per- sonal things helping to identify which goddess is depicted in case the written hiero- glyphs don't give a clue. The following objects below are shown as they looked when the bearer in question was facing right.
Neit had the a stylised form of her shield and crossed arrows on her head. Isis wore a throne on top, a rather uncomfortable one it seems, and Maát had her standing ostrich feather she was named after. Nephtys had a building topped with a bowl-like object (for collecting rain water?) and Nut had a pot (or a broad vase) upon her head.
Selkhet wore the dangerous scorpion (without its deadly sting), and Seshat had the holy Persea-tree with two horns over it as her personal sign. Anat had a stylised cow's uterus as her token. Hathor had several objects in her hat box like cow's horns with the sun disc and her favourite musical instrument - the sistrum, which was a rattle.
Most of these objects worn upon their heads were unique for just one female deity. The solar disc and horns (Hathor) and object of Anat could be worn by others and the very common solar disc with a cobra (not shown) was the insignia of many goddesses.
Regalia
All paintings, drawings, sculptures and reliefs in Egypt followed a traditional scheme, and changes came slowly with time. Some artistic featuress did not alter anything at all, and remained unchanged for over 3.000 years. Thw way of depicting people are among these unaltered expressions of art. The body was normally in profile except for the torso which was shown from the front like the eye, to make the face more expressive. The gods (and kings) depicted were seldom empty handed - they usually carried various objects, and the symbolic meaning of some are still obscure to Egypto- logists. The gods usually had the well known ankh-sign in one of their hands, with the general meaning "life", and also to be interpreted as joy of living. Since the Egyptian religion offered eternal life for those who had behaved well on earth, we don't know if this sign of life meant the next or the present one - or possibly both.
The other hand was holding a staff or sceptre of some kind, and here we have half a dozen ty