Ancient Egypt: Polytheism

Religion in ancient Egypt, as in other ancient civilizations, was based on a number of deities, both male and female, who were supported by rituals. Some of these deities were associated with and lived in temples dedicated to them while others were worshipped in shrines in the homes of ordinary Egyptians. The religion of ancient Egypt was polytheistic.

Polytheism is the religious belief that there are many deities (gods or goddesses) which rule the universe as separate and distinct entities. With regard to polytheism in ancient Egypt Barbara Mertz, in her Red Land, Black Land: Daily Life in Ancient Egypt, writes:

“The Egyptians were just about the most polytheistic people who ever lived. No one knows how many gods they had; one list gives over eighty, and I suspect it is incomplete.”

The estimate of only eighty gods may be rather conservative. More recently, Bob Brier and Hoyt Hobbs, in their Ancient Egypt: Everyday Life in the Land of the Nile, write:

“At the peak of their civilization during the Eighteenth Dynasty, Egyptians worshipped more than a thousand gods. Some were the same deity celebrated under different names in different cities, but most were separate gods.”

In his chapter on myth and mythmaking in ancient Egypt in Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, Jacobus van Dijk puts it this way:

“For most of their long history, however, the Egyptians worshiped hundreds of deities, many of whom were of no more than local significance, and mythical statements concerning the relationships between these deities are equally numerous.”

In his book Writings from Ancient Egypt, Toby Wilkinson notes:

“Western scholars brought up in a monotheistic tradition have marvelled or despaired at the complex, confusing and inconsistent nature of ancient Egyptian religion.”

With somewhere between 80 and 1,000 different gods, how do we begin to make sense out of Egyptian religion? First, we have to remember that this rather complex pantheon did not suddenly appear but developed piecemeal over a period of several thousand years. In an article in Ancient Egypt, Joyce Tyldesley writes:

“For over three thousand years the Egyptians worshipped increasing numbers of gods whose stories were told in a series of complex and often contradictory myths.”

While it is common to think of ancient Egypt as a monolithic, unchanging kingdom for three thousand years, this is not really true. Like all civilizations, ancient Egypt changed and evolved over time. Each new era built upon the legacy of the past and adopted it to present reality. Barbara Mertz writes:

“Through the process called syncretism, one god might assume the name and attributes of two or three others, as Amon of Thebes became Amon-Re Harakhte. Instead of sharing names, he might usurp some other god’s titles, or insignia, or job.”

If we go back to the beginnings of ancient Egypt, to a time before Egypt was unified, a time about 4,000 BCE called the Predynastic by archaeologists, gods developed out of the human need to explain and understand the world around them. Bob Brier and Hoyt Hobbs write:

“Because no scientific principles existed to explain natural phenomena, Egyptians believed that whatever occurred in their lives or environment had a supernatural cause.”

The earliest gods, therefore, were the ones that were associated with important natural phenomena: winds, stars, sun, water, earth, geological formations, plants, and animals. In his book Understanding Early Civilizations: A Comparative Study, Bruce Trigger reports:

“Deities were not thought to be omniscient or omnipotent and were rarely believed to be changeless or eternal.”

Deities did, however, have distinct personalities which often reflected human characteristics. Bruce Trigger writes:

“Deities were believed to have personalities that resembled those of powerful human beings, but they were not invariably anthropomorphized.”

Since life for these early agriculturalists was dependent on the life-giving waters of the Nile River and its annual flooding, the river was a living entity: the god Hapi. Recognizing that the sun was an important part of their lives, the sun was the god Ra. To propitiate the gods—making sure that the sun rose every morning and that the Nile flooded every year—the people made offerings to the gods.

The Temple Gods

As Egypt edged toward unification and developed strong kings, both government and religion became more hierarchical. By the time of the Early Dynastic Period (3150 BCE to 2686 BCE) when Narmer became the first pharaoh and writing was developed, there were temples to some of the important gods. While there were still gods whose images could be found in the homes of the people where they were worshipped, the temple gods were seen primarily by the priests who cared for them and carried out the rituals to ensure the continuation of prosperity. Lorna Oakes and Lucia Gahlin, in their book Ancient Egypt, write:

“It was the pharaoh’s duty to build temples and to ensure that offerings were made to the gods housed in them. In return, the gods would bestow blessings on the people, such as victory in battle, bountiful harvests and recovery from sickness.”

Egyptian religion can be described as being temple-based as many of the gods had their own temple and each city had its own tutelary deities. In addition, each of the major temples had its own creation myth which was not necessarily consistent with the creation myths of other temples. Myth and dogma were not central to Egyptian religion. Religion was based on ritual, and in the temples the daily rituals were carried out by priests and not witnessed by commoners.

As the earthly home of the god, the temple contained an image of the god, often made of precious metals, which the god would then animate. John Taylor, in his book Mummy: The Inside Story, reports:

“Every day, the shrine containing the god’s image was opened. It was purified and clothed and nourishment was offered to it.”

With regard to temple rituals, Anna Stevens, in her chapter on Egypt in The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Ritual and Religion, writes:

“Temple cult had as its central ritual the daily offerings to the cult image. The focus of the rite was the clothing of the statue and presentation to it of food, wine, and beer, accompanied by symbolic gestures and words.”

The god, of course, did not physically consume the food and drink, so these consumables could then be redistributed to the priests and to the public. There were also many festivals in which the gods would have food and drink distributed to the people. These rituals served as economic mechanisms to redistribute Egypt’s vast food wealth to the people.

The Egyptian gods were often associated with particular regions or particular Egyptian cities and they changed over time. For example, Min, an ancient god of fertility who is portrayed as a semi-mummified human holding his erect penis with his left hand, was associated with Koptos and Akhmim (called Panopolis by the Greeks who associated Min with their god Pan). By the New Kingdom (1550 to 1069 BCE), Min had merged with the Theban god Amun.

Priests

Temples were for the gods and their priests, not for the people. Bob Brier and Hoyt Hobbs report:

“Common people took almost no part in religious rituals; that was the sacred responsibility of the priestly class.”

For most Egyptians, the only time they would see the statues of the temple gods would be during certain special feasts. The temple gods were served by special priests who made the offerings and cared for the gods. In his chapter in the book Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, Herman Te Velde writes:

“The aim of worship was to come into contact with the gods—to satisfy, to please and honor, and to appease them if necessary, or in exceptional cases, to forestall them or to ward them off. It would be more unwise to neglect and forget gods. If the gods were not worshiped, they would leave Egypt, and cosmic disasters would occur.”

With regard to the role of the priests in the Egyptian temple religions, Bob Brier and Hoyt Hobbs report:

“Egyptian priests spent little time dealing with the well-being of individuals, seldom advising or counseling those with personal problems but concentrating on cosmic matters such as keeping the sun in the sky and ensuring the fertility of the land.”

In the Old Kingdom (2800 BCE to 2300 BCE), upper-class women could serve as priests, especially to the female deities Hathor and Neith. They also served as funerary priests. By the Middle Kingdom (2000 BCE to 1800 BCE), all priests were male. Bruce Trigger writes:

“Women continued, however, to serve as musicians and dancers in temple rituals into the New Kingdom. Their erotic performances were believed to play a vital role in sexually arousing male creator deities and thus ensuring the continued functioning of the universe.”

The temple ritual of the New Kingdom (1550 BCE to 1069 BCE) is described this way by Edward Bleiberg in his entry in The Oxford Companion to Archaeology:

“Priests treated the statue of the god or of the divine deceased king as if it were a living nobleman. They awoke it with hymns, then washed, dressed, and fed it. The statue traveled through the mansion in the divine barque, carried by priests. At the end of the day they undressed it, washed it, and put it to sleep. They performed each step according to a prescribed ritual. Specialist priests studied ancient texts to insure that they had performed the ritual properly.”

During the New Kingdom, full-time priests became customary. The job of the priest was not to educate the people, but to care for the statue of the god. In a major temple there would be several priests, each with a different job. The position of priest carried a stipend and the post was hereditary. A particular temple job would often stay in the same family for generations. Priests were usually circumcised. Herman Te Velde reports:

“Circumcision, whatever its original significance may have been, was connected with purity. It was a distinctive mark of priesthood and formed part of the rites of induction in the latest periods, but whether it did for earlier times is uncertain.”

Herman Te Velde also writes:

“There is little or no evidence for theological study by, or intellectual examination of, candidates for the priesthood.”

Oracles

One of the functions of religion in many societies is to explain or foretell future events. In the ancient Egyptian pantheon, the temple gods could make statements and answer questions about the future. Bruce Trigger explains:

“When occupied by a deity, statues could make oracular pronouncements if questions were put to them by appearing to tilt in one direction or another. In addition, priests might sense the god present in the statue speaking to them in their hearts.”

Oracles were often consulted in disputes over property and in disagreements between buyers and sellers. Lorna Oakes and Lucia Gahlin write:

“Oracles were also considered useful for helping to solve crimes, and for bringing the guilty to justice. In the case of a robbery, a list of suspects might be named before the god, and he then had to indicate the guilty suspect.”

Public Ceremonies

During special ceremonies, the image of the god would be brought out of the temple and carried through the streets so that it could be seen by the people. John Taylor describes a procession honoring Khons, an ancient deity associated with the moon:

“The image of Khons, mounted on a miniature barque (boat) would be brought out of his temple and carried in a procession of priests. Others would carry fans to create a breeze and drive away flies. These processions were rare opportunities for the ordinary citizens of Thebes to approach closely to the gods.”

During the festivals to the gods, the people would be given free food, drink, music, and dance. Festivals were usually held at the beginning and end of the agricultural year.

Household Gods

For most Egyptians religious practice was centered on the home rather than on the temple. Even the homes of the poorest Egyptians contained shrines to certain gods and the nobles would have a special pavilion set in the garden. In the home of a scribe, for example, one of the shrines might honor Thoth, the god who invented numbers and served as the patron of writing. A scribe might also have a shrine to the goddess Seshat who is associated with writing. A craftsman might have a shrine to Ptah, the patron of the crafts, in his home. Some homes might have a shrine to the goddess Mafdet who was a protector against scorpions and snakes.

The practice of religion among the vast majority of the people was centered special gods with special attributes. Bruce Trigger writes:

“Ordinary Egyptian household shrines were a focus of dead ancestors as well as deities of fertility and childbirth, such as Taweret and Bes, who did not have major temples anywhere in Egypt.”

When a woman became pregnant, she would wear the amulet of the god Tawaret around her neck for protection. Tawaret isusually portrayed as a bipedal pregnant hippopotamus with additional characteristics of a crocodile and a lion. Lorna Oakes and Lucia Gahlin write:

“The idea was that such a potentially threatening combination would keep harm away from mother and child.”

After giving birth, the woman would wear the amulet of the god Bes, who provided protection for the newborn. Bes is usually portrayed as a lion-headed male dwarf. Bes, whose images date back to the Predynastic Period, is a household protector. Bes drives off evil spirits and snakes, as well as watching over children. He symbolizes the good things in life and is thus associated with music, dance, and sexual pleasure. It is not uncommon for him to be portrayed with an erect penis (ithyphallic).

As in many religious traditions, the gods of ancient Egypt generally spoke to the common people through dreams and visions.

Summary

The ancient Egyptians lived in a world controlled by many gods and these gods played an important part of their daily lives. The people propitiated and prayed to certain gods based on their needs, where they lived, and the time period (the gods changed through time). Lorna Oakes and Lucia Gahlin write:

“The gods and goddesses which they conjured up were divine personifications of all that was important to them, particularly in maintaining a sense of order and well-being in this life and the next, ensuring the survival of the next generation and the fertility of the soil.”

While the massive numbers of gods and the many conflicting stories about them and their attributes seems confusing to modern people, for the ancient Egyptians these gods helped them understand and live in their world.