More Important Topics of Cylinder

He is the chief of the triad of Tebas, formed by Isis, Horus and Osiris. In charge of judging the dead persons, is surrounded with 42 gods - judges who decides what will happen to the deceased.

Osiris was a cultural hero, mythical king, founder of the Egyptian nation, who taught to the men the civilization, the laws, the agriculture and how to adore the gods.

He dies as man but resuscitates like immortally thanks to

Thot.

By means of a cunning pitfall, his brother Seth murdered it, cutting his body in multiple pieces that he interspersed for the whole Egypt. His wife and sister Isis recovered carefully all the members less the virile one, who had eaten the fish mormyrus (oxirrinco).

With her powerful magic, Isis achieved to give new life to the mummified corpse of Osiris, which made her pregnant. They generated this way their only son, Horus, who avenged his father's death exiling Seth to the desert.

Osiris is almost always represented mummified, with the face black or green, an

Atef crown, the crook (heqa) and the whip (mayal) or cepter (uas). Occasionally, he assumes fish form. In the funeral texts, as the Book of the Dead, the deceased Pharaoh identifies with Osiris, king of the dead, in the same way that in life had done it with his son Horus. Very popular god, original of Busiris, was venerated principally in Abidos, Bubastis and Mendes.

The judgement of Osiris

It is the most important and transcendental event for the deceased, inside the set of credence of the Egyptian mythology. After his dead, the deceased was guided by the god Anubis before the court of Osiris. Anubis was extracting magically the heart and was placing it on the saucer of a scaleses.

Este era contrapesado con la pluma de Maat, símbolo de la Verdad. Mientras, un jurado compuesto por dioses le formulaba preguntas a cerca de su conducta pasada. Dependiendo de sus respuestas el corazón disminuía o aumentaba su peso. Thot, actuando como escriba, anotaba los resultados y se los entregaba a Osiris.

At the end of the judgment, Osiris was pronouncing sentence: If was affirmative, his Ka and his Ba could go to meet the mummy, conform the Aj and live eternally.

But if the verdict was negative, his heart was thrown to Ammit, the devouring of the dead (a pathethic being with head of crocodile, long hair of lion, human torso and arms, and legs of hippopotamus), and finished him. This was named the second death and supposed for the deceased the end of his immortal condition .

Maat, goddess of the Truth and the Justice, daughter of Ra. Maat is an cosmic abstract concept of universal justice, of balance and harmony that reign in the world from its origin and it is necessary to preserve them.

There sums up the Egyptian cosmovisión (similar to the notion of harmony and areté, proper of the Hellenic world, or to the idea of virtue and sin, of the Judaeo-Christian world).

The maat belief comes from very ancient times, and reached its maximum development in the Ancient Empire of Egypt.

In that time it was understood that the guardian and guarantor of such cosmic balance was the pharaoas supreme embodiment of human and divine justice.

However, after the political crisis that supervene to the death of Pepi iI, the faith of the ancient egyptians entered crisis, so that the concept of Maat was separated of the charge of the pharao.

Sometimes the concept of Maat was represented as another deity, but this seems to be for merely allegorical motives, as all that the goddess Maat never had major participation in the mythological sagas of the Egyptian gods.

Iconography: The hieroglyphic sign that represents her is a feather of ostrich, vertical, in perfect balance and other variants.

This symbol usually appears in the representation of the "psicostasis" (Judgment of Osiris), the supposed moment in which the Ka was weighed - the spirit - of the deceased in a scales of two plates, in which the heart of the deceased was represented and in which the hieroglyphic Maat was appearing.

Hybrid goddess: head of crocodile, front half of lion and rear half of hippopotamus. This goddess is named " Devouring of the Dead" and is located on the foot of the scales waiting the result of the bore of the heart.

According to the Egyptian thought, this organ was in charge of the acts in the earth, that had to be weighed in scales to verify if the individual had been just in life and deserving of eternal life.

In the counterweight of the above mentioned scales was placed the feather of Maat (the justice, the cosmic order) or the proper goddess; both, heart and feather, they had to be equal of light, so that the dead could be considered " Just of Voice ", to be called a pure soul.

Otherwise, Ammyt would proceed to devour him so that the dead was perishing definitively and was losing his condition of immortal.

Iconography: Anubis was represented as a jackal (or dog) black and as a man with head of jackal, probably for that animal these were commonly in the cemeteries, that would give to the ancient Egyptians a relation between jackal and death.

Anubis is his greek name. His real name, transliterado of the Egyptian, was Inpu.

Anubis is very related not only to the death but to the resurrection after the death, since he was identical with black color, color that represents the life and the fertility (in Ancient Egypt the black wasa the color of fertility because when level of the Nile river raised, in the rise it was depositing a thick layer of black slime on which then the cultures were growing).

That's the reason why Anubis was the manager of

embalming the Pharaohs, guiding them to the necropolis and taking care of this one city with his life.

When Osiris rose to power in the world of the dead, Anubis took a more secondary role where it was limiting himself to the defense of the necropolis and to the embalming of the bodies of the Pharaohs (As it is possible to see in the ritual masks that the priests were using at the time of embalming the Pharaoh).

He was the manager of watching, along with Horus, the scales in the one that was weighed the hearts of the deceased during the judgment before Osiris. It is considered that the Greeks were comparing it with Hermes. The Romans had it inside his deities under the name of Hermanubis.

The mythological history of Anubis

Anubis is the son of Seth, god of chaos, and Neftis (or of the god Osiris and Neftis). After finding out about the illegitimate son of his wife Neftis, Seth decides to murder him but Neftis takes the baby Anubis with Isis who raises him as follower and friend of Osiris.

After Seth killed Osiris, Anubis together with Isis would resuscitate him.

Anubis has a daughter called Kebechet who was represented as a decapitated snake or as an ostrich loading water, she was the goddess of freshness and purification. She was the manager of giving water to the spirits of the dead while they were hoping that his mummification should complete.

She received worship in Cinópolis, Asiut, Menfis and Licópolis. Also in sanctums in several necropolis.

The BookThe version heliopolitana, written by the priests of Heliópolis for the Pharaohs, is in some sarcofagi, stelas, papyrus and graves of the dynasties the XI, XII and XIIIth, although the essence comes from primitive writings. Clearly solar, he promotes the theology of the god Ra of the Dead.

It's a funerary book formed by a set of magic formulae and enchantments (rau) that in egyptian mythology helped the dead in his life in the otherworld and in the judgement of Osiris.

Origin and formation

However much the appearance of the Book of the Dead dates back to the New Empire, to find its origins it is necessary to go back to the Texts of the Pyramids of the Ancient Empire and later to the Texts of the Sarcofagi of the Average Empire.

This evolution allows that this heterogeneous collection of formulae should contain funeral texts of all the epochs of the history of Egypt. They emphasize three different versions from the Book of the Dead, which were happening across the history:

The heliopolitan version, written by the priests of Heliópolis for the Pharaohs, is in some sarcofagi, stelas, papyrus and graves of the dynasties the XI, XII and XIIIth, although the essence comes from primitive writings. Clearly solar, promotes the theology of the god Ra.

The heliopolitan version , written in hieroglyphics (and then in hieratics) on papyrus, is divided in chapters without a certain order, although the big majority they have a title and a vignette. Used during the dynasties the XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX and XXIst already not only for the Pharaohs but also for particular citizens.

The saita version gave place to its maximum expression in the Dynasty of Egypt XXVI, where there was fixed the order of the chapters, which are going to remain invariable until the end of the Ptolemaich period.

Origin of the title

The title " Book of the Dead " · owes to his first publisher and translator, the German egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius, who published it in 1842 as Das Todtenbuch der Ägypter, although it is said also that the title comes from the name that the raiders of the tombs gave to the papyrus with inscriptions that they found along with the mummies: " Kitab to the-Mayitun ", in Arab, which it means " Book of the Dead-one ". The ancient Egyptians knew it as "Book to go out at day".

Structure

For the time being a whole of 190 chapters is known, but his extension is very unequal and there does not exist only one papyrus that understands all of them.

The extension of the papyrus was changing according to the purchasing power of every deceased, and once it was becoming popular, the most economic versions were realized ' in series ' for the temples and then refilled with the name of the buyer.

The succession of formulae, without any order and that go so far as to change from a few copies to others they have, nevertheless, an internal logic. According to the French egiptólogo Paul Barguet, the Book of the Dead can split in the following way:

Chapters 1-16: " To go Out a day " (prayer); march to the necropolis, hymns to the Sun and to Osiris.

Chapters 17-63: " To go out a day " (regeneration); victory and happiness; powerlessness of the enemies; power over the elements

Chapters 64-129: " To go Out a day " (transfiguration); power to show under diverse forms, to use the solar ship and to know some mysteries. Return to the grave; judgment before the court of Osiris.

Chapters 130-162: Texts of glorification of the dead, which must be read throughout the year, in certain holidays, for the funeral worship; service of the gifts. Preservation of the mummy for the amulets.

Chapters 163-190: is a complement of everything previous, with formulae where they praise Osiris.

Chapter 125

Perhaps the most famous and important chapter of the Book of the Dead is the licentiate " Formula to enter the room of two maat ", in which the deceased appears before the court of Osiris with the object of which there is weighed his heart (his actions) so that he could continue his life in the world of the dead.

This chapter, of well-known complexity and extension, contains the so-called " negative Confessions ", declarations of innocence that the deceased realized before the gods of the court in order to justify his personal actions, which makes clear the big moral importance that this chapter was meaning for the ancient Egyptians.

Out-standing papyrus

For its extension

Papyrus of Ani: it is the most well-known and more finished version of the Book of the Dead, emphasizing his length (23,6 meters). This papyrus, realized for royal scribe Ani (dynasty the XIXth), at present finds in the British Museum registered under the nº 10.470.

Papyrus of Aufanj: at present in the Egyptian Museum of Turin, it has a length of 19 meters and 165 chapters.

For its antiquity

Papyrus of Iuya: it is in the Egyptian Museum of Cairo.

Papyrus of Ja: it is in the Egyptian Museum of Turin, has 33 chapters.

Papyrus of Gnu: it is in the British Museum (nº 10.477) and possesses 137 chapters.

Texts of the Pyramids

The Texts of the Pyramids are a repertoire of conjurations recorded in the sepulchral cameras of the pyramids with the intention of helping the Pharaoh in the otherworld and of assuring his resurrection. They are a compilation of texts, without apparent order, of a cosmological, possibly very ancient system.

They should have been used during the funeral ceremony. The pyramid of Unis, the last Pharaoh of the Dynasty of Egypt V, was the first place in which Texts of the Pyramids were recorded. Later it turned into habitual practice to inscribe them inside the pyramids of the Ancient Empire.

Their evolution will give place to: The Texts of the Sarcofagi in the Average Empire that are of two types, biographical (they count the life of the deceased) or juridical (legacy of his goods). The Book of the Dead in the New Empire that describes what debit to do the spirit of the deceased to obtain his reward in the otherworld.

Uadyet, " Lady of the Sky ", was symbolizing the ardent heat of the sun, and the flame of the fire. Further on the " Eye of Ra ". Greek name: Uto or Buto. Greek deity: Leto.

Woman with the Red crown of the Low Egypt and the ureus. Also since he charges, on a basket, with the Red crown. Other times as a lioness with the solar disc and the ureus. Protective goddess of the Pharaoh and of the Low Egypt. It

was a part of the real title: " Two Ladies " (Name of Nebty) that was symbolizing the reign on two Earths, the Low and High Egypt.

Daughter of Anubis and wife of Hapi-Meht. She nursed Child Horus, son of Isis, and protected him from Seth. Originary from, and boss of Buto, in the Low Egypt, where she had a famous oracle. She was also venerated in Tanis.

Iconography: hawk or man with head of hawk, with the Double crown. And a lot of other forms.

He presents many forms, according to his function:

As Harpócrates (Child Horus) is the sun that is reborn every day, the real heir.

As Harsiese, he is young, the son of Isis and Osiris.

As Horus Iunmutef, priest in the funeral rites.

As Horus Behedety is the sun in its plenitude.

As Harmajis, it arises with Ra of the hill of heliópolis, with leonine form.

As Harendotes, Haroeris, or Horjenti Irti, wages war against Seth.

One associated Ra as Ra-Horajti.

In the Egyptian mythology, Horus helped by Shemsu Hor

fought against Seth to recover the throne of his father, Osiris, died by Seth. Seth stayed as the god of the High Egypt and Horus of the Low Egypt. Later Horus was a god of the whole Egypt, whereas Seth was a god of the desert and of the foreign peoples.

It represents the struggle between the fertility of the Nile (Osiris) and the dryness of desert (Seth). Later it left the government to the mythical kings, so called "Shemsu-Hor" as the tradition. Also he is the protector of Osiris in the Egyptian inframundo, the Duat.

During the judgment to the dead persons, as The Book of the Dead, he is the mediator between the late one and Osiris. It is probable that his worship had origin in the delta of the Nile although it was venerated in the whole Egypt with important temples in Edfu, Hieracómpolis and Letópolis. His worship spread over the Mediterranean as Harpócrates linked to his mother Isis.

The Shemsu Hor

They were a few mythical personages who helped Horus to avenge his father (Osiris), murdered by his uncle Seth. His name wants to say " followers of Horus ".

According to Manetón, Egyptian historian of late epoch, they directed Egypt during about 6000 years, just after the " demigods and kings " of previous epochs. Before the above mentioned, they directed the country the "gods".

Man with head of hawk or of lion. Ram with head of lion, hawk or sphinx. Although the sphinx in the classic world is usually a feminine entity, in Egypt it served to represent an eminently masculine god.

The sphinx had in Egypt diverse appearances: body of lion with human head, with head of ram or with head of hawk.

All these representations are intimately related to Ra. Under the aspect of the feline with human head it tries to congregate, in only one divine entity, the force and the potency of the lion with the intelligence of the man, resembling with the king and with the sun in the morning.

Harmajis is " Horus that is in the ajet ", the name that was given to the sphinx. The ajti are two regions that separate the day sky of the nocturne. In an ajet the sun descends to the Duat, in other, appears at the dawn.

In these places the solar light has a characteristic: it evolves gradually. Although the divine figure of the sphinx is very previous, the worship to a deity named Harmajis does not seem to exist before 1150 B.C...

His name means " Horus the Sun " in his youngest appearance.

Again we are before another form fused to Ra, following the same scheme of Horajty or Harmajis. This declaration of the sun is a fruit of his affiliation with a warlike god linked to

Hathor, whose name nutritional goddess means House of Horus, goddess of love, dance and musical arts and boss of the intoxicated ones in the Egyptian mythology.

Egyptian name Hut-Hor. Greek name: Hathor. Greek deity: Afrodita. Phoenician deity: Astarté. Semitic deity: Baalat. Iconography: Represented in the shape of cow or as woman with ears and horns of the same animal between which it was showing a solar disc. Her attribute was the sistro.

She used to be the mother of the god Horus, although some sources suggest that there was a sacred marriage with Horus as part of the annual festival in Luxor.

Together they avenged the death of the father of Horus, the god Osiris. Under the form of a cow she receives and protects the deceased, offering food to the dead.

Later she was identified by Isis, who replaced her as mother of Horus.

In Dendera she was the goddess of love, maternity,

juvenile beauty, happiness and eroticism. She had temples dedicated to Abu Simbel, identified with Nefertari, File, Deir the-Medina and Serabit the-Jadim.

It does not take animal aspect as an independent entity. Integrated to the set of the " Four Sons of Horus " and as representative of one of the points of the compass, it can always present the form of a bird or snake that four heads go out along his body, related to funeral assignments.

As its own name indicates, the " Four Sons of Horus " have direct bearing on Horus; as such, they assist and protect Osiris and, for extension, to the deceased and to his guts. Hapy is the protector and guard of the lungs.

Four Sons of Horus and with them Hapy, are the representatives of Four Winds and of four points of the compass, being Hapy the delegate of the North.

He appears along with his brothers on a lotus flower opened opposite to Osiris, in the " Room of Two Truths " or " Room of the Bore of soul".

Under the set of Four Sons of Horus he can appear with form of bird or snake of which four heads go out along his body.

As its own name indicates, four sons of Horus link of direct form with the god hawk Horus and, as such, they assist and protect Osiris.

For extension also they take care of the deceased and of his guts. Also they are the representatives of four winds and of four points of the compass, being Amset the delegate of the South.

Amset is the protector and guard of the liver.

His worship goes back to the first Egyptian dynasties. Its believed he emerged of the waters of the chaos in the creation of the world.

He was the " Master of the waters ". In the malignant aspect he is represented as a demon of the otherworld; one associated Seth because it was generating danger and disorder;

in some version of the myth of Osiris it is said that Seth hid in the body of a crocodile to escape without punishment for his crime; nevertheless he collaborated in the birth of Horus and helped to destroy Seth; also it rescued four sons of Horus of the waters of Nun, by order of Ra.

His residence was to the East of the mountain of Baju, for what it was getting the name of " Master of Baju "; also it has there a temple.

It is related to the North point of the compass. In the locality of Gebelein, Neith was hismother, although in Sais he was his son. Represented as crocodile or man with head

of crocodile, with the crown atef. In the Low Epoch it can appear also with head of hawk, bull, ram or lion. It collaborated with Amón, with Ra (as Sobek-Ra), with Horus, Herishef and Seth; the last one appears also as his father.

The Greeks called him Suchos, what means " crocodile " and identified him with Helios. The center of worship was in Cocodrilópolis (Shedet), then in Nubt (Ombos), Tebas and the lake Moeris.

Beloved in Shedet (El-Fayum) along with Neith and Senuy, and in Kom Ombo, where he is a husband of Heket or of Hathor and father of Jonsu. His holiday was celebrated on the 4th of the month of Joiak.

Egyptian name: Serket-Heru. Greek name: Selkis.

Iconography: Woman with a scorpion on his head. Scorpion with feminine head, horns and the Sun. Sometimes with head of lioness.

Daughter of Ra, sometimes represented as wife of Horus, mother of Nhebkau.

Serket was protecting the sarcofagus of the Pharaoh and of the sting of the scorpions. The priests of Serket were medical and magicians who were treating the stings of the poisonous animals.

She was identified with Isis and Seshat. Venerated in the Delta, in Edfu and Per Serket.

Her Egyptian name was Ast, which means literally "throne". In Greek it is Isis. Osiris, brother and husband of Isis, was reigning in the ancient Egypt with peace, harmony and wisdom.

The Nile was fertilizing the ground and the crops were abundant. His subjects were happy. One day, Osiris went out of trip to know other civilizations and left the kingdom under the control of his wife Isis.

Seth, the envious brother, felt humiliated, since he believed that he should govern and not Isis. When the god Osiris

returned, Seth wanted to do a big party of welcome and threw a challenge to the guests: that one that was entering the chest that Seth had brought, this one was giving it to him as test of loyalty and respect.

Many tried but the chest was turning out to be too small or big. Osiris, onlooker, wanted to try and fitted him perfectly well. Seth knew the size of the brother and it was for this that he had had the chest left as a glove.

Immediately the brother, together with 72 accomplices, they closed the metal box hermetically and threw her to the Nile. Isis, with love and confidence, began his passage after the body of his husband.

After long and painful walks for Egypt, the goddess finds the chest with the rests of Osiris. But the drama continues when Seth, in his nastiness without end, stole the corpse and cut it in fourteen pieces that, again, it interspersed

for the whole kingdom. Isis does not give up and, with in company of her sister Neftis, Seth's wife, she covers every place of the kingdom. Finally they manage to find all the pieces with exception of the penis.

Nevertheless Isis reconstructed Osiris helped by Anubis and Neftis, and impregnated with him there conceived Horus child (Harpócrates), who later would avenge his father fighting against Seth.

Iconography: Isis is represented as woman with the hieroglyphic Ast on his head. Other times she is seated, showing a haido with the solar disc, for being a daughter of Ra, the god Solar. We can see her also with wings of kite, symbolizing her maternity, opening her arms to bless her devout ones and children. Also with form of tree goddess, breast-feeding the Pharaoh.

The most important temple dedicated to her worship was in the island of File. In Dendera she was exhibited annually in a kiosk of the temple of Hathor, to the beams of the sun, to be regenerated. In Giza she was venerated as " Lady of the pyramids "

Her worship propagated for the whole Mediterranean, resisting the expansion of the Christianity and she was supported in the temple of File during the Roman Empire until she was prohibited in times of Justiniano I, in 535 ddC.

The Christianity adopted the worship to Isis assimilating Virgin Mary, whose maternal and protective images are inspired in his iconography. The Black Virgins are considered to be images of Isis, adapted to the catholic ritual later.

Nephtys - Nebet-Het

In Egyptian mythology, Nephthys (spelt Nebet-het, and Nebt-het, in transliteration from hieroglyphs) is one of the Ennead of Heliopolis, a daughter of Nut and Geb, and the wife of Set.

She was originally Set's dualistic counterpart, representing the air, whereas Set originally represented the desert. In ancient Egypt, the oldest female in the house was given the honorary title of Nephthys, and she was popular even in the Greco-Roman period.

Consequently she was named Nebt-het, which means lady of the house, the house being a colloquial term for the sky, a use also present in the name of Hathor, meaning house of horus.

In art, she was depicted as a hawk, representative of the air, or as a woman with a hawk's wings, usually outstretched as a symbol of protection. She was shown crowned by the hieroglyphic of her name, which was the sign for a house (het), with the sign for neb, which could also mean basket, on top of it.

Because Set represented the barren desert, Set was seen at first as infertile, and subsequently as homosexual, and so Nepthys was seen as childless. As she was also seen as a bird, she gradually became seen as a vulture, which the Egyptians believed never had children because they were thought to all be female (the Egyptians thought that vultures were spontaneously created from air).

Although vultures were seen in a positive light, their feeding behaviour nevertheless led them to be associated also with decay and death, and so Nepthys too gradually became a goddess of death and decay.

This led her, in art, to be depicted as a mourning woman, and her hair was compared to the strips of cloth that shroud the bodies of the dead. She was known as a Friend of the Dead, and professional mourners became referred to as the Hawks of Nephthys.

When the Ennead and Ogdoad were merged, Nephthys was seen as joining the night-time boat journey of Ra, the sun god, when he entered the underworld, and accompanying him until he met the day again.

In the Ennead, she is also the sibling of the other pair - Osiris and Isis, who represented death and life, respectively. Consequently, when the merger of Ogdoad and Ennead caused the Ogdoad's god of death, Anubis, to be displaced, and become a lesser god, it was said that Nepthys was Anubis' mother, and Osiris his father.

This was described in myth by stating that a sexually frustrated Nepthys disguised herself as Isis to appeal to Set, but he did not notice her, but Osiris, Isis' husband, did, mistaking her for Isis, and resulting in the birth of Anubis. Later alternative versions hold that she just drugged Osiris with wine in order to seduce him.

Later, Nepthys, as the air, was identified as the source of rain, which occurred frequently only south of Egypt, and so was seen as the creator of the Nile river. Consequently she became identified as the goddess Anuket, who was considered to be the source of the Nile.

As a funerary goddess, this led to her being considered a protector of Hapi, one of the Four sons of Horus, specifically the deification of the canopic jar containing the lungs, the organ that suffers most from drowning.

In Egyptian mythology, Set (also spelt Sutekh, Setesh, Seteh) is an ancient god, who was originally the god of the desert, one of the two main biomes that constitutes Egypt, the other being the small fertile area on either side of the Nile.

Due to developments in the Egyptian language over the 3,000 years that Set was worshipped, by the Greek period, the t in Set was pronounced so indistinguishably from th that the Greeks spelt it as Seth.

As he was the god of the desert, Set was associated with sandstorms, and desert caravans. Due to the extreme hostility of the desert environment, Set was viewed as immensely powerful, and was regarded consequently as the chief god.

One of the more common epithets was that he was great of strength, and in one of the Pyramid Texts it states that the king's strength is that of Set. As chief god, he was patron of Lower Egypt, where he was worshipped, most notably at Ombos.

The alternate form of his name, spelt Setesh (stš), and later Sutekh (swt?), designates this supremacy, the extra sh and kh signifying majesty. The exact translation of Set is unknown for certain, but is usually considered to be either (one who) dazzles or pillar of stability, one connected to the desert, and the other more to

the institution of monarchy. Set formed part of the Ennead of Heliopolis, as a son of the earth (Geb) and sky (Nut), husband to the fertile land around the Nile (Nephthys), and brother to death (Ausare/Osiris), and life (Isis).

The word for desert, in Egyptian was Tesherit, which is very similar to the word for red, Tesher (in fact, it has the appearance of a feminine form of the word for red). Consequently, Set became associated with things that were red, including people with red hair, which is not an attribute that Egyptians generally had, and so he became considered to also be a god of foreigners.

Set's attributes as desert god lead to him also being associated with gazelles, and donkeys, both creatures living on the desert edge. Since sandstorms were said to be under his control as lord of the desert, and were the main form of storm in the dry climate of Egypt, during the Ramesside Period, Set was identified as various Canaanite storm deities, including Baal.

The Set animal

In art, Set was mostly depicted as a mysterious and unknown creature, referred to by Egyptologists as the Set animal or Typhonic beast, with a curved snout, square ears, forked tail, and canine body, or sometimes as a human with only the head of the Set animal.

It has no complete resemblance to any known creature, although it does resemble a composite of an aardvark, and a jackal, both of which are desert creatures, and the main species of aardvark present in ancient Egypt additionally had a reddish appearance (due to thin fur, which shows the skin beneath it).

The earliest known representation of Set comes from a tomb dating to the Naqada I phase of the Predynastic Period (circa 4000 BC–3500 BC), and the Set-animal is even found on a mace-head of the Scorpion King, a Protodynastic ruler.

A new theory has it that the head of the Set animal is a representation of Mormyrus kannamae (Nile Mormyrid), which resides in the waters near Kom Ombo, one of the sites of a temple of Set, with the two square fins being what are normally interpreted as ears.

However, it may be that part or all of the Set animal was based on the Salawa, a similarly mysterious canine creature, with forked tail and square ears, one member of which was claimed to have been found and killed in 1996 by the local population of a region of Upper Egypt. It may even be the case that Set was originally neither of these, but later became associated with one or both of them due to their similar appearance.

Contestings of Horus and Set

After Lower Egypt and Upper Egypt, were unified, through the conquest of the lower half by the Upper, a representation of this conflict arose in mythology. Horus, who was the chief god of Upper Egypt, was depicted as having fought long and hard against Set in the struggle for the crown.

It was said that in the struggle, Set's testicles were ripped off, explaining the desert's infertility, and one of Horus' eyes was partly gouged out, explaining why the moon was not as bright as the sun, since Horus, in this early form, was said to have the sun and the moon as his eyes. Ultimately, like the nations, the two gods were reconciled.

Saviour of Ra

As the Ogdoad system became more assimilated with the Ennead one, as a result of creeping increase of the identification of Atum as Ra, itself a result of the joining of Upper and Lower Egypt, Set's position in this became considered.

With Horus as Ra's heir on Earth, Set, previously the chief god, for Lower Egypt, required an appropriate role as well, and so was identified as Ra's main hero, who fought Apep each night, during Ra's journey (as sun god) across the underworld.

He was thus often depicted standing on the prow of Ra's night barque spearing Apep in the form of a serpent, turtle, or other dangerous water animals.

Surprisingly, in some Late Period representations, such as in the Persian Period temple at Hibis in the Khargah Oasis, Set was represented in this role with a falcon's head, taking on the guise of Horus, despite the fact that Set was usually considered in quite a different position with regard to heroism.

This assimilation also led to Anubis being displaced, in areas where he was worshipped, as ruler of the underworld, with his situation being explained by his being the son of Osiris. As Isis represented life, Anubis' mother was identified instead as Nephthys.

This led to an explanation in which Nephthys, frustrated by Set's lack of sexual interest in her, disguised herself as the more attractive Isis, but failed to gain Set's attention because he was homosexual.

Osiris mistook Nephthys for Isis and they had sex, resulting in Anubis' birth. In some later texts, after Set lost the connection to the desert, and thus infertility, and thus homosexuality, Anubis was identified as Set's son, as Set is Nephthys' husband.

God of evil

Naturally, when, during the Second Intermediate Period the mysterious foreign Hyksos gained the rulership of Egypt, and ruled the Nile Delta, from Avaris, they chose Set, originally Lower Egypt's chief god, as their patron, and so Set became worshipped as the chief god once again.

However, following this invasion, Egyptian attitudes towards foreigners could be best described as xenophobic, and eventually the Hyksos were deposed. During this period, Set (previously a hero), as the Hyksos' patron, came to embody all that the Egyptians disliked about the foreign rulers, and so he gradually absorbed the identities of all the previous evil gods, particularly Apep.

When the Legend of Osiris and Isis grew up, Set was consequently identified as the killer of Osiris in it, having hacked Osiris' body into pieces, dispersing them, so that he could not be resurrected. Interpreting the ears as fins, the head of the Set-animal resembles the Oxyrhynchus fish, and so it was said that as a final precaution, an Oxyrhynchus fish ate Osiris' penis.

Now that he had become the embodiment of evil, Set was consequently sometimes depicted as one of the creatures that the Egyptians most feared, crocodiles, and hippopotamus, and by the time of the New Kingdom, he was often associated with the villainous gods of other rising empires.

One such case was Baal, an identification in which Set was described as being the consort of ‘Ashtart or ‘Anat, wife of Baal. Set was also identified by the Egyptians with the Hittite deity Teshub, who was a vicious storm god, as was Set.

The Greeks later linked Set with Typhon because both were evil forces, storm deities and sons of the Earth that attacked the main gods.

Some scholars hold that after Egypt's conquest by the Persian ruler Cambyses II, Set also became associated with foreign oppressors, including the Achaemenid Persians, Ptolemaic dynasty, and Romans.

Indeed, it was during the time that Set was particularly vilified, and his defeat by Horus widely celebrated. Nevertheless, throughout this period, in some distant locations he was still regarded as the heroic chief deity; for example, there was a temple dedicated to Set in the village of Mut al-Kharab, in the Dakhlah Oasis.

Temples

Seth was worshipped at the temple of Kom Ombo at Ombos (formerly Nubt), and Oxyrhynchus in upper Egypt, and also in part of the Faiyum area.

The Seth oracle was consulted in the oases of Kharga and Dakhla in the south west of the country.

In Egyptian mythology, Tefnut is a goddess of water and fertility, indeed her name means moist waters (i.e. rain). She was created by Atum (who later was thought to be the same as Ra) from the semen which resulted from his primordial act of masturbation or autofellatio, or from his mucus, a mythology that may be related to the alternative translation of her name - spat waters.

Another version states that Atum sneezed once and Tefnut's brother Shu was born, and when he coughed to clear his throat Tefnut was born. With her brother, Shu, she was the mother of Geb and Nut.

In a myth describing the terrible weather disaster at the end of the Old Kingdom (which was responsible for the end of the Old Kingdom), it was said that Tefnut (moisture) and Shu once argued, and she left Egypt.

The myth states that Shu quickly decided he missed her, but she fled to Nubia (somewhere much more temperate), and changed into a cat (symbolic of war), destroying any man or god that approached. Thoth, disguised, eventually succeeds in convincing her to return. Tefnut is sometimes depicted as a cat in reflection of this tale.

Shu

In Egyptian mythology, Shu (meaning dryness and he who rises up) is one of the primordial gods, a personification of

air, one of the Ennead of Heliopolis. He was created by Atum from his breath, resulting from an act of masturbation or autofellatio in the city of Heliopolis. With his sister, Tefnut (moisture), he was the father of Nut and Geb. His daughter, Nut, was the sky goddess whom he held over the Earth (Geb), separating the two.

As the air, Shu was considered to be cooling, and thus calming, influence, and pacifier. Due to the association with air, calm, and thus Maàt (truth, justice and order), Shu was portrayed in art as wearing an ostrich feather.

In a much later myth, representing the terrible weather disaster at the end of the Old Kingdom, it was said that Tefnut and Shu once argued, and Tefnut (moisture) left Egypt for Nubia (which was always more temperate). It was said that Shu quickly decided that he missed her, but she changed into a cat that destroyed any man or god that approached. Thoth, disguised, eventually succeeded in convincing her to return.

In Egyptian mythology, Bast (also spelt Bastet, Ubasti, and Pasht) is an ancient goddess, worshipped at least since the Second Dynasty. The centre of her cult was in Per-Bast (Bubastis in Greek), which was named after her.

Originally she was viewed as the protector goddess of Lower Egypt, and consequently depicted as a fierce lion. Indeed, her name means (female) devourer.

As protectress, she was seen as defender of the pharaoh, and consequently of the chief god, Ra, who was a solar deity, gaining her the titles Lady of flame, and Eye of Ra . Bast was originally a goddess of the sun, but later changed by the Greeks to a goddess of the moon.

Later scribes sometimes named her Bastet, a variation on Bast consisting of an additional feminine suffix to the one already present, thought to have been added to emphasise pronunciation.

Since Bastet would literally mean (female) of the ointment

jar, Bast gradually became thought of as the goddess of perfumes, earning the title perfumed protector. In connection with this, when Anubis became the god of embalming, Bast, as goddess of ointment, became thought of as his mother, although this association was broken in later years, when Anubis became thought of as Nephthys' son.

This gentler characteristic, of goddess of perfumes, together with Lower Egypt's position as the loser in the wars between Upper & Lower Egypt, lead to her ferocity being gradually toned down.

Thus by the Middle Kingdom, she had come to be thought of as a domestic cat rather than a lion, although occasionally, she would be depicted holding a lionness mask, hinting at suppressed ferocity.

Since domestic cats tend to be quite tender, and protective, toward their children, she was also thought of as a good mother, and sometimes became depicted with numerous (unidentified) kittens. Consequently, a woman who wanted children would sometimes wear an amulet depicting Bast, as a cat, with kittens, the number of which indicated her own desired amount of children.

Due to the severe disaster to the food supply that could be caused by simple vermin such as mice and rats, and their ability to fight and kill snakes, especially cobras, cats in Egypt were revered heavily, sometimes being given golden jewelry to wear, and being allowed to eat from the same plates as their owners.

Consequently, as the main cat (rather than lion) deity, Bast was strongly revered as the patron of cats, and thus it was in the temple at Per-Bast that dead (and mummified) cats were brought for burial.

Over 300,000 mummified cats were discovered when Bast's temple at per-Bast was excavated. As a cat/lion goddess, and protector of the lands, when, during the New Kingdom, the fierce lion god

Maahes became part of Egyptian mythology, she was identified, in the Lower Kingdom, as his mother. This paralleled the identification of the fierce lion goddess Sekhmet, as his mother in the Upper Kingdom.

As divine mother, and more especially as protectress, for Lower Egypt, she became strongly associated with Wadjet, the patron goddess of Lower Egypt, eventually becoming Wadjet-Bast, paralleling the similar pair of patron (Nekhbet) and lioness protector (Sekhmet) for Upper Egypt.

Eventually, her position as patron and protector of Lower Egypt, lead to her being identified as the more substantial goddess Mut, whose cult had risen to power with that of Amun, and eventually being absorbed into her as Mut-Wadjet-Bast. Shortly after, Mut also absorbed the identities of the Sekhmet-Nekhbet pairing as well.

This merging of identities of similar goddesses has lead to considerable confusion, leading to some associating things such as the title Mistress of the Sistrum (more properly belonging to Hathor, who had become thought of as an aspect of Isis, as had Mut), and the idea of her as a lunar goddess (more properly an attribute of Mut).

Indeed, much of this confusion occurred to subsequent generations, as the identities slowly merged, leading to the Greeks, who sometimes named her Ailuros (Greek for cat), thinking of Bast as a version of Artemis, their own moon goddess.

And thus, to fit their own cosmology, to the Greeks, Bast was thought of as the sister of Horus, who they identified as Apollo (Artemis' brother), and consequently the daughter of Isis and Osiris.

Added note, The color commonly worn by the followers of Bast was green.˜

Sistrum

A sistrum is a musical instrument of the percussion family, chiefly associated with ancient Egypt. It consists of a handle and a U-shaped metal frame, made of brass or bronze and between 10 and 30 cm in width. When shaken the small rings or loops of thin metal on its moveable crossbars produce a sound that can range from a soft tinkling to a loud jangling.

The Egyptian sistrum

The sistrum was a sacred instrument in ancient Egypt. It was used in dances and religious ceremonies, particularly in the worship of the goddess Hathor, with the U-shape of the sistrum's handle and frame seen as resembling the face and horns of the cow goddess.

It was also shaken to avert the flooding of the Nile and to frighten away Set. Additionally, the goddess Bast is often depicted holding a sistrum, symbolizing her role as a goddess of dance, joy, and festivity.

Sistra (pl.) are still used in the rites of the Coptic and Ethiopian churches. Besides the depiction in Egyptian art with dancing and expressions of joy, the sistrum was also used in Egyptian literature. The hieroglyph for the sistrum is shown, but there are other varieties (sistrum and castanets).

The sistrum today

The sistrum was occasionally revived in 19th century western orchestral music, nowadays however it is replaced by its close modern equivalent, the tambourine. The effect produced by the sistrum in music when shaken in short, sharp, rhythmic pulses is to arouse movement and activity.

The rhythmical shaking of the sistrum, like the tambourine, is associated with religious or ecstatic events, whether shaken as a sacred rattle in the worship of Hathor of ancient Egypt, in the strident jangling of the tambourine in modern-day Evangelism, Gypsy song and dance, on stage at a rock concert, or to heighten a large-scale orchestral tutti.

The "barcoo dog," a sheep herding tool used in Australian bush band music, is a type of sistrum.

Sopdet - Sotis o Sothis

Sothis is the Greek name of a star that the Egyptians considered unusually significant. The star is not explicitly identified, but there are enough clues for modern scholars to be almost unanimous in identifying Sothis as Sirius.

Plutarch states that The soul of Isis is called Dog by the Greeks

Sothis was identified with Isis in many Egyptian texts

The Greeks called Sirius the dog

Sirius is the brightest star visible in the sky

The first appearance of Sirius in the sky each year occurs just before the annual Nile flooding

The Greeks called the Sirius period the Dog Days and associated them with the hottest days of summers as well as diseases 'caused' by this heat. The Egyptians also associated the Sothic period (of Sirius) with epidemics

Sothic Mythos

Prof Karl Kerenyi claims an ancient mythic figure Iachen (or Iachim) represents a sublimated form of Sirius or Sothis. Sirius rose with the Nile flood and was also associated with epidemics, Sothis was thus a destructive and greatly feared goddess (perhaps akin to Sekhmet, or an Egyptian equivalent of Kali).

Iachen was said to be an Egyptian magician who 'tamed' the power of Sirius and transformed it into a life giving power (just as the flood fertilised the land of Egypt with fresh Nile mud). When he died he became the centre of a cult which kept a flame burning on his altar.

When Sirius rose the priests of Iachen entered the streets with torches lit from the altar, in order to channel the power of Sirius and heal any diseases unleashed by it. Iachen was known in Minoan Crete as I-wa-ko, who became the Greek torch bearing son of Persephone - Iakchos, who was also associated with Sirius, as ‘the light bearing star of the nocturnal mysteries’ according to Kerenyi.

The late Isis took on the role of many more ancient deities, including Neith, Hathor and the lion headed Sekhmet.

The connection between Sirius and a dog may reflect the stars association with the destructive power of the goddess, universally symbolised by various predators of feline or canine origin (lions, tigers, panthers, wolves and hunting dogs in particular). In Greek culture this became the she-dog of Orion, the sublimated form perhaps.

Gods who ride such animals, notably Shiva and Dionysos, or who have canine servants, notably Orion and Osiris (with Anubis his gatekeeper and embalmer), were also regarded by Kerenyi as partly derived from Iachen, the sublimator, or an even older myth.

Dogs associated with various incarnations of Dionysos, as well as with Orion's dog (Sirius), were regarded as the discoverers, or bearers, of the first grapevine, this was probably because Sirius rose in the period of the vines blossoming, shortly before harvest.

It also reached its highest point in the sky on around Jan 1st, just before the birth of Dionysos on Jan 6th (epiphany), associated with the opening of the first wine.

The universality of Sirius lore, even the Pawnee tribe of North America, and others, referred to Sirius as the 'Wolf Star', indicates this Sothic Mythos may have extremely ancient roots, perhaps as old as the first humans to migrate from Asia.

In the Ennead mythology, Nut (alternatively spelled Nuit) was the sky goddess, in contrast to most other mythologies, which usually have a sky father.

Nut is a daughter of Shu, god of the air, and Tefnut, goddess of moistness. Her husband was Geb, the earth, with whom she had 4 children: Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nepthys.

In myth, she originally lay eternally having sex with Geb, but Shu (the air) later separated them, and it was said that if she ever returned to that position, chaos would reign (because the world was the bit that existed between the two).

Nut was said to be covered in stars touching the cardinal

points of her body. Originally she was the goddess of the daytime sky, but in later time she was known simply as the sky goddess.

Geb

Amongst the group who believed in the Ennead, a form of Egyptian mythology centred in Heliopolis, Geb (also spelt Seb, and Keb) was the personification of the earth, and indeed this is what his name means - earth, and thus it was said that when he laughed, it caused earthquakes.

Since the Egyptians held that their underworld was literally that, under the earth, Geb was sometimes seen as containing the dead, or imprisoning those not worthy to go to Aaru.

In the Ennead, he is the husband of Nut, the sky, the son of the primordial elements Tefnut (moisture) and Shu (dryness), and the father to the four lesser gods of the system - Osiris, Set, Isis, and Nephthys. In this context, Geb was said to have originally been engaged in eternal sex with Nut, and had to be separated from her by Tefnut.

Consequently, in early depictions he was shown reclining, with his phallus pointed towards Nut.

As time progressed, the glyph used in his name became more associated with the habitable land of Egypt, and so thus vegetation. Likewise, since it was used as his name, he too became associated with vegetation, with barley being said to grow upon his ribs, and was depicted with plants and other green patches on his body.

Gradually, vegetation began to be thought of as something that ought to be fat, and plump, and so the hieroglyph was used in these words too.

Because of this association with fatness, and vegetation, and so forth, the individual glyph became used as the word for goose. Indeed, the accession of a new pharaoh was announced by releasing four wild geese, to the four corners of the sky, to bless his reign with prosperity.

This lead to Geb's name also taking the meaning goose, and so, it was for this reason that Geb became called the Great Cackler, and subsequently represented as a black goose, where black represented the fertile soil. When the Ennead and Ogdoad later merged, it was thus Geb who was considered the goose who laid the egg from which Ra emerged.

His association with vegetation, and sometimes with the underworld, also brought him the occasional interpretation that he was the husband of Renenutet, a minor goddess of the harvest, who was the mother of Nehebkau, a god associated with the underworld, who was on the same occasions said to be his son by her. He was also the equivalent of the Greek god Kronos.

The Hymn of Geb says:

Behold, I rejoice on my standard, on my seat.

I am the creator of darkness,

making his place in the limits of the sky,

the ruler of infinity.

I rejoice in the lord of the palace.

My nest is unseen; I have broken the egg.

I am the lord of millions of years.

I have made my nest in the limits of the sky,

and descended to the earth as the Goose,

who drives out all sins.

In later Egyptian dynastic times, Ra was subsumed into the god Horus, as Re-Horakhty (and many variant spellings).

The Eye of Ra, or the Right Eye of Horus. The sun is either the symbolic interpretation of Ra, his entire body, or just his eye. The symbols of Ra are the solar symbols of a golden disk or the symbol ? (circle with a point at its centre).

He was also associated with the Phoenix, as he rose again each morning in flames.

According to E. A. Wallis Budge he was the One god of Egyptian Monotheism, of which all other gods and goddesses were aspects, manifestations, phases, or forms of the god.

From the eighth dynasty (ca. 2400 BC) onward he was elevated to the status of a national deity, and much later was combined with the Theban god Amun to become Amun-Ra, the foremost deity of the Egyptian pantheon.

Amun-Ra was the most powerful god and as he grew and grew he made Egypt something of a theocracy. In later times, when the earth god Atum evolved into a god of the setting sun, Atum became considered an aspect of Ra. Khepri, the less important god who pushed the sun across the sky each day, eventually was also absorbed into Ra, as the centuries wore on, becoming the aspect of Ra that is the rising sun.

Also in later times, Ra was associated with Heryshaf. Eventually, as another sun-god, Horus, gained more importance, Ra himself was subsumed into just being an aspect of Horus, as Re-Harakhty, which means Ra, Horus of the two horizons.

Amon-Ra's identity with Pluto or Jupiter was acknowledged by the Greeks and Romans. The Greeks even gave the name Diospolis, City of Zeus, to Thebes.

He remained paramount for centuries except for a brief suspension during the time of Akhenaten (1350-1334 BC) when a monotheistic worship of Aten, the sun disk itself, was imposed on the kingdom of Egypt.

Ra itself, however, was also a monotheistic God. A Hymn to Ra (approx. 1370 BCE) was written to stress the pantheistic nature of Ra to combat encroaching polytheism. In it, several gods and goddesses are described, not as beings in their own right, but certain forms of Ra. For example:

"Praise be unto thee, O Ra, thou exalted Power, who dost enter into the habitations of Ament, behold [thy] body is Temu.

"Praise be unto thee, O Ra, thou exalted Power, who dost enter into the hidden palace of Anubis, behold [thy] body is Khepera."

In order to pass through Duat (the underworld) each night, so that he might rise in the morning, the fiery Ra was compelled to use a boat (Atet in the morning, Sektet in the afternoon) to avoid being extinguished by the waters.

It was Maàt, i.e. order, the antithesis of chaos, that guided the course of the boat. At the helm of the boat stood Thoth, representative of the moon, who symbolically stood next to Horus, who, in early egyptian myth, represented the sky, and whose dark eye was the moon. It was Horus who steered.

Many of the other gods travelled in the boat with them, and one of them, possibly with the assistant Mehen (who may instead simply be nothing more than a boardgame), defended the boat from attack by the monster of darkness, who wished to devour Ra.

In early mythology, it was Set who was the hero defending the boat, and Apep who was the attacker, but in later myth, after Set became regarded as evil, it was Thoth who defended and Set who was the demon. Temporary failure to protect Ra was said to be the cause of solar eclipses, and mere difficulty in doing so was said to cause bad weather.

Those who take Ra's Sun affiliation metaphorically however, note that in Egypt, God was the life and light. The best way to represent this is with the Sun, which provides life through heating the Earth and providing energy for photosynthesis, as well as provides light for all to see. The Sun is then, not Ra, but an object which can be used metaphorically to help people understand Ra.

Hathor and Ra

A weird story, Hathor and Ra once argued, and she left Egypt. Ra (or Shu) quickly decided he missed her, but she changed into a cat that destroyed any man or god that approached. Thoth, disguised, eventually succeeds in convincing her to return.

The egyptian crown

It was one of the symbols of the pharaos and gods of the Ancient Egypt. The pskent is the name helenizado of the double crown, sehemty, carried by the Pharaohs from the dawns of the dynastic epoch and it was meaning that they were possessing the power in Two Lands (Egypt) .

It was formed by the superposition of two different crowns:

The White crown or hedyet. White oblong mitre, it crowns of the ancient kingdom of the South (High Egypt), associated with the god Seth.

The Red crown or desheret. It crowns with curled node, of the ancient kingdom of the North (Under Egypt), associated with the god Horus.

The Egyptian name of this double crown, sehemty, occurred in pskent for distortion of pa-sehemty, " two powers ".

The crown Atef is a form that derives from the White crown, adding to him two pens of ostrich, and sometimes a solar disc, two ureus, or two horns. It was an emblem of some gods as Osiris and of Herishef.

The crown Jemjem: It is a species of triple Atef, a variant of the crown Atef.

The crown Jepresh: It is a crown with form of skullcap, of blue color.

The crown Shuty: It is composed by two pens of hawk. Symbol of Two Earths. Further a solar disc was added to him.

Herishaff

In Egyptian mythology, Heryshaf (Egyptian ?ry-š=f "He who is on his lake"), transcribed in Greek as "Harsaphes" was an ancient ram-god whose cult was centered in Herakleopolis Magna (now Ihnasiyyah al-Madinah). He was identifed with Ra and Osiris in Egyptian mythology, and to Heracles in Greek mythology. The identification with Heracles may be related to the fact that in later times his name was sometimes reanalyzed as ?ry-šf.t "He who is over strength." One of his titles was “Ruler of the Riverbanks.” Heryshaf was a creator and fertility god who was born from the primeval waters. He was pictured as a man with the head of a ram, or as a ram.

Mesenet

In Egyptian mythology, Mesenet (also spelt Meskhenet, Meskhent, and Meshkent) was the goddess of childbirth, and the creator of each child's Ka, a part of their soul. In particular, in early Egypt, women delivered babies by squatting over a pair of bricks, known as birth bricks, and Mesenet was the goddess associated with this form of delivery. Consequently, in art, she was depicted as a brick with a woman's head, wearing a cow's uterus upon it. Since she was responsible for creating the Ka, she was associated with fate, and thus said to be the (lesbian) consort of Sai, the goddess of destiny.

It was said that she was present at the birth of three triplets, and foretold they would each be pharaohs - the triplets in question were Sahure, Userkaf, and Neferirkare Kakai, who were the first pharaohs in the 5th Dynasty (although Userkaf was not the sibling of the other two, but their father).

God of Air

Originally, he was simply nothing more than a deification of the concept of air, and thus wind, one of the four fundamental concepts held to have composed the primordial universe, in the Ogdoad cosmogeny, whose cult was strongest in Hermopolis.

His name reflects this function, since it means the hidden one, reflecting the invisibility of the air, and of the wind.

Like all other members of the Ogdoad, his male aspect was usually depicted as a frog, or frog-headed. Symbolically, invisibility was represented by the color blue, since it was the color of the sky, seen through the air, and so this was the color usually given to Amun's image.

As with the other concepts in the Ogdoad, he was dualistically considered to have a female aspect, referred to as Amunet (also spelt Amentet, Amentit, Imentet, Imentit, Amaunet, and Ament), which was simply the feminine form of the word Amun. The other female aspects of the Ogdoad were all depicted as snakes, thus Amunet was depicted likewise.

Gradually, as god of air, he came to be associated with the breath of life, which created the ba, particularly in Thebes. By the First Intermediate Period this had led to him being thought of, in these areas, as the creator god, titled father of the gods, preceding the Ogdoad, although also part of it.

As he became more significant, he was assigned a wife (Amunet being his own female aspect, more than a distinct wife), and since he was the creator, his wife was considered the divine mother from which the cosmos emerged, who in the areas where Amun was worshipped was, by this time, Mut.

Amun became depicted in human form, seated on a throne, wearing on his head a plain deep circlet from which rise two straight parallel plumes, possibly symbolic of the tail feathers of a bird, a reference to his earlier status as a wind god.

Having become more important than Menthu, the local war god of Thebes, Menthu's authority became said to exist because he was the son of Amun. However, as Mut was infertile, it was believed that she, and thus Amun, had adopted Menthu instead.

In later years, due to the shape of a pool outside the sacred temple of Mut at Thebes, Menthu was replaced, as their adopted son, by Chons, the moon god.

With the eviction of the Hyksos rulers from Egypt, by the armies of the Eighteenth dynasty, Thebes, where the victors were based, became the most important city, and so Amun became nationally important.

To Amun the Pharaohs attributed all their successful enterprises, and on his temples they lavished their wealth and captured spoil. And so, when the Greeks reported back on their visits to Egypt, Amun, as king of the gods, became identified by the Greeks with Zeus, and so his consort Mut with Hera.

As the Egyptians considered themselves oppressed during the period of Hyksos rule, the victory under the supreme god Amun, was seen as his championing of the underdog.

Consequently, Amun was viewed as upholding the rights to justice of the poor, being titled Vizier of the poor, and aiding those who travelled in his name, as the Protector of the road. Since he upheld Ma'at, those who prayed to Amun were required first to demonstrate that they were worthy, by confessing their sins.

Fertility God

When, subsequently, Egypt conquered Kush, they identified the chief deity of the Kushites as Amun. This deity was depicted as Ram headed, specifically a woolly Ram with curved horns, and so Amun started becoming associated with the Ram.

Indeed, due to the aged appearance of it, they came to believe that this had been the original form of Amun, and that Kush was where he had been born.

However, since rams, due to their rutting, were considered a symbol of virility, Amun became thought of as a fertility deity, and so started to absorb the identity of Min, becoming Amun-Min. This association with virility lead to Amun-Min gaining the epithet Kamutef, meaning Bull of his mother, in which form he was often found depicted on the walls of Karnak, ithyphallic, and with a scourge.

Sun god

As Amun's cult grew bigger, Amun rapidly became identified with the chief God that was worshipped in other areas, Ra-Herakhty, the merged identities of Ra, and Horus. This identification led to a merger of identities, with Amun becoming Amun-Ra.

As Ra had been the father of Shu, and Tefnut, and the remainder of the Ennead, so Amun-Ra was likewise identified as their father.

Ra-Herakhty had been a sun god, and so this became true of Amun-Ra as well, Amun becoming considered the hidden aspect of the sun (e.g. during the night), in contrast to Ra-Herakhty as the visible aspect, since Amun clearly meant the one who is hidden.

This complexity over the sun led to a gradual movement towards the support of a more pure form of deity.

During the eighteenth dynasty, the pharaoh Akhenaten (also known as Amenhotep IV) introduced the worship of Aten, the sun's disc itself, identifying it as Amun-Ra. He defaced the symbols of the old gods and based his new religion around one new god, the Aten, the great solar disc.

However, this abrupt change was unpopular, particularly with the previous priesthoods, who found themselves without power. Consequently, when Akhenaten died, his name was struck out, and all his changes undone, almost as if they had not occurred.

The correct form of mentioning Akhenaten were figures akin to 'crazy one from Akhenaten'. Worship of the Aten was replaced, and that of Amun-Ra restored.

The priests persuaded the new underage pharaoh Tutankhaten (most likely Akhenaten's son), whose name meant "the living image of Aten", to change his name to Tutankhamun, "the living image of Amun".

Decline

After the Twentieth dynasty moved the centre of power back to Thebes, the powerbase of Amun's cult had been renewed, and the authority of Amun began to weaken. Under the Twenty-first dynasty the secondary line of priest kings of Thebes upheld his dignity to the best of their power, and the Twenty-second favoured Thebes.

As the sovereignty weakened the division between Upper and Lower Egypt asserted itself, and thereafter Thebes would have rapidly decayed had it not been for the piety of the kings of Nubia towards Amun, whose worship had long prevailed in their country.

Thebes was at first their Egyptian capital, and they honoured Amun greatly, although their wealth and culture were not sufficient to affect much.

However, in the rest of Egypt, his cult was rapidly overtaken, in popularity, by the less divisive cult of the Legend of Osiris and Isis, which had not been associated with Akhenaten's actions.

And so there, his identity became first subsumed into Ra (Ra-Herakhty), who still remained an identifiable figure in the Osiris cult, but ultimately, became merely an aspect of Horus.

In areas outside of Egypt, where the Egyptians had previously brought the worship of Amun, Amun's fate was not as bad. In Nubia, where his name was pronounced Amane, he remained the national god, with his priesthoods at Meroe and Nobatia, via an oracle, regulating the whole government of the country, choosing the king, and directing his military expeditions.

According to Diodorus Siculus, they were even able to compel kings to commit suicide, although this behaviour stopped when Arkamane, in the 3rd century BC, slew them.

Likewise, in Libya, there remained an oracle of Amun in the desert, at the oasis of Siwa. Such was its reputation among the Greeks that Alexander the Great journeyed there, after the battle of Issus, and during his occupation of Egypt, in order to be acknowledged the son of the god.

Even during this occupation, Amun, identified as a form of Zeus, continued to be the great god of Thebes, in its decay.

In the Egyptian mythology, Apofis represents to the harmful forces and to the darkness that they inhabit in Further away.

Apofis was a gigantic, indestructible and powerful snake, which function was consisting of interrupting the trip of the solar ship, piloted by Ra so that it could not reach the new

day, and for it it was using several systems: it was attacking to the boat directly or was wriggling to provoke sand banks where the vessel will run aground. All this had only a goal: to break the Maat, the cosmic order.

Apofis was the evil against which it was necessary to fight and to contain; nevertheless, it would never be annihilated but damaged or submitted, since otherwise the solar cycle might not be carried out every day and the world would perish. For the ancient Egyptians it was necessary that the concept of the evil existed so that the good was possible.

Iconography: It is possible to find Apofis as a big turtle, as a crocodile or cayman. All the snakes were his embodiment, except he receives it, that it was representing to the Sun. The Egyptians believed that, when the sky was dyed of red, it was because of the wounds provoked Apofis.

Also, they interpreted that the eclipses were his works, in the struggle in Further away. As in the Genesis Judaeo-Christian, we can observe that like the snake is the symbol of the evil.

Iconography: Beetle pushing to the Sun for the sky. Man with head of beetle.

Jepri was created to yes the same every morning, being reborn as the new Sun, that's why it was linked by Atum, god autocreated Sol.

As symbol of the eternal life, the sun of the morning, was a declaration of the god Ra. According to the Texts of the Pyramids, the Earth was an spitting of Jepri.

It symbolizes the beginning of the transformations that experience the alive beings, since they are born until they die, even of his renaissance if they were overcoming the tests in the otherworld.

His principal sanctum was in Iunu (Heliópolis), next to Cairo.

The beetle used in the funeral rituals, was one of the most popular amulets of Egypt.

Mendes (???d??), the Greek name of ancient Djedet (modern ?? ????? Tell el-Rub?), is a city in the eastern Nile delta (30°58'N 31°30'E). It was the capital of the 16th Lower Egyptian nome, and during the 29th dynasty, it was the capital of ancient Egypt.

It lies on the Mendesian branch of the Nile (now silted up), about 35 kilometres east of Al Mansurah. Mendes was a famous city in ancient times, attracting notice of most ancient geographers and historians, including Herodotus (ii. 42, 46. 166); Diodorus (i. 84); Strabo (xvii. p. 802); Mela (i. 9 § 9); Pliny the Elder (v. 10. s. 12); Ptolemy (iv. 5. § 51); and Stephanus of Byzantium (s. v.). The city was the

capital of the Mendesian nome, situated at the point where the Mendesian arm of the Nile (?e?d?s??? st?µa, Scylax, p. 43; Ptol. iv, 5. § 10; Mendesium ostium, Pliny, Mela, ll. cc.) flows into the lake of Tanis.

Mendes was, under the Pharaohs, a considerable town. The nome it governed was one of the nomes assigned to that division of the native army which was called the Calasirii, and the city was celebrated for the manufacture of a perfume designated as the Mendesium unguentum. (Plin. xiii. 1. s. 2.)

Mendes, however, declined early, and disappears in the first century AD; since both Ptolemy (l. c.) and P. Aelius Aristides (iii. p. 160) mention Thmuis as the only town of note in the Mendesian nome.

From its position at the junction of the river and the lake, it was probably encroached upon by their waters, after the canals fell into neglect under the Macedonian kings, and when they were repaired by Augustus (Sueton. Aug. 18, 63) Thmuis had attracted its trade and population.

Ruins

The site is today the largest surviving tell in the Nile delta, and consists of both Tell al-Rub? (the site of the main temple enclosure) and Tell Timai (the settlement site to the south). Overall, Mendes is about three kilometres long from north to south and averages about 900 metres east to west.

An Old Kingdom necropolis is estimated to contain over 9,000 interments. Several campaigns of 20th-century excavations have ben led by North American institutions, the University of Toronto and a Pennsylvania State University team led by Donald Redford.

Religion

The chief deities of Mendes were the ram deity Banebdjed (lit. Ba of the lord of djed, and titled "the Lord of Mendes"), who was the Ba of Osiris, and his consort, the fish goddess Hatmehit. With their child Har-pa-khered ("Horus the Child"), they formed the triad of Mendes.

The ram deity of Mendes was described by Herodotus in his History (Book II) as being represented with the face and legs of a goat, rather than a ram, and being considered by Egyptians as analogous to the Greek Pan. According to Herodotus, the sacrifice of goats was forbidden at his temples, and sheep were slaughtered instead.

Presumably following Herodotus' description, the occultist Eliphas Levi in his Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1855) called his goat-headed conception of Baphomet the "Baphomet of Mendes", thus popularising and perpetuating this incorrect attribution, which has given rise to a flood of spurious connections, such as "The Goat of Mendes" by the black metal band Akercocke.

In the Ancient Kingdom, and in particular in the Texts of the Pyramids, there appears a divinity mentioned as " The Pygmy of the Dances of the God ", being very possible that it alludes to the charitable genie Aha.

Frequent in the so-called " magic ivories " of the Average Kingdom. It takes the title of " The " or Fighter " The Combatant " and has protective functions.

From the New Kingdom he is absorbed by Ptah.

Souls of Pe: Anthropomorphous deities with heads of hawk; in foot or humbled with a knee in the floor.

They take the arm in high place forming a straight angle and the closed handle. Souls of Nején: Anthropomorphous divinities with head of jackal. They are usually in similar position to the Souls of Pe.

They are present in the Ancient Kingdom and answer to the desire to personify the royal ancestors who were melting in these souls.

Their origin are the predynastic monarches of the North and the South risen up to the gods' category, the essential spirits of both localities, the " Followers of Horus " and his progeny.

They were serving and attending to the monarch in life and were receiving him in the death, helping him with a golden stairs so that the king was amounting to the sky with major facility.

So much a few as others, they were venerated collectively under the name of " The Souls of Heliópolis ".

Been born in Athribis and of humble origin, Amenhotep son of Hapu, he was a vizier and architect (between other qualifications) under the reign of the Pharaoh Amenhotep III. In life, he enjoyed an important prerogative: of placing proper statues in the temple of Karnak.

After his death intermediary received worship, although it was not deified up to the Ptolemaic period, thanks to his reputation of wise man and connoisseur of numerous mysteries, turning into a beneficent figure, possessor of curative power, between the people and the god.

As many of the gods of origin Syrian - Palestinian, her worship is testified from ends of the Average Kingdom, being venerated especially by the hics kings. Later the sovereign Ramésidas receive her with special devotion and introduce her officially in the pantheon.

She is a goddess of war and protector of the king, to whom she provides military victories. She dominates the wild animals, takes care of the car of war and the horses in the

battles, instructs the sovereign in the handling of the weapon, and, in this function, she is related to the indigenous god Seth .

Accompanied with the god Min, the fecundity acquired a tied character although, curiously, and considering her relation with Seth (sterile god), this deity cannot give birth, although from the New Kingdom she is considered to be a " Mother of the King ", in an allegorical sense.

Possessor of celestial aspects is " The Lady of the Sky ", and as such, in Persian Epoch, she formed triad with Yahvé and an enigmatic divinity named Asim-betel. Concerning Yahvé, it would be necessary to point out that the most ancient extra Biblical mention comes from the temple of Amen - hotep III in Soleb.

Iconography: Bull or man with head of bull, with the solar disc between his horns. Son of Isis, like cow fertilized by a ray of the Sun.

The bull Apis was sacred in the ancient Egypt. From the New Empire he was considered to be the ba of Ptah, after

Osiris, and later of Sokar. For the above mentioned, I go so far as to be considered to be one of the members of the pantheon of Egyptian gods associated with the death. There existed a very important tradition related to his death, moment in which a celebration was realized, since there existed the credence of which he would be reborn.

After a period of mourning of 60 days, whereas it was embalmed, the body of the ox was buried, and in this moment the priests of Ptah a successor was looking for him. On having found it, another festivity was realized.

It was adored in Menfis from the epoch of the first dynasties as god related to the fertility of the herds, the Sun and the god of the Nile. His worship happened to Alexandria, being very popular between Greeks and Romans.

In the first times was represented as a man with head of hawk, later as solar disc of which several beams were going out with hands extended towards the believers.

He was considered to be a creator of the man and the animals, and the spirit that it encourages to the world. His

worship dates back to the Ancient Empire. Thutmosis the IVth and Amenhotep III had produced worship, but it was not a monotheistic worship up to the religious reform of the Pharaoh Amenhotep IV (who was re-baptized as Ajen-Atón) in the XIVth century adC.

His principal temple was in Ajetatón, the current Tell the-Amarna. Big part of the clergy was opposed to the only worship to Aten and the Egyptians continued

revering his ancient gods. After the death of the Pharaoh one declared again the polytheism, any trace being destroyed later of the epoch of the Pharaoh Ajenatón.

The Hymn to Aten recorded in a wall of the grave of Jeperjeperura Moan, and writing for Ajenatón, is one of more beautiful literary exponents of the pharaos culture.

Neferjeperura-Amenhotep / Ajenatón

Other names: Amenhotep IV, Amenofis IV, Akhenatón, Akenatón, Ecnatón, Ijnatón.

Tenth Pharaoh of the dynasty the XVIIIth of the Ancient Egypt. He reigned in Egypt from 1377 adC until 1358 adC. He was a son of Amenhotep III and of the queen Tiye. It happened to his father after the premature death of prince Thutmose (successor by order of primogeniture).

Hellenic name

Ajenatón came to the throne with the same monarchical name as his father: Amenhotep (marked Imen-Hotep and later helenizado as Amenofis), which in the ancient Egyptian language means ' ´Amón is satisfied ' or according to others: " let be done the will of the god Amón ").

Nevertheless, after four or five years of reign Amenhotep changed his pharaonic name into Aj-en-Iten (Ajenatón), which means " [the god] Aten is satisfied ", " useful to Aten " o " that pleases Aten ".

The name of coronation of the king was Nefer-Jeperu-Ra Ua-en-Ra Imen-Hotep / Aj-en-Iten

Family

His principal wife was the queen Nefertiti, his possible cousin. She was of a big beauty, and possibly had a few big dowries, since with her the figure of the big real wife reached levels never seen since the reign of Hatshepsut, and it went so far as even to be corregent along with her husband with the name of Neferneferuatón.

It is even thought that, to the death of her husband she turned into queen - Pharaoh during a short period of time.

Also it falls down to emphasize the figure of Kiya, secondary wife of Ajenatón, a ghostly figure in the history of the one that has suggested herself that she might be the mother of prince Tutanjatón (later known by Tutanjamón).

And we cannot forget the princess mitannia Taduhepa, envoy to strengthen moreover the relations between Egypt and Mitanni, and that even might be both Kiya and Nefertiti. Be as it will be, it seems to remain clear well that Ajenatón was not a man of only one woman.

Ajenatón had a numerous offspring, practically quite girls. Next we see what their names were:

Born daughters of Nefertiti:

Meritatón: during the year 1-2. She was a big real wife of Ajenatón and of Semenejkara.

Meketatón: during the year 2-3. He died in the year 14.

Anjesenpaatón: during the year 4-5. She was a big real wife of Ajenatón and of Tutanjamón.

Neferneferuatón-Tasherit: during the year 7-8. He died between the year 14 and 17.

Neferneferura: during the year 8-10. He died between the year 12 and 17.

Setepenra: during the year 10-12. He died between the year 12 and 17.

Born daughters of Meritatón:

Meritatón-Tasherit: during the year 14-17. She died between those dates.

Born daughters of Anjesenpaatón:

Anjesenpaatón-Tasherit: during the year 14-17. She died in these dates.

Born sons of Kiya:

Tutanjamón?: later king of Egypt.

A girl of unknown name, perhaps Kiya-Tasherit?

Durante los reinados de Amenhotep III y Tutmosis IV, el clero de Amón había sido desplazado por el de Ra y se había introducido el culto a Atón, aunque como un dios secundario.

A religious revolutionary, Amenhotep IV introduced Atenism in the first year of his reign, raising the previously obscure god Aten (sometimes spelt Aton) to the position of supreme deity. The early stage of Atenism appears to be a kind of henotheism familiar in Egyptian religion, but the later form suggests a proto-monotheism.

Aten was the name for the sun-disk itself — hence the fact that it is often referred to in English in the impersonal form "the Aten". The Aten was by this point in Egyptian history considered to be an aspect of the composite deity Ra-Amun-Horus. These previously separate deities had been merged with each other. Amun was identified with Ra, who was also identified with Horus.

Akhenaton simplified this syncretism by proclaiming the visible sun itself to be the sole deity, thus introducing a type of monotheism. Some commentators interpret this as a proto-scientific naturalism, based on the observation that the sun's energy is the ultimate source of all life.

Others consider it to be a way of cutting through the previously ritualistic emphasis of Egyptian religion to allow for a new "personal relationship" with God; this interpretation is hampered by the fact that only the Royal family was able to interact with and perform rituals pertaining to the Aten.

Others interpret it as a pragmatic political move designed to further centralise power by crushing the independent authority of the traditional priesthood.

This religious reformation appears to have begun with his decision to celebrate a Sed festival in his third regnal year — a highly unusual step, since a Sed-festival, a sort of royal jubilee intended to reinforce the Pharaoh's divine powers of kingship, was traditionally held in the thirtieth year of a Pharaoh's reign.

Year 5 marked the beginning of his construction of a new capital, Akhetaten ('Horizon of Aten'), at the site known today as Amarna. In the same year, Amenhotep IV officially changed his name to Akhenaten ('Effective Spirit of Aten') as evidence of his new worship.

Very soon afterward he centralized Egyptian religious practices in Akhetaten, though construction of the city seems to have continued for several more years. In honor of Aten, Akhenaten also oversaw the construction of some of the most massive temple complexes in ancient Egypt, including one at Karnak, close to the old temple of Amun.

In these new temples, Aten was worshipped in the open sunlight, rather than in dark temple enclosures, as had been the previous custom. Akhenaten is also believed to have composed the Great Hymn to the Aten.

Initially, Akhenaten presented Aten as a variant of the familiar supreme deity Amun-Ra (itself the result of an earlier rise to prominence of the cult of Amun, resulting in Amun becoming merged with the sun god Ra), in an attempt to put his ideas in a familiar Egyptian religious context.

However, by Year 9 of his reign Akhenaten declared that Aten was not merely the supreme god, but the only god, and that he, Akhenaten, was the only intermediary between Aten and his people. He ordered the defacing of Amun's temples throughout Egypt, and in a number of instances inscriptions of the plural 'gods' were also removed.

Aten's name is also written differently after Year 9, to emphasise the radicalism of the new regime, which included a ban on idols, with the exception of a rayed solar disc, in which the rays (commonly depicted ending in hands) appear to represent the unseen spirit of Aten, who by then was evidently considered not merely a sun god, but rather a universal deity.

It is important to note, however, that representations of the Aten were always accompanied with a sort of "hieroglyphic footnote", stating that the representation of the sun as All-encompassing Creator was to be taken as just that: a representation of something that, by its very nature as something transcending creation, cannot be fully or adequately represented by any one part of that creation.

Styles of art that flourished during this short period are markedly different from other Egyptian art, bearing a variety of affectations, from elongated heads to protruding stomachs, exaggerated ugliness and the beauty of Nefertiti. Significantly, and for the only time in the history of Egyptian royal art, Akhenaten's family was depicted in a decidedly naturalistic manner, and they are clearly shown displaying affection for each other.

Nefertiti also appears beside the king in actions usually reserved for a Pharaoh, suggesting that she attained unusual power for a queen.

Artistic representations of Akhenaten give him a strikingly bizarre appearance, with slender limbs, a protruding belly and wide hips, giving rise to controversial theories such as that he may have actually been a woman masquerading as a man, or that he was a hermaphrodite or had some other intersex condition.

The fact that Akhenaten had several children argues against these suggestions. It has also been suggested that he suffered from Marfan's syndrome.

Until Akhenaten's mummy is located and identified, proposals of actual physical abnormalities are likely to remain speculative. However, it must be kept in mind that there is no good evidence that we are necessarily dealing with a literal representation of Akhenaten's physical form, or that of his wife or children.

As pharaoh, Akhenaten had complete control over how he, his family, and his government in general was represented in art. Rather than a literal representation of his physical appearance, it must be kept in mind that what we see as an odd physical abnormality was the way that Akhenaten wanted to be artistically portrayed.

Following Akenaten's death, a peaceful but comprehensive political, religious and artistic reformation returned Egyptian life to the norms it had followed previously during his father's reign.

Much of the art and building infrastructure that was created during Akhenaten's reign was defaced or destroyed in the period immediately following his death. Stone building blocks from his construction projects were later used as foundation stones for subsequent rulers temples and tombs.

Problems of the reign

Crucial evidence about the latter stages of Akhenaten's reign has been provided by the discovery of the Amarna Letters, a cache of diplomatic correspondence discovered in modern times at el-Amarna, the modern designation of the Akhetaten site.

This correspondence comprises a priceless collection of incoming messages on clay tablets, sent to Akhetaten from imperial outposts and foreign allies.

The letters suggest that Akhenaten's neglect of matters of state were causing disorder across the massive Egyptian empire. The governors and kings of subject domains wrote to beg for gold, and also complained of being snubbed and cheated.

Early on in his reign, Akhenaten fell out with the king of Mitanni. He may even have concluded an alliance with the Hittites, who then attacked Mitanni and attempted to carve out their own empire.

A group of Egypt's other allies who attempted to rebel against the Hittites were captured, and wrote begging Akhenaten for troops; he evidently did not respond to their pleas. Evidence suggests that the troubles on the northern frontier led to difficulties in Canaan, particularly in a struggle for power between Labaya of Shechem and Abdi-Kheba of Jerusalem, requiring the Pharaoh to intervene in the area by dispatching Medjay troops northwards.

There is some evidence that the spread of plague throughout the Middle East at this time was precipitated by this action.

Plague and pandemic

This Amarna period is also associated with a serious outbreak of a pandemic, possibly the plague, or perhaps the world's first outbreak of influenza, which came from Egypt and spread throughout the Middle East, killing Suppiluliuma I, the Hittite King.

The prevalence of disease may help explain the rapidity with which the site of Akhetaten was subsequently abandoned. It may also explain why later generations considered the gods to have turned against the Amarna monarchs.

The Bennu bird serves as the Egyptian correspondence to the phoenix, and is said to be the soul of the Sun-God Ra. Some of the titles of the Bennu bird were “He Who Came Into Being by Himself,” “Ascending One,” and “Lord of Jubilees.” The name is related to the verb “weben,” meaning “to rise brilliantly,” or “to shine.”

The Bennu bird was the mythological phoenix of Egypt. It was associated with the rising of the Nile, resurrection, and the sun.

Because the Bennu represented creation and renewal, it was connected with the Egyptian calendar. Indeed, the Temple of the Bennu was well known for its time-keeping devices. According to ancient Egyptian myth, the Bennu had created itself from a fire that was burned on a holy tree

in one of the sacred precincts of the temple of Ra. Other versions say that the Bennu bird burst forth from the heart of Osiris.

The Bennu was supposed to have rested on a sacred pillar that was known as the benben-stone. The Egyptian priests showed this pillar to visitors, who considered it the most holy place on earth.

The Bennu was pictured as a grey, purple, blue, or white heron with a long beak and a two-feathered crest. Occasionally the Bennu was depicted as a yellow wagtail, or as an eagle with feathers of red and gold. In rare instances the Bennu was pictured as a man with the head of a heron, wearing a white or blue mummy dress under a transparent long coat.

The Bennu was considered the “soul” of the god Atum, Ra, or Osiris. The Book of the Dead says, “I am the Bennu bird, the Heart-Soul of Ra, the Guide of the Gods to the Tuat.”

In Egyptian mythology, Chnum (also spelled Khnum, Knum, or Khnemu) was one of the earliest Egyptian gods, originally the god of the source of the Nile River.

Since the annual flooding of the Nile brought with it silt and clay, and its water brought life to its surrounds, he was thought to be the creator of human children, which he made at a potter's wheel, from clay, and placed in their mothers' wombs.

Indeed, before the cult of Ra gained prominence, he was said by those who worshipped him to have molded the other gods, and he had the titles Divine Potter and Lord of created things from himself.

In certain locations, such as Elephantine, since Chnum was thought of as a god pouring out the Nile, he was regarded as the husband of Satis (who did much the same), and the father of Anuket, who represented the Nile itself.

In other locations, such as Antinoe, as the moulder and creator of the human body, he was sometimes regarded as

the consort of Heget, since it was her responsibility for breathing life into his creations. Alternatively, in places such as Esna, due to his aspect as creator of the body, they viewed him as the father of Heka, who activated the Ka, and consequently as the husband of Menhit.

Originally one of the most important gods, when other areas arose to greater prominence, it was the secondary function, as potter, that became his whole realm of authority, and instead, the Nile was considered the god Hapi, who was the Nile god in the more powerful areas.

Khnum's name derives from this secondary association, – it means builder. However, Chnum's earlier position as 'moulder' of the other gods, leads to him being identified as Ra, or more particularly as the Ba of Ra. Since Ba is also the word for a Ram, he became thought of as having a Ram's head.

In art, he was usually depicted as a Ram-headed man at a potter's wheel, with recently created children standing on the wheel, although he also appeared in his earlier guise as a water-god, holding a jar from which flowed a stream of water.

However, he occasionally appeared in a compound image, depicting the elements, in which he, representing water, was shown as one of four heads of a man, with the others being, – Geb representing earth, Shu representing the air, and Osiris representing death.

Some think this is a depiction which may have had an influence on Ezekiel and Revelations, as Chnum had a Ram's head, Shu sometimes appeared with a Lion's head, Osiris was a man, and Geb had a goose on his head.

The worship of Chnum centred on two principal riverside sites, Elephantine Island and Esna, which were regarded as sacred sites. At Elephantine, he was worshipped alongside Anuket and Satis as the guardian of the sources of the River Nile.

His significance led to early theophoric names of him, for children, such as Chnum-khufu – Chnum is Protector, the full name of Khufu, builder of the Great Pyramid. Due to his importance, as an aspect of the life-giving Nile, and also the creator, Chnum was still worshipped in some semi-Christian sects in the 2nd or 3rd Centuries.

Hapy, was a deification of the annual flood of the Nile River, in Egyptian mythology, which deposited rich silt on the banks, allowing the Egyptians to grow crops. Occasionally a token wife, named Meret (simply meaning beloved), was given to him.

However, more usually, since the Nile was tied to the land, Hapi was said to have a wife who was the patron of the land, which in Upper Egypt was Nekhbet, and was Wadjet in Lower Egypt.

After a while, he became identified with Nu, god (or rather, deification) of the primordial waters, in the Ogdoad cosmogeny, and thus gained Naunet as another wife.

His name means Running One, probably referring to the current of the Nile. Some of the titles of Hapy were Lord of the Fishes and Birds of the Marshes and Lord of the River Bringing Vegetation.

It may be the case that originally Hapy (or a variation on it) was the earlier the name used for the Nile itself, since it was said (inaccurately) that the Nile began between Mu-Hapy and Kher-Hapy, at the southern edge of Egypt (it actually comes from two lakes, one of which is Lake Victoria).

The annual flooding of the Nile was occasionally said to be the Arrival of Hapy. Since this flooding provided created fertile soil in an area that was otherwise desert, Hapy, as its patron, symbolised fertile lands.

Consequently, though obviously male, and with a beard, Hapy was pictured with full breasts, and a large belly, as representations of the fertility of the Nile, also he was usually given blue or green skin, representing the water.

Other attributes varied on the area of Egypt. In Lower Egypt, he was adorned with papyrus plants, and attended by frogs, present in the region, and symbols of it. Whereas in Upper Egypt, it was the lotus and crocodiles which were more present in the Nile, thus these were the symbols of

the region, and those associated with Hapy. Hapy was often pictured carrying offerings of food or pouring water from an amphora, but was also depicted very rarely as an hippopotamus.

The Hymn to the Flood says:

Lightmaker who comes from the dark

Fattener of herds

Might that fashions all

None can live without him

People are clothed with the flax of his fields

Thou makest all the land to drink unceasingly, as thou descendest on thy way from the heavens.

Imhotep (sometimes spelled Immutef, Im-hotep, or Ii-em-Hotep, Egyptian ii-m-?tp) is the first architect, genius and physician known by name in written history.

As one of the officials of the Pharaoh Djosèr he designed the Pyramid of Djzosèr (Step Pyramid) at Saqqara in Egypt around 2630-2611 BC, during the 3rd Dynasty. He may also have been responsible for the first known use of columns in architecture.

His name means the one who comes in peace. Imhotep also served as chancellor to the pharaoh and high priest of the sun god Ra at Heliopolis. He was said to be a son of Ptah, his mother being a mortal named Khredu-ankh. He was revered as a genius and showered with titles.

The full list of titles is: Chancellor of the King of Lower Egypt, First after the King of Upper Egypt, Administrator of the Great Palace, Hereditary nobleman, High Priest of Heliopolis, Builder, Sculptor and Maker of Vases in Chief. Imhotep is credited as the founder of Egyptian medicine,

and as author of the Edwin Smith papyrus, detailing cures, ailments and anatomical observations. The Edwin Smith Papyrus was probably written around 1700 BC but may perhaps go back to texts written around 1000 years earlier.

Two thousand years after his death, his status was raised to that of a god. Imhotep became the god of medicine and healing. He was linked to Asclepius by the Greeks. As the son of Ptah, his mother was sometimes said to be Sekhmet, who was often said to be married to Ptah, since she was the patron of Upper Egypt.

As he was thought of as the inventor of healing, he was also sometimes said to be the one who held Nut (deification of the sky) up, as the separation of Nuit and Geb (deification of the earth) was said to be what held chaos back. Due to the position this would have placed him in, he was also sometimes said to be Nuit's son.

In artwork he is also linked with Hathor, who was the wife of Ra, Maat, which was the concept of truth and justice, and Amenhotep son of Hapu, who was another deified architect. The location for Imhotep's tomb is still unknown. Many Egyptologists have tried locating it but so far haven't succeeded. The general consensus is that his tomb is located at Saqqara.

Fringe theories

One fringe theory is that Imhotep has strong similarities to the biblical Joseph [1]. Some have suggested the biblical Joseph is a composite created by the authors of the Torah from a Hebrew individual and Imhotep, the authors confusing Imhotep for Joseph. However, the striking similarities of the two are a case for a closer look. If Imhotep means "come in peace" and the Bible records Joseph doing just that there may be an association with the Egyptian name choice of Joseph.

Thot - Dyehuty

Thoth (his Greek name derived from the Egyptian Djehuty) was considered one of the more important gods of the Egyptian pantheon. His feminine counterpart was Maàt.

His chief shrine was at Khemennu, where he was the head of the local company of gods, later renamed Hermopolis by the Greeks (in reference to him through the Greeks' interpretation that he was the same as Hermes) and Eshmûnên by the Arabs. He also had shrines in Abydos, Hesert, Urit, Per-Ab, Rekhui, Ta-ur, Sep, Hat, Pselket, Talmsis, Antcha-Mutet, Bah, Amen-heri-ab, and Ta-kens.

He was considered the heart and tongue of Ra as well as the means by which Ra's will was translated into speech. He has also been likened to the Logos of Plato and the mind of God.(See The All) In the Egyptian mythology, he has played many vital and prominent roles, including being one of the two gods, the other being his feminine counterpart Maàt, who stood on either side of Ra's boat.

He has further been involved in arbitration, magic, writing, science, and the judging of the dead.

Thoth's Egpytian name Djehuty is believed to have come from Djehu, the oldest known name for the ibis. The addition of -ty (alternatively -ti to Tehu) denotes that he possessed the attributes of the ibis.

The Egyptian pronunciation is not fully known, but one modern guess would be (Je-hu-teh-y) with a strong 'j' as in joke and the 'y' making a consonantal sound. However, the insertion of the letter 'e' between consonants, and writing 'w' as 'u' is a convention of convenience for English speakers, not the transliteration employed by Egyptologists.

Djehuty is sometimes alternatively rendered as Tahuti, Tehuti, Zehuti, Techu, or Tetu. Thoth (also Thot or Thout) is the Greek version derived from the letters DHWTY.

Not counting differences in spelling, Thoth had more than one name, like other gods and goddesses. Similarly, each Pharoah, considered a god himself, had five different names used in public. Among his alternate names are A, Sheps, Lord of Khemennu, Asten, Khenti, Mehi, Hab, and A'an.

In addition, Thoth was also known by specific aspects of himself, for instance the moon god A'ah-Djehuty, representing the moon for the entire month. Further, the Greeks related Thoth to their god Hermes due to his similar attributes and functions. One of Thoth 's titles, "Three times great, great" (see Titles) was translated to the Greek t??sµe??st?? (Trismegistos) making Hermes Trismegistus.

Depictions

Thoth has been depicted in many ways depending on the era and aspect the artist wished to convey. Usually, he is depected in human form with the head of an ibis. In this form, he can be represented as the reckoner of times and seasons by a lunar disk sitting in a crescent moon being placed atop his head.

When depicted as a form of Shu or Ankher, he will wear the respective god's headdress. He also is sometimes seen wearing the atef crown and the United Crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt.

When not depicted in this common form, he sometimes takes the form of the ibis directly. He also appears as an ape when he is A'an, the god of equilibrium. In the form of A'ah-Djehuty he took a more human looking form.

These forms are all symbolic and are metaphors for Thoth's attributes. The Egyptians did not believe these gods actually looked like humans with animal heads. For example, Thoth's counterpart Maàt is often depicted with an ostrich feather for a head.

Attributes

Egyptologists disagree on Thoth's nature depending upon their view of the Egyptian pantheon. Most egyptologists today side with Sir Flinders Petrie that Egyptian religion was strictly polytheistic, in which Thoth would be a separate god.

His contemporary adversary, E. A. Wallis Budge, however, thought Egyptian religion to be primarily monotheistic where all the gods and goddesses were aspects of the God Ra, similar to the Trinity in Christianity and devas in Hinduism. In this view, Thoth would be the aspect of Ra which the Egyptian mind would relate to the heart and tongue.

His roles in Egyptian mythology were many. Thoth served as a mediating power, especially between good and evil, making sure neither had a decisive victory over the other. He also served as scribe of the gods, credited with the invention of writing and alphabets (ie. heiroglyphs) themselves.

In the underworld, Duat, he appeared as an ape, A'an, the god of equilibrium, who reported when the scales weighing the deceased's heart against the feather, representing the principle of Maàt, was exactly even.

The ancient Egyptians regarded Thoth as One, self-begotten, and self-produced. He was the master of both physical and moral (ie. Divine) law, making proper use of Maàt.He is credited with making the calculations for the establishment of the heavens, stars, Earth, and everything in them.

Compare this to how his feminine counterpart, Maàt was the force which maintained the Universe. He is said to direct the motions of the heavenly bodies. Without his words, the Egyptians believed, the gods would not exist. His power was almost unlimited in the Underworld and rivalled that of Ra and Osiris.

The Egyptians credited him as the author of all works of science, religion, philosophy, and magic. The Greeks further declared him the inventor of astronomy, astrology, the science of numbers, mathematics, geometry, land surveying, medicine, botany, theology, civilized government, the alphabet, reading, writing, and oratory. They further claimed he was the true author of every work of every branch of knowledge, human and divine.

Mythology

Thoth has played a prominent role in many of the Egyptian myths. Displaying his role as arbitrator, he had overseen the three epic battles between good and evil. All three battles are fundamentally the same and belong to different periods. The first battle took place between Ra and Apep, the second between Heru-Bekhutet and Set, and the third between Horus, the son of Osiris, and Set.

In each instance, the former god represented good while the latter represented evil. If one god was seriously injured, Thoth would heal them to prevent either from overtaking the other.

Thoth was also prominent in the Osiris myth, being of great aid to Isis. After Isis gathered together the pieces of Osiris' dismembered body, he gave her the words to resurrect him so she could be impregnated and bring forth Horus, named for his uncle.

When Horus was slain, he gave the formulae to resurrect him as well. Similar to God speaking the words to create the heavens and Earth in Judeo-Christian mythology, Thoth, being the god who always speaks the words that fulfill the wishes of Ra, spoke the words that created the heavens and Earth in Egyptian mythology.

Mythology also accredits him with the creation of the 365 day calendar. Originally, according to the myth, the year was only 360 days long and Nut with sterility during these days, unable to bear children. Thoth gambled with Iabet, the moon, for 1/72nd of its light (360/72 = 5), or 5 days, and won. During these 5 days, she gave birth to Kheru-ur (Horus the Elder, Face of Heaven), Osiris, Set, Isis, and Nepthys.

In the Ogdoad cosmogony myth, Thoth gave birth to Ra, Atum, Nefertum, and Khepri by laying an egg while in the form of an ibis, or later as a goose laying a golden egg.

He was originally the deification of the moon in the Ogdoad belief system. Initially, in that system, the moon had been seen to be the eye of Horus, the sky god, which had been semi-blinded (thus darker) in a fight against Set, the other eye being the sun.

However, over time it began to be considered separately, becoming a lunar deity in its own right, and was said to have been another son of Ra. As the crescent moon strongly resembles the curved beak of the ibis, this separate deity was named Djehuty (i.e. Thoth), meaning ibis.

Thoth became associated with the Moon, due to the Ancient Egyptians observation that Baboons (sacred to Thoth) 'sang' to the moon at night.

The Moon not only provides light at night, allowing the time to still be measured without the sun, but its phases and prominence gave it a significant importance in early astrology/astronomy. The cycles of the moon also organized much of Egyptian society's civil, and religious, rituals, and events.

Consequently, Thoth gradually became seen as a god of wisdom, magic, and the measurement, and regulation, of events, and of time. He was thus said to be the secretary and counsellor of Ra, and with Maàt (truth/order) stood next to Ra on the nightly voyage across the sky, Ra being a sun god.

Thoth became credited by the ancient Egyptians as the inventor of writing, and was also considered to have been the scribe of the underworld, and the moon became occasionally considered a separate entity, now that Thoth had less association with it, and more with wisdom. For this reason Thoth was universally worshipped by ancient Egyptian Scribes.

In art, Thoth was usually depicted with the head of an ibis, deriving from his name, and the curve of the ibis' beak, which resembles the crescent moon. Sometimes, he was depicted as a baboon holding up a crescent moon, as the baboon was seen as a nocturnal, and intelligent, creature.

The association with baboons led to him occasionally being said to have as a consort Astennu, one of the (male) baboons at the place of judgement in the underworld, and on other occasions, Astennu was said to be Thoth himself.

During the late period of Egyptian history a cult of Thoth gained prominence, due to its main centre, Khnum (Hermopolis Magna), also becoming the capital, and millions of dead ibis were mummified and buried in his honour. The rise of his cult also led to his cult seeking to adjust mythology to give Thoth a greater role.

Thoth was inserted in many tales as the wise counsel and persuader, and his association with learning, and measurement, led him to be connected with Seshat, the earlier deification of wisdom, who was said to be his daughter, or variably his wife.

Thoth's qualities also led to him being identified by the Greeks with their closest matching god - Hermes, with whom Thoth was eventually combined, as Hermes Trismegistus, also leading to the Greeks naming Thoth's cult centre as Hermopolis, meaning city of Hermes.

There is also an Egyptian pharaoh of the Sixteenth dynasty of Egypt named Djehuty (Thoth) after him, and who reigned for three years.

Thoth, like many Egyptian gods and nobility, held many titles. Among these were "Scribe of Maàt in the Company of the Gods," "Lord of Maàt," "Lord of Divine Words," "Judge of the Two Combatant Gods,""Judge of the Rekhekhui, the pacifier of the Gods, who Dwelleth in Unnu, the Great God in the Temple of Abtiti,""Twice Great," "Thrice Great,"" and "Three Times Great, Great."

Thoth in more recent times

One of the most popular and cited works on the Tarot was connected to this deity. Written by the infamous occultist Aleister Crowley, The Book of Thoth is a philosophical text on the usage of Tarot and, most notably, Crowley's own created Tarot Deck, the Thoth Tarot which he also referred to as The Book of Thoth, where the name is taken from a "non-existent" (translations from papyrus of an actual book of thoth DO exist, titled 'The Ancient Egyptian Book of Thoth' by Jasnow and Zauzich) book in Egyptian mythology, believed to contain ancient knowledge originally brought to man by this deity. Crowley commissioned Lady Frieda Harris to assist him in painting the Thoth Deck.

Thoth, as Tahuti, is recognized as a saint in The Gnostic Mass of Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica. He is listed amongst the magi of the A.'.A.'. for his declaration of "the true Word of Tahuti, AMOUN, whereby He made Men to understand their secret Nature, that is, their Unity with their True Selves, or, as they then phrased it, with God." (Liber 111). Tahuti is considered a perfect representation of the 9°=2?, the Magus, due to his role as the Scribe who taught the occult sciences to man[citation needed].

A text entitled The Emerald Tablets of Thoth-The-Atlantean has been claimed to have been translated by a man named Doreal. The introduction claims them to be written by an Atlantean Priest-King named Thoth, who settled a colony in Egypt after Atlantis sunk. Doreal further claims the texts are 36,000 years old. Regardless of the authenticity of the text, it contains much Hermetic and Egyptian symbolism that Doreal misses.

Epagómenos

It was the name of five days added to the cycle of 360 days to complete the solar year of 365 days. The Egyptian year was consisting of three stations of 120 days.

Flood

Sowing

Compilation

They were divided in twelve weeks of ten days.

In five days epagómenos there was celebrated the birth of the Egyptian divinities:

Osiris

Horus and Isis

Seth

Isis

Neftis

Egyptian calendar

The ancient civil Egyptian Calendar, known as the Annus Vagus or "Wandering Year", had a year that was 365 days long, consisting of 12 months of 30 days each, plus 5 extra days at the end of the year. The months were divided into 3 "weeks" of ten days each.

This calendar was in use by 2400 BCE, and possibly before that. It was used throughout antiquity. It was used by astronomers in the Middle Ages because of its mathematical regularity.

The Egyptian calendar was simple, but it is neither a lunar nor a solar calendar. Months do not correspond to lunar months, and years do not correspond to solar years. The Egyptians were aware of this, and calculated their seasonal year by the stars, to be the time between successive heliacal risings of the star Sirius (which the Egyptians called Sothis).

The heliacal rising of Sothis returned to the same point in the calendar every 1460 years (a period called the Sothic cycle). The difference between a seasonal year and a civil year was therefore 365 days in 1460 years, or 1 day in 4 years. Similarly, the Egyptians were aware that 309 lunations nearly equalled 9125 days, or 25 Egyptian years, which was likely used in the construction of a secondary lunar calendar.

According to the Roman writer Censorinus, the Egyptian New Year's Day fell on July 20 on the Julian Calendar in 139 CE, which was a heliacal rising of Sirius in Egypt. From this it is possible to calculate that the previous occasion on which this occurred was 1322 BCE, and the one before that was 2782 BCE. This latter date has been postulated as the time when the calendar was invented, though earlier historians tended to push it back another whole cycle, to 4242 BCE.

In 238 BCE, the Ptolemaic rulers decreed that every 4th year should be 366 days long rather than 365. That practice was not followed, however, until the introduction of the "Alexandrian Calendar" in 22 BCE by Augustus. Calendars in use today (the Coptic Calendar and the Ethiopian calendar) are similar, as was the French Revolutionary calendar.

British orrery maker John Gleave represented the Egyptian calendar in a reconstruction of the Antikythera mechanism.

For most of Egyptian history, the months were not given individual names but rather were numbered within the three seasons of Akhet (Inundation), Proyet (Emergence), and Shomu (Harvest). During the New Kingdom, however, each month was given its own name. These eventually evolved into the Hellenistic names that are still used today by the Coptic Church. The convention amongst modern Egyptologists is to number the months consecutively using Roman numerals.

Chons

In Egyptian mythology, Chons (alternately Khensu, Khons, Khonsu or Khonshu) is an ancient lunar deity, from before formal structure was given to a pantheon. His name reflects the fact that the Moon (referred to as Iah in Egyptian) travels across the night sky, for it means The Wanderer, and also had the titles Embracer, Pathfinder, and Defender, as he was thought to watch over night travelers.

As the god of light in the night, Chons was invoked to protect against wild animals, increase male virility, and to aid with healing. It was said that when Chons caused the crescent moon to shine, women conceived, cattle became fertile, and all nostrils and every throat was filled with fresh air.

Chons can also be understood to mean king's placenta, and consequently in early times, he was considered to slay the king's (i.e. the pharaoh's) enemies, and extract their innards for the king's use, metaphorically creating something resembling a placenta for the king.

This bloodthirsty aspect leads him to be referred to, in such as the Pyramid texts, as the (one who) lives on hearts. He also became associated with more literal placentas, becoming seen as a deification of the royal placenta, and so a god involved with childbirth.

During the Middle Kingdom, since the pool at the temple of Mut was in the shape of a crescent moon, Chons gradually replaced the war-god Menthu, as her son in Theban thought.

The father who had adopted Chons was thought to be Amun, who had already been changed into a more significant god by the rise of Thebes, and had had his wife changed to Mut. As these two were both considered extremely benign deities, Menthu gradually lost his more aggressive aspects.

In art, Chons was depicted as a child with the head of a hawk, wearing the crescent of the new moon subtending the disc of the full moon. His head was shaven except for the side-lock worn by Egyptian children, signifying his role as Chons the Child.

Occasionally Chons was depicted as a young man holding the flail of the pharaoh, wearing a menat necklace. He was sometimes pictured on the back of a goose, ram, or two crocodiles. Chons' sacred animal was the baboon, considered a lunar animal by the ancient Egyptians.

In Egyptian mythology, Ptah (also spelt Peteh) was the deification of the primordial mound in the Ennead cosmogony, which was more literally referred to as Ta-tenen (also spelt Tathenen), meaning risen land, or as Tanen, meaning submerged land.

The importance Ptah was given in history can readily be understood since the name Egypt derives from a Greek spelling of the phrase ?.wt-k3-Pt?, (sometimes transcribed Hat-ka-Ptah), meaning temple of the Ka of Ptah, the name of a temple at Memphis.

It was said (in the Shabaka Stone) that it was Ptah who called the world into being, having dreamt creation in his heart, and speaking it, his name meaning opener, in the

sense of opener of the mouth. Indeed the opening of the mouth ceremony, performed by priests at funerals to release souls from their corpses, was said to have been created by Ptah. Atum was said to have been created by Ptah to rule over the creation, sitting upon the primordial mound.

In art, he is portrayed as a bearded mummified man, often wearing a skull cap, with his hands holding an ankh, was, and djed, the symbols of life, power and stability, respectively. It was also considered that Ptah manifested himself in the Apis bull.

In Memphis, Ptah was worshipped in his own right, and was seen as Atum's father, or rather, the father of Nefertum, the younger form of Atum. When the beliefs about the Ennead and Ogdoad were later merged, and Atum was identified as Ra (Atum-Ra), himself seen as Horus (Ra-Herakhty), this led to Ptah being said to be married to Sekhmet, at the time considered the earlier form of Hathor, Horus', thus Atum's, mother.

Since Ptah was the primordial mound, and had called creation into being, he was considered the god of craftsmen, and in particular stone-based crafts. Eventually, due to the connection of these things to tombs, and that at Thebes, the craftsmen regarded him so highly as to say that he controlled their destiny.

Consequently, first amongst the craftsmen, then the population as a whole, Ptah also became a god of reincarnation. Since Seker was also god of craftsmen, and of re-incarnation, Seker was later assimilated with Ptah becoming Ptah-Seker.

Ptah-Seker gradually became seen as the personification of the sun during the night, since the sun appears to be re-incarnated at this time, and Ptah was the primordial mound, which lay beneath the earth. Consequently, Ptah-Seker became considered an underworld deity, and eventually, by the Middle Kingdom, become assimilated by Osiris, the lord of the underworld, occasionally being known as Ptah-Seker-Osiris.

Legend has it that Ancient Egyptians believed saying Ptah's name would give the spouse of the speaker great fertility.

In Egyptian mythology, Sekhmet (also spelt Sachmet, Sakhet, and Sakhmet), was originally the war goddess of Upper Egypt, although when the first Pharaoh of the 12th dynasty moved the capital of Egypt to Memphis, her cult centre moved as well.

As Lower Egypt had been conquered by Upper Egypt, Sekhmet was seen as the more vicious of the two war goddesses, the other, Bast, being the war goddess of Lower Egypt.

Consequently it was Sekhmet who was seen as the Avenger of Wrongs, and Scarlet Lady, a reference to blood. As the one with bloodlust, she was also seen as ruling over menstruation.

Her name suits her function, and means (one who is) powerful, and she was also given titles such as (One) Before Whom Evil Trembles, and Lady of Slaughter.

Sekhmet was believed to protect the pharaoh in battle, stalking the land, and destroying his enemies with arrows of fire, her body being said to take on the bright glare of the midday sun, gaining her the title Lady of Flame. Indeed it was said that death and destruction were balsam for her

heart, and hot desert winds were believed to be her breath.

In order to placate Sekhmet's wrath, her priesthood felt compelled to perform a ritual before a different statue of her on each day of the year, leading to it being estimated that over seven hundred statues of Sekhmet once stood in the funerary temple of Amenhotep III, on the west bank of the Nile.

It was said that her priests protected her statues from theft or vandalism by coating them with anthrax, and so Sekhmet was also seen as a bringer of disease, to be prayed to so as to cure such ills by placating her. The name "Sekhmet" literally became synonymous with doctors and surgeons during the Middle Kingdom. In antiquity, many of Sekhmet's priests were often considered to be on the same level as physicians.

She was envisioned as a fierce lioness, and in art, was depicted as such, or as a woman with the head of a lioness, dressed in red, the colour of blood. Sometimes the dress she wears exhibits a rosetta pattern over each nipple, an ancient leonine motif, which can be traced to observation of the shoulder-knot hairs on lions. Tame lions were kept in temples dedicated to Sekhmet at Leontopolis.

To pacify Sekhmet, festivals were celebrated at the end of battle, so that there would be no more destruction. On such occasions, people danced and played music to soothe the wildness of the goddess, and drank great quantities of beer. For a time, a myth developed around this in which Ra, the sun god (of Upper Egypt), created her from his fiery eye, to destroy mortals which conspired against him (Lower Egypt).

In the myth, however, Sekhmet's blood-lust lead to her destroying almost all of humanity, so Ra tricked her into drinking beer coloured with red ochre so that it resembled blood, making her so drunk that she gave up slaughter and became the gentle Hathor once more.

After Sekhmet's worship moved to Memphis, as Horus and Ra had been identified as one another, under the name Ra-Herakhty, when the two religious systems were merged, and Ra became seen as a form of Atum, known as Atum-Ra, so Sekhmet, as a form of Hathor, was seen as Atum's mother. In particular,

she was seen as the mother of Nefertum, the youthful form of Atum, and so was said to have Ptah, Nefertum's father, as a husband.Though Sekhmet was originally identified with Hathor, over time both evolved into separate deities because the character of both goddess were so vastly different.

Later, Sekhmet was syncretized with the goddess Mut, the great mother, became significant, and gradually absorbed the identities of the patron goddesses, merging with Sekhmet, and also sometimes with Bast.

A Hymn of Sekhmet says:

Mine is a heart of carnelian, crimson as murder on a holy day.

Mine is a heart of corneal, the gnarled roots of a dogwood and the bursting of flowers.

I am the broken wax seal on my lover's letters.

I am the phoenix, the fiery sun, consuming and resuming myself.

I will what I will.

Mine is a heart of carnelian, blood red as the crest of a phoenix.

In Egyptian mythology, the Ogdoad are the eight deities worshipped in Hermopolis. They were arranged in four male-female pairs, with the males associated with frogs, and the females with snakes: Nu/Naunet, Amun/Amaunet, Kuk/Kauket, Huh/Hauhet.

Apart from their gender, there was little to distinguish the male god in a pair from the female goddess; indeed, the names of the males are merely the male forms of the female name.

Essentially, each pair represents the male and female aspect of one of four concepts, namely the primordial waters (Nu/Naunet), air or invisibility (Amun/Amunet), darkness (Kuk/Kauket), and eternity or infinite space (Huh/Hauhet).

Together the four concepts represent the primal fundamental state of the beginning, they are what always was.

In the myth, however, their interaction ultimately proved to be unbalanced, resulting in the arising of a new entity. When the entity opened, it revealed Ra, the fiery sun,

inside. After a long interval of rest, Ra, together with the other gods, created all other things.

There are two main variations on the nature of the entity containing Ra:

Egg variant

The original version of the myth has the entity arising from the waters after the interaction as a mound of dirt, the Milky Way, which was deified as Hathor. In the myth an egg was laid upon this mound by a celestial bird.

The egg contained Ra. In the original version of this variant, the egg is laid by a cosmic goose (it is not explained where the goose originates). However, after the rise of the cult of Thoth, the egg was said to have been a gift from Thoth, and laid by an Ibis, the bird with which he was associated.

Lotus variant

Later, when Atum had become assimilated into Ra as Atum-Ra, the belief that Atum emerged from a (blue) lotus bud, in the Ennead cosmogeny, was adopted and attached to Ra.

The lotus was said to have arisen from the waters after the explosive interaction as a bud, which floated on the surface, and slowly opened its petals to reveal the beetle, Khepri, inside.

Khepri, an aspect of Ra representing the rising sun, immediately turns into a weeping boy - Nefertum (young Atum), whose tears form the creatures of the earth.

In later Egyptian history, as the god Khepri became totally absorbed into Ra, the lotus was said to have revealed Ra, the boy, straight away, rather than Ra being Khepri temporarily. Sometimes the boy is identified as Horus, although this is due to the merging of the myths of Horus and Ra into the one god Ra-Herakty, later in Egyptian history.

Man sailing on his starboat with the head turned to opposite direction to the boat's course .

We know that in the Texts of the Pyramids are recovered stellar, solar and osirian traditions; Orión is a part of one of them, the stellar one, probably the most ancient.

This constellation had been assimilated to the dead king, fused to Osiris, since the monarches, on having died, were transforming in stars. It was formed by a set of stars of the

otherworld that had the faculty to emerge in the sky.

It was intimately related to Isis (star Sothis), which was the one that was marking the beginning of the new year and the arrival of the annual rise of the river Nile, whereas Orión (identified with Osiris) it was the symbol of the slime fertilizer that was remaining placed in the grounds after the waters had moved back.

With this mythological game one was trying to emphasize the death and the resurrection, putting it in parallel with the facts happened in the Underground World.

In the Texts of the Pyramids it appears as " Master of the Wine ", in link with a holiday that was celebrated in honor of the deceased, named Uag and in the Book of the Dead persons he is " the Master of the Life ", a way of designating Osiris.

Iconography: Man with head of hawk, crowned with the solar disc, two pens and two ureos. Armed with the arch and an axe.

Montu Montu was an ancient deity, considered local god of Hermonthis, city placed on the South of Tebas. As one was associating Amón and Horus with the hawk, being represented by the head of this animal.

His worship extended several cities: Tebas, Medamud, Tod and Karnak. Later, during the New Empire, he was considered to be a god of the war and it was it who was offering protection to the Pharaoh during the battles.

His name it the Pharaohs of the dynasty took the XIth, entitled Montuhotep " Montu is satisfied ".

Goddess who was personifying the maternity. It was represented by a haido in the shape of womb of cow; also it can take a haido of vulture with unfolded wings and the ureo on the front.

Considered wife of Montu, was adored by him in the region of Tebas and of Hermonthis, until Iunyt and Raet-Taui supplanted her.

Ashtart first appears in Egypt beginning with the 18th Dynasty along with other deities who were worshipped by northwest Semitic people.

She was especially worshipped in Her aspect of a war Goddess, often paired with the Goddess ‘Anat. In the Contest Between Horus and Set, these two Goddesses appear as daughters of Re and are given in marriage to the God Set, here identified with the Semitic nameHadad.

‘Ashtart was also identified with the Goddess Sekhmet but seemingly more often conflated, at least in part, with Isis to judge from the many images found of ‘Ashtart suckling a

small child. Indeed there is statue of the 6th century BCE in the Cairo Museum, which would normally be taken as portraying Isis with Her child Horus on Her knee and which in every detail of iconography follows normal Egyptian conventions but the dedicatory inscription reads: "Gersaphon, son of Azor, son of Slrt, man of Lydda, for his Lady, for ‘Ashtart." See G. Daressy, (1905) pl. LXI (CGC 39291).

Plutarch, in his On Isis and Osiris, indicates that the King and Queen of Byblos, who unknowingly have the Osiris' body in a pillar in their hall, are Melcarthus (ie. Melqart) and Astarte (though he notes some instead call the Queen Saosis or Nemanus, which Plutarch interprets as corresponding to the Greek name Athenais).

To the Egyptians, the frog became a symbol of life and fertility, since millions of them were born after the annual inundation of the Nile, which brought fertility to the otherwise barren lands.

Consequently, in Egyptian mythology, there began to be a frog-goddess, who represented fertility, named Heget (also Heqet, Heket), meaning frog.

Heget was usually depicted as a frog, or a woman with a frog's head, or more rarely as a frog on the end of a phallus to explicitly indicate her association with fertility.

She was worshipped in the areas where the Ogdoad cosmogeny gained favour, and so, like most deities in this cosmogeny, except for the eight members of the Ogdoad themselves, she was considered a child of Ra.

Since she was associated with the nile, she was often considered to be the wife of Sobek, the Nile god.

After the Ogdoad and Ennead merged, and Ra became Atum-Ra, it was sometimes said that as the bringer of life to the newborn, she had to be the wife of Shu, the creator of all gods in the Ennead except for Atum, his father. Later,

as a fertility goddess, associated explicitly with the last stages of the flooding of the nile, and so with the germination of corn, she became associated with the last stages of childbirth.

This association, which appears to have arisen during the Middle Kingdom, gained her the title She who hastens the birth. Midwives often called themselves the Servants of Heget, and her priestesses were trained as midwives.

Women often wore amulets of her during childbirth, which depicted Heget as a frog, sitting in a lotus. As goddess of the last stages of birth, she became considered the wife of Chnum, who formed the bodies of new children on his potter's wheel.

When the Legend of Osiris and Isis developed, it was said that it was Heget who breathed life into the new body of Horus at birth, as she was the goddess of the last moments of birth.

As the birth of Horus became more intimately associated with the resurrection of Osiris, so Heget's role became one more closely associated with resurrection. Eventually, this association lead to her amulets gaining the phrase I am the resurrection, and consequently the amulets were used by early Christians.

Finally, as the legend of Osiris' resurrection grew increasingly stronger, she became ever more aligned with Isis, and eventually becoming an aspect of her.

HUH

In Egyptian mythology, Huh (also spelt Hu, Hah, or Heh) was the deification of eternity in the Ogdoad, his name itself meaning endlessness, and is not to be confused with the identically named Hu a god in the Ennead system.

As a concept, he was androgynous, his female form being known as Hauhet, which is simply the feminine form of his name.

Like the other concepts in the Ogdoad, his male form was often depicted as a frog, or a frog-headed human, and his female form as a snake or snake-headed human. The other common representation depicts him crouching, holding a palm stem in each hand (or just one), sometimes with a palm stem in his hair, as palm stems represented long life to the Egyptians, the years being represented by notches on it.

Depictions of this form also had a shen ring at the base of each palm stem, which represented infinity. Depictions of Huh were also used in Hieroglyphs to represent one million, which was essentially considered equivalent to infinity in Egyptian mathematics.

In Egyptian mythology, 'Tawaret' (also spelt Taurt, Tuat, Taueret, Tuart, Ta-weret, Taweret, and Taueret, and in Greek, Thoeris and Toeris) was originally the demon-wife of Apep, the original god of evil.

Since Apep was viewed as residing below the horizon, and only present at night, evil during the day was envisaged as being a result of Tawaret's malificence.

As the counterpart of Apep, who was always below the horizon, Tawaret was seen as being the northern sky, the constellation roughly covering the area of present-day Draco, which always lies above the horizon.

Thus Tawaret was known as mistress of the horizon, and was depicted as such on the ceiling of the tomb of Seti I in the Valley of the Kings.

In art, Tawaret was depicted as a composite of all the things the Egyptians feared, the major part of her being hippopotamus, since this is what the constellation most

resembled, with the arms and legs of a lioness, and with the back of a crocodile. On occasion, later, rather than having a crocodile back, she was seen as having a separate crocodile resting on her back, which was thus interpreted as Sobek, the crocodile-god, and said to be her consort.

Early during the Old Kingdom, the Egyptians came to see female hippopotamuses as less aggressive than the males, and began to view their aggression as one of protecting their young, particularly since it is the males that are territorially aggressive.

Consequently, Tawaret became seen, very early in Egyptian history, as a deity of protection in pregnancy and childbirth, and pregnant women wore amulets with her name or likeness to protect their pregnancies.

Her image could also be found on knives made from hippopotamus ivory, which would be used as wands in rituals to drive evil spirits away from mothers and children.

In most subsequent depictions, Tawaret was depicted with features of a pregnant woman, in a composite addition to the animal-compound she was also seen as, which usually took the form of pendulous breasts, pregnant stomach, and long straight (human) hair (from her head). As a protector, she was often shown with one arm resting on the sa symbol, which

symbolized protection, and on occasion carried an ankh, the symbol of life, or a knife, which would be used to threaten evil spirits.

As such a protector, Tawaret was also given titles reflecting a more positive nature, including Opet (also spelt Ipet, Apet, and Ipy), meaning harem, and Reret (also spelt Rert, Reret, seen as the son of Nut.

As the hippopotamus was associated with the Nile, these more positive ideas of Tawaret allowed her to be seen as a goddess of the annual flooding of the Nile, and the harvest that it brought.

Ultimately, although only a household deity, since she was still considered the consort of Apep, Tawaret was seen as one who protected against evil by restraining it, and became known as (one) who is great, which is what Tawaret means.

When Set fell from grace in the Egyptian mindset, as a result of being favoured by the (xenophobically) hated Hyksos rulers, and gradually took over the position of Apep, as the god of evil, Tawaret became seen as his concubine.

She was seen as concubine rather than wife, as Set was already married to the extremely different Nephthys. It was said that Tawaret had been originally an evil goddess, but changed her ways, and held Set back on a chain. As the goddess of motherhood, Tawaret was eventually assimilated into the identity of Mut, the great-mother goddess.

Cobra or woman with head of cobra. Cobra with woman's head. In rare occasions,she has head of scorpion, lioness or aspect of sphinx with head of snake.

She is crowned by a solar disc flanked by two horns and a frieze of ureos the one that there emerge two high pens (or the symbol of Occident).

The first information that we have of this goddess belongs to the Average Kingdom. She is chief of the teban necropolis where she demonstrates as a local form of Hathor.

She symbolized the ctonic and as such she was residing in Occident, the place where she was located in the otherworld.

As such, she was living in the top of the hill that dominates

the Valley of the Kings and was taking the title of " the one that loves the silence ", " Lady of the West ", that is to say, of the mountain that receives in his bosom the bodies of the deceased of the area of Tebas.

She enjoyed big popular worship during the New Kingdom, especially in Ramess Epoch, since it was demonstrated to to find numerous references of her, especially in the working city of Deir the-Medina.

In addition to West of Tebas protected the burials placed in the shore, she was a goddess in charge of the justice and the medicine.

Merseguer could cause the death and, depending on the committed absence, it might transport or to treat the blindness, for what it was to her whom it was necessary to invoke to be protected against the sting of ofidios. As all the goddesses snakes, Merseguer identified with the royal ureo, but her worship stopped being important after the dynasty the XXIst.

Naked woman or with a subtle garment, stood or mounted in the loin of a lion. In her hands she takes lotus flowers and snakes, symbols of Min and Reshef.

For her identification with Hathor, she can take liriformes horns, solar disc and in the hands a sistro. Sometimes it carries on the head a disc with increasing spot or stars.

It is present in Egypt from the Average Kingdom and is consolidated in the Egyptian pantheon from the New Kingdom, fruit of the popular fervor, in most cases of the Asian settlers who were living in Egypt in this moment.

It was adored especially in working villages and, especially,

in those cities in charge of the work in the necropolis of the kings. She was related to love and sexual pleasure, for what, to adapt her to the Egyptian pantheon, she suffered a clear assimilation with Hathor.

In Egyptian mythology, Renenutet (also transliteration as Ernutet, and Renenet) was the anthropomorphic deification of the act of gaining a true name, an aspect of the soul, during birth.

Her name simply meaning (she who) gives Ren, with Ren being the egyptian word for this true name.

Indeed, it was said that a newborn had Renenutet upon their shoulder from their first day, and she was referred to as (she who) rears, and Lady of the robes (referring to birth-robes). Her cult was centered in Terenuthis.

Her name could also be interpreted in an alternate way, as renen-utet, rather than ren-nutet, consequently having the more esoteric meaning - nourishment snake.

As a nourishment snake, Renenutet was envisioned, particularly in art, as a cobra, or as a woman the head of a cobra.

This secondary meaning also lead to her being considered the source of nourishment, thus a goddess of the harvest; gaining titles such as Lady of granaries, and Lady of fertile fields.

The importance of the harvest caused people to make many offerings to Renenutet during harvest time, leading to her being seen as a goddess of riches and good fortune.

As the goddess of nourishment, she was sometimes seen as the wife of Sobek, who represented the fertility of the annual flooding of the nile, which was the source of the ability to have harvests.

However, more usually, she was seen as the mother of Nehebkau, who was the deification of another important change concerning parts of the soul - the binding of Ka and Ba, who was additionally also seen as a snake.

When considered the mother of Nehebkau, Renenutet was seen as a wife of Geb, who represented the earth, since it was from earth that snakes appear to arise.

As a snake-goddess over the whole of Lower Egypt, she was later increasingly confused with Wadjet, Lower Egypt's protector, and another snake goddess. Eventually Renenutet was identified as a form of Wadjet, whose gaze was said to slaughter enemies.

The Hymn of Renenutet says:

I will make the Nile swell for you,

without there being a year of lack and exhaustion in the whole land,

so the plants will flourish, bending under their fruit.

The land of Egypt is beginning to stir again,

the shores are shining wonderfully,

and wealth and well-being dwell with them,

as it had been before.

In Egyptian mythology, Satis (also spelt Satjit, Sates, and Sati) was the deification of the floods of the Nile River, and originated in the region around Aswan, the southern edge of Egypt.

Her name means ejaculation (i.e. that which is ejected out), as many Egyptians believed that the annual flooding of the Nile was due to the masturbation of Atum.

One of her titles was She Who Runs Like an Arrow, which is thought to refer to the river current, and her symbols became the arrow and the running river.

Satis was pictured as a woman wearing the conical crown of Upper Egypt with antelope horns, or as an antelope, a fast moving creature living near the southern end of Egypt.

She is also usually depicted as holding an ankh, due to her association with the life giving flooding of the nile.

Consequently, it is true that Satis acted as a fertility goddess, thus granting the wishes of those who sought love. Satis is also described as offering jars of purifying water. She became regarded as the consort of Chnum, the deification of the source of the Nile, with whom she was

worshipped at Elephantine (the 1st nome of Egypt), indeed the centre of her cult was nearby, at Sahal, another island of the Nile. Since she was most dominant at the southern end of Egypt, she became regarded as the guard of Egypt's border with Nubia. Satis's child was Anuket, goddess of the nile itself, who formed the third part of the Elephantine Trinity of gods. After Chnum became considered a form of Ra, Satis became known as the Eye of Ra.

Jnum - Jnoumis - Cnoufis

In Egyptian mythology, Chnum (also spelled Khnum, Knum, or Khnemu) was one of the earliest Egyptian gods, originally the god of the source of the Nile River.

Since the annual flooding of the Nile brought with it silt and clay, and its water brought life to its surrounds, he was thought to be the creator of human children, which he made at a potter's wheel, from clay, and placed in their mothers' wombs. Indeed, before the cult of Ra gained prominence, he was said by those who worshipped him to have molded the other gods, and he had the titles Divine Potter and Lord of created things from himself.

In certain locations, such as Elephantine, since Chnum was thought of as a god pouring out the Nile, he was regarded as the husband of Satis (who did much the same), and the father of Anuket, who represented the Nile itself. In other locations, such as Antinoe, as the moulder and creator of the human body, he was sometimes regarded as the consort of Heget, since it was her responsibility

for breathing life into his creations. Alternatively, in places such as Esna, due to his aspect as creator of the body, they viewed him as the father of Heka, who activated the Ka, and consequently as the husband of Menhit.

Originally one of the most important gods, when other areas arose to greater prominence, it was the secondary function, as potter, that became his whole realm of authority, and instead, the Nile was considered the god Hapi, who was the Nile god in the more powerful areas.

Khnum's name derives from this secondary association, – it means builder. However, Chnum's earlier position as 'moulder' of the other gods, leads to him being identified as Ra, or more particularly as the Ba of Ra. Since Ba is also the word for a Ram, he became thought of as having a Ram's head.

In art, he was usually depicted as a Ram-headed man at a potter's wheel, with recently created children standing on the wheel, although he also appeared in his earlier guise as a water-god, holding a jar from which flowed a stream of water.

However, he occasionally appeared in a compound image, depicting the elements, in which he, representing water, was shown as one of four heads of a man, with the others being, – Geb representing earth, Shu representing the air, and Osiris representing death.

Some think this is a depiction which may have had an influence on Ezekiel and Revelations, as Chnum had a Ram's head, Shu sometimes appeared with a Lion's head, Osiris was a man, and Geb had a goose on his head.

The worship of Chnum centred on two principal riverside sites, Elephantine Island and Esna, which were regarded as sacred sites. At Elephantine, he was worshipped alongside Anuket and Satis as the guardian of the sources of the River Nile.

His significance led to early theophoric names of him, for children, such as Chnum-khufu – Chnum is Protector, the full name of Khufu, builder of the Great Pyramid. Due to his importance, as an aspect of the life-giving Nile, and also the creator, Chnum was still worshipped in some semi-Christian sects in the 2nd or 3rd Centuries.

Anukis - Anuket

In Egyptian mythology, Anuket (also spelled Anqet, and in Greek, Anukis) was originally the goddess of the Nile River, in areas such as Elephantine Island, at the start of the Nile's journey through Egypt, and in nearby regions of Nubia.

Since the flooding of the Nile is what nourishes the fields, she gained her name, which means embracer, in the sense of the Nile embracing the fields. Her titles were similarly appropriate to this, including nourisher of the fields, giver of life, and she who shoots forth (in reference to the flooding).

Since the god Chnum, and goddess Satis, were thought to be the gods of the source of the Nile, Anuket was viewed as their daughter. Being the deification of the Nile also lead to two tributaries of the Nile, in the region, being considered her arms.

It also lead to her being associated with fast moving things, representing the river's flow, such as arrows, and the gazelle, which happens also to be an animal with a large presence at the Nile in this region. Thus in art, she was often depicted as a gazelle, or with a gazelle's head, sometimes having a headdress of feathers (thought by most Egyptologists to be a detail deriving from Nubia).

Ceremonially, when the Nile started its annual flood, the Festival of Anuket began, with people throwing coins, gold, jewelry, and precious gifts, into the river, in thanks for the life-giving water. The taboo, that was held in several parts of Egypt, on not eating fish, which were considered sacred, was lifted during this time.

Later, by the time of the Ptolomeic era, because of the association of the flooding of the Nile with the fertility of the fields, and because her name was The Embracer, she became also a goddess of lust. In this form, she gained association with cowrie shells, which resemble the vagina.

Anj

The ankh (pronounced 'ahnk', symbol ?) was the Egyptian hieroglyphic character that stood for the word ?n?, which means life. Egyptian gods may carry it by the loop, or bear one in each hand crossed over their breast. Latinists interpreted the symbol as a crux ansata, "cross with a handle".

What it was intended to represent remains a mystery to Egyptologists, and no single hypothesis has yet been widely accepted.

Some have speculated that it was a stylized womb[citation needed]. Sir Alan Gardiner speculated that it represented a sandal strap, with the loop going around the ankle. The word for sandal strap was also spelled ?n?, although it may have been pronounced differently. Howard Carter speculated it could be a primitive representation of human genitalia.

In their 2004 book "The Quick and the Dead", Andrew H. Gordon and Calvin W. Schwabe speculated that the Ankh, Djed and Was symbols have a biological basis derived from ancient cattle culture (and linked to the Egyptian belief that semen was created in the spine), thus:

the Ankh - symbol of life - thoracic vertebrae of a bull (seen in cross section)

the Djed - symbol of stability - base or sacrum of a bull's spine

the Was - symbol of power and dominion - a staff made from a dried bull's penis

The original meaning of this Egyptian symbol is also not known. One suggests that it combines the male and female symbols of Osiris (the cross) and Isis (the oval) and therefore signifies the union of heaven and earth.

As a hieroglyph, it likely encompassed a range of meanings depending on its associated hieroglyphs but all of these expressions centered around the concept of life or life force.

Over time, the ankh certainly came to symbolize life and immortality, the universe, power and life giving air and water. "Its keylike shape also encouraged the belief it could unlock the gates of death." The Coptic Christians used it as a symbol of life after death[citation needed]. The ankh has been used in ritual magic.

It also appears to be a 'cross' between a crucifix and the 'christian' (flat) fish symbol which is also represented as determining a point of origin and a vanishing point by drawing two curves around the three main pyramids[citation needed].

Two ankhs could therefore represent two crossed fishes being a combination of the symbol for Pisces and a crucifix[citation needed].

In Egyptian art

The ankh appears frequently in Egyptian tomb paintings and other art; it often appears at the fingertips of a god or goddess in images that represent the deities of the afterlife conferring the gift of life on the dead person's mummy.

The ankh symbol was often carried by Egyptians as an amulet, either alone, or in connection with two other hieroglyphs that mean "strength" and "health." Mirrors were often made in the shape of an ankh. Sometimes, in art, the Ankh was shown being touched by a god onto a person, which usually symbolized conception.

In alchemy

A similar symbol (?) was used to represent the Roman goddess Venus. This symbol, known benignly as Venus' hand-mirror, is much more associated with a representation of the female womb. The same symbol is used in astrology to represent the planet Venus, in alchemy to represent the element copper, and in biology to identify the female sex.

In Hermeticism

Hermeticism is a belief system that is believed to have come out of Egypt and whose beliefs may be able to unify many of the Ankh's meanings. It is unclear whether their beliefs created the ankh or added many meanings, or remain a coincidence. Their concept of God was The All, who purportedly claimed: "Nous, God, being male and female, beginning as life and light, gave birth, by the Word, to another Nous, the Creator of the world;"

If the concept of the ankh suggesting the joining of the masculine and feminine is correct, with the top opened up to look similar to O representing the feminine (genitals) and the bottom shaft being a phallic symbol, then the rest may follow.

If God is both male and female, the ankh is a symbol of hermaphroditism and can be representing God. It also can be representing reproduction as both genitalia are pictured, with Nous having given birth. God is also "life and light," making those now synonymous with a symbol of God.

God is certainly synonymous with power, and in the Hermetic view, "While All is in THE ALL, it is equally true that THE ALL is in All." The universe or Cosmos was seen as being the same as The All, making the universe also synonymous with God, and this symbol.

The long-standing importance of the Ankh, and its deep symbolism to the dynastic Egyptians, led to it being gradually adopted by the fourth century Christian church in Egypt (which eventually became the Coptic Church).

This is highly significant, as it is almost certainly the genesis of the cross as the central thematic symbol of the Christian religion. A kind of cross, the ankh had long been a central religious symbol. It was non-anthropormorphic; not even animal-like. (Many Egyptian gods had been animal-faced human figures.)

Anknaton's benevolent sun was the only other symbol that was so esoteric. This cross implied all of the "god ideas" that are infinite in nature. As monotheism is at the core of Christian belief, the ankh seemed a logical choice to symbolize the belief in one all-powerful God. Over time, the idea that His son had died on some type of cross made it seem all the more appropriate.

To Christians outside of the ankh's influence, the image of the Roman cross of execution was "shameful" in the same manner as a hanging noose or a headsman's ax would be. Especially to professed Christains in fourth century Egypt, the association of the ankh with the cross seemed comfortable and familiar.

Elsewhere, the main Christian symbol at the time had been a stylised alpha, resembling a fish, and therefore known as Ichthys, the Greek word for 'fish'. However, the new "more positive" symbol of a cross eventually spread throughout the Christianized Empire. The distinct circular or "gothic arch-like" upper part of the Ankh was kept well into mediaeval times. The Ankh symbol often being used as a Christian talisman.

The photograph shown of a Christian 3rd Century bust with a transitional "ankh becoming a cross" was found in the 1960s in the Fayuom, Egypt archeological region. It is analogous to the "archaeopteryx fossil", the famous "Dinosaur into Bird" relic, which lends tangible support to the transitional concept. (If you have red-cyan glasses you'll see it in museum grade 3D)

In Unicode, the ankh sign is U+2625 (?).