Egyptian Gods

Birth of the Egyptian Gods
When religion exactly started in Egypt is completely beyond the knowledge of the modern Egyptologist. Evidence show that religion predates the dynastic administration of the ancient land. Egyptians had a god for almost every single nature force or need they had. A god of war, fertility, birth, medicine.. The list goes on and on.

It is obvious that not all Egyptian gods were found at the same time, there was some notable period of time between the birth of each two of them, that time was required for new needs and social aspects of the society to rise.

The Spiritual and Political Power of the Egyptian Gods
Religion dominated most aspects of the ancient lifestyle, and Egyptian politics is no exception. Ever since nations started to shape out, religion, politics and society all influenced each other, and that manifests best in ancient Egypt, where Egyptian gods officially ruled the powerful country through the pharaohs who technically ruled Egypt. So, the protection of the gods by the ruling pharaoh was essential.

On the other hand, gods enjoyed great power within the ancient Egyptian society, and needless to say, most notable was their influence over the ancient Egyptian spirituality. Most Egyptians seem to have believed they needed their gods so bad in order to fulfill every single need in their life, and answer every confusing question about the purpose of life and the mystery of death.

Forms and Shapes of the Egyptian Gods
Ancient Egyptians used objects and forms from their daily life to picture their newly created gods, mostly in forms of animals that were physically or socially powerful, such as the lion which was physically the strongest animal in the country, and the cow whose existence was very important due to the productive side of its cycle of life.

Unlike most religions today that have obvious masculine domination over them, ancient Egyptian deities were so often female deities, actually most important and known deities today are feminine, such as the famous Isis who Cleopatra was believed to be a spiritual daughter of.

Egyptian Gods Under the Abrahamic Swords
After dominating the country for thousands of years, Egyptian deities met their official death on the hands of the Roman Empire, decades after the weak Ptolemaic Dynasty period. The Roman Empire closed all Egyptian temples, which they believed to be spreading "false" religions that conflicted with the Roman beliefs and obvious interests. As Christianity started to take over Egypt, it was getting less and less acceptable for Egyptians to worship their own gods even outside the closed, and sometimes destroyed, temples.

By the time Arabs conquered Egypt, there wasn't much left to be destroyed of the Egyptian religion practices, but still most temples and ritual locations were abandoned since they represented "infidel" ideologies that, as well, conflicted with the interests of the new Arab leaders and armies.

In various places in Luxor, Christian monks were believed to have hidden in the ancient Egyptian tombs and temples to escape the persecution they faced from early Muslims in Egypt, but ironically, they kept on destroying the reliefs of the Egyptian gods from the protecting walls in these places.

Click here to learn more about the various Egyptian gods

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