Amun , The most ancient gods in the Egyptian pantheon

    The supreme deity of ancient Egypt dur-ing the New Kingdom (1550–1069 b.c.), Amun is one of the most ancient gods in the Egyptian pantheon. Amun was the principal god of the city of Thebes, along with his wife, Mut, the lion-headed goddess, and their son, Khonsu, the moon god. Egyptian gods frequently came in threes, or triads. Over Egypt’s long history, Amun gained many titles: Amun Kematef; “He Whose Time is Over”; “Lord of the Throne of the Two Lands”; and “Eldest of the Gods of the Eastern Sky,” to name a few. Amun’s name meant the “hidden one” or “that which is concealed,” implying that his nature was unknowable.
 

      A possible origin of his name is the ancient Libyan word aman,or “water.” In one creation myth, a group of eight gods lived in the Ogdoad, or primordial water, and they were the first gods to come into existence. Amun and his first wife, Amunet, were the gods of the Ogdoad, representing “hiddenness.”
 

     In statues and paintings, Amun is personified as a man, either standing or seated on his throne, wearing a kilt and a round, flat crown with a sun disk and two tall ostrich feathers on top. His skin is often blue, perhaps a symbol for water or lapis lazuli, a highly prized stone worthy of the gods.

     The animals sacred to Amun were the goose and a special breed of ram with large, curling horns. The ram became the symbol of Amun, as did the ram’s horns, and sometimes Amun was depicted as a ram or as a ram-headed man.
 
  Amun probably was first worshipped as an agri-cultural god who assured abundant crops and fertility in animals. Over time he evolved from a minor local god to the supreme deity in the Egyptian pantheon. Amun is mentioned in the Pyramid Texts, where he is said to “protect the other gods with his shadow.” The earliest known temple for Amun was built in the Eleventh Dynasty (2125–2055 b.c.) in Thebes.
 
     In ancient Egypt, religion and politics went hand in hand, and when the Theban princes in the south won a battle with the north, they united the country and started the Twelfth Dynasty (1985–1795 b.c.). The powerful southern kings paid special homage to Amun, in thanks for his divine help, by taking the god’s name as their own. King Amenemhet I (Amun-em-het) took the name “Amun is Supreme,” as did his immediate successors. Their patron deity became “the king of the gods.” As the cult of Amun became powerful, Waset (later called Thebes by the Greeks), grew in power and wealth and was called the City of Amun. During the New Kingdom (1550–1069 b.c.), when Egypt was at the height of its Golden Age, Waset was named the capital of Egypt and the most important religious center in the land.
 
     Amun’s most important religious celebration was the Festival of Opet in Thebes. Cult statues of Amun, Mut, and Khonsu were carried from Karnak Temple to Luxor Temple once a year, and the whole city celebrated the joyous event.
 
     Amun was often credited by the queens of Egypt as having fathered their children. When Queen Hatshepsut came to power, she inscribed the story of her divine birth, from the union of Amun and her mother, Queen Ahmose, on the wall of her mortuary temple at Deir el Bahri. The queen is visited by Amun in the guise of her husband; the god and the queen sit on a bed, with hands touching. Amun holds an ankh, the sign of life, to the queen’s nose, and in due time she gives birth to Hatshepsut. Carvings on the walls of Luxor Temple show how Amun visited Queen Mutemwiya in the same fashion, and their union produced her son, Amenhotep III. The clear portrayal of this myth helped to strengthen Hatshepsut’s and Amenhotep’s right to the throne of Egypt, and Hatshepsut boasted that she erected her obelisk at Karnak “for her father Amun.”
 
     Thebes (modern Luxor) was the center of the Egyptian universe, and Amun was its most powerful god. By elevating Amun to the position of supreme god, the Egyptian priests came close to the idea of monotheism, a concept that would be fully developed later when Akhenaten came to power (1352–1336 b.c.). Amun’s popularity continued even during the Ptolemaic dynasty (332–32 b.c.), for the Greeks saw Amun as a version of their principal god, Zeus.
 Source : ( Egyptian Mythology , Pat Remler )

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Akhenaten , The person who changed the religion of ancient Egypt

     Akhenaten (1352–1336 b.c.)  Called the “her-etic pharaoh” because he changed the religion of ancient Egypt, Akhenaten was the first known mono-theist in history. He believed there was only one god, the Aten. Soon after he was crowned king, he changed his name from Amenhotep IV to Akhenaten, meaning “Aten is on the horizon.” He then raised the little-known god, the Aten, meaning “disk of the sun,” to supreme god in the religion.

    Akhenaten was the son of Amenhotep III, a plea-sure-loving king who devoted his life to building
temples, and Queen Tiye, a strong-minded woman if her portraits tell us anything about her personality. Akhenaten’s ideas were revolutionary, and from his statues, we can see that his looks were different as well. Instead of an idealized king with a perfectly proportioned body, images of Akhenaten show a long, thin face, slanted eyes, thick lips, pointed chin, and a scrawny neck. He had breasts, a swollen belly, wide hips, and spindly arms and legs. This highly unusual and perhaps realistic portrayal of the king became an artistic fashion as Egyptian art changed to a more realistic style under his reign.
   

    It is not certain when Akhenaten began worship-ing the Aten. There were references to the Aten dur-ing his childhood: Akhenaten’s mother, Queen Tiye, had a pleasure boat named The Aten Gleamsthat she sailed on her private lake. Right after his coronation, Akhenaten made it clear to everyone how important the new god was. He began building temples to the Aten next to the temple of the traditional god, Amun, at Karnak Temple, a group of religious buildings in Thebes.
 

     The Aten was unlike any god the people had ever worshipped. Represented as a sun disk with rays of light reaching down and ending in hands holding an ankh (the sign of life) and wasscepter (the sign of power), it bestowed light and warmth upon the king and his family. Unlike the traditional gods of Egypt, however, the Aten was an abstract god without personality.
 

    Akhenaten and his followers left Thebes, the capital of Egypt, and traveled north to a remote desert site about halfway between modern Luxor and Cairo to build a new city in the desert, called Akhet-Aten, “the horizon of the Aten.” The king erected boundary markers called stelethat described how the Aten directed him to build the holy city on this site. Akhet-Aten was one of the most beautiful cities in the ancient world, stretching for five miles along the Nile. There were extra-wide streets for the king’s chariot procession and planned neighborhoods with houses for the laborers, administrators, and nobles of the court, as well as several palaces for the royal family and temples for the Aten.
 

     The Aten temples were unlike any other temples in Egypt. There were no roofs and no sanctuary, or “holy of holies,” for the god. Completely open, their vast courtyards were filled with sunshine and altars for offerings to the Aten. 

     Akhenaten and his wife, Queen Nefertiti, had six daughters. Akhenaten’s happy isolation lasted only a dozen years, as one by one, five of the princesses and Nefertiti died. When Akhenaten himself died after reigning for about 17 years, Tutankhamen, his probable young son by a second wife, became pharaoh. Egypt returned to the old religion, and the city of Akhet-Aten was abandoned when the capital was moved back to Thebes.
 

    It has been said that Akhenaten was a man born before his time, that his ideas were too revolutionary to be accepted in conservative Egypt. He changed his name, the art style, the religion, and the capital. In so doing, Akhenaten’s legacy to the world was monotheism, a new art style, and his beautiful prayer praising the Aten (see hymn to the Aten).

Source : ( Egyptian Mythology , Pat Remler )

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Akh , The Akh was part of a person’s vital force

    The Akh was part of a person’s vital force, and when a person died, it was believed that his or her spirit, or akh,acquired magical power. The Egyptians thought the Akh was a radiant light, something like a star. The Pyramid Texts tell us that when a man died, his akhwent to heaven. 
From the Pyramid Texts of King Unas, spell 245, the king joins the stars: 

     

     This Unas comes to you oh Nut [the goddess of the sky]

This Unas comes to you, oh Nut,
He has consigned his father to earth,
He has left Horus behind him . . .
His magic has equipped him
 

Nut, the sky goddess, replies:
Make your seat in heaven,
Among the stars of heaven,
For you are the Lone Star. . . .
 

     The Akh was the resurrected form of the king when he had gained mobility in the Netherworld. The nature of the Akh changed over time as the intricacies of Egyptian mythology evolved. Much later, when religious beliefs had changed, the Book of the Dead viewed the akhas an evil force:
My mouth is strong: and I am equipped against the Akhs.
Let them not have power over me.

Source : ( Egyptian Mythology , Pat Remler )

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Abydos , The most sacred city in all of Egypt

      The most sacred city in all of Egypt, located on the West Bank of the Nile near modern Sohag, Abydos was a center for reli-gious activity for centuries, from Egypt’s Predynastic period to Christian times. Abydos was the earliest and most important cult center for worship of Osiris when the god became popular toward the end of the Old Kingdom. According to the mythology, Osiris’s body was cut into pieces and spread over Egypt, and legend had it that Osiris’s head (some sources claim it was his phallus) was buried at Abydos.

      The earliest buildings at Abydos are the tombs of Egypt’s Predynastic and Early Dynastic rulers. The first pharaohs came from a town nearby—its precise location is unknown—and were buried at Abydos. Today the oldest remains are from the temple of Osiris-Khentimentiu, dedicated to an ancient jackal god associated with Osiris. Khentimentiu means “foremost of the westerners” (the west was reserved for the dead) and stresses Osiris’s role as a protective
funerary god.

    Excavations have unearthed Early Dynastic royal tombs and several wooden boats. A mud-brick tomb of the First Dynasty king, Djer, was thought to be the tomb of Osiris in ancient times. This may have contributed to the growing popularity of the cult of Osiris. The most impressive monument to Osiris at Abydos is the Osireion, a chapel constructed of huge granite blocks and believed to be his false tomb, or cenotaph. In the Middle Kingdom (2055–1650 b.c.), people made pilgrimages to Abydos and many left stele, or offering tablets, for Osiris inscribed with their names and prayers. 

    Abydos was the center for the “mysteries”—passion plays revolving around the life of Osiris. Abydos became a place of pilgrimage, both real and symbolic. A chorus sang prayers, and the audience lit lamps to represent Isis’s search for the pieces of her husband’s body. Osiris was the first mummy and was believed to be the first one to resurrect. He became the king of the Netherworld: Anyone seeking to enter needed Osiris’s permission. Besides being the god of the dead, Osiris also represented the fertility of the land. Tomb paintings often show him with green skin

and his arms crossed over his chest in the form of a mummy. The symbol of Osiris at Abydos was a pole covered with an animal skin and two plumes, which was also associated with Anubis (see Imiut).

 The Second Dynasty kings Peribsen and Khasekhemwy constructed their tombs at Abydos to be near the burial place of Osiris.

   Today, the greatest monument at Abydos is the Temple of Seti I, the father of Ramses II. No Egyp-tian temple can match the carvings and the colors in the temple of Seti I, the first ruler of the Nineteenth Dynasty (1295–1186 b.c.). It is so well preserved that visitors can study the ancient religious ceremonies pictured on the walls of the seven chapels.

    Pylons that once stood in front of the temple are now gone, so the approach is from the broad stairs leading to the entrance. Inside, seven aisles lead to seven chapels, each dedicated to a different god, one of which is Seti I. At the entrance to each chapel is a carving of Seti I and the god to whom that chapel is dedicated. The Chapel of Osiris is the third from the right, and here one can see the ancient rituals of the Osiris Cult as performed by the king. Seti is shown as the officiating high priest who is being purified with holy oil. Seti approaches the sanctuary dressed in a simple kilt, carrying an incense pipe and an oil lamp to illuminate the sacred darkness of the sanctuary. The king, chanting prayers, approaches the shrine of Osiris; he unbolts the doors of the sacred shrine; the god, in the form of a cult statue, is greeted with morning hymns and offered food and wine, and incense is burned. The statue of the god is anointed with precious oil and dressed in the finest linen. More prayers are offered, and the god is returned to his shrine. The king withdraws, bowing, and sweeps away his footprints. This ritual is repeated in each of the other six chapels that are dedicated to Horus, Isis (wife of Osiris and mother of Horus), Amun-Re (the great god of Thebes), Re-Horakhty (Horus of the Horizon), Ptah (the creator god), and Seti I. In the chapel of Seti I, the king performs the ceremonies in front of a cult statue of himself.

 Source : ( Egyptian Mythology , Pat Remler )

 

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Abu Simbel , A site in Egypt where Ramses the Great carved a pair of rock-cut temples

     A site in Egypt where Ramses the Great (Ramses II) (1304–1237 b.c.) carved a pair of rock-cut temples. Situated on the west bank of the Nile at Egypt’s southern border, Abu Simbel lies 180 miles south of Aswan. The larger of the two temples, the Great Temple, Hwt Ramesses Meryamun,called the Temple of Ramses Beloved of Amun, is dedicated to Egypt’s principal gods: Amun-Re, Rehorakhty, Ptah, and the deified Ramses. The walls of the Great Temple are decorated with religious scenes, including an array of gods and goddesses, and scenes
of Ramses’s most important battles—the most well-known being the Battle of Kaddesh, which depicts Ramses’s victory over the Hittites.

     The most impressive parts of the temple are four 67-foot-tall seated statues of Ramses that occupy the open-air court in front of the entrance to the temple.
Each one was carved from the rock face of the moun-tain. (It has been suggested that Mount Rushmore in South Dakota was based on these figures of Ramses.) 

 One of the statues (on the left as you face the temple) was damaged by an earthquake in antiquity, and the head lies on the ground. Carved on the sides of each throne are Nile gods tying lotus and papyrus plants around the hieroglyph “to unite,” symbolizing the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt.

     Statues of the royal family are carved between and beside the legs of all four colossal statues of Ramses. Prominently shown around the first southern statue are: Queen Nefertari (the Great Wife), Muttuya (king’s mother), and Prince Amen-hir-khep-shef (the firstborn son). From the second southern statue are: Princess Bint-Anat, Princess Nebet-awy-by, and a female figure whose name has been lost, perhaps Esenofre, a minor wife. The family members shown with the two northern statues are: Queen Nefertari, Princess Beket-mut, Prince Pi-Ramses, Princess Merit-Amun, Queen Muttuya, and Princess Nofre-tari. Beneath the statues are figures of bound cap-tives, and above the entrance to the Great Temple is a carving of the sun god Rehorakhty. To his right is a jackal-head symbol meaning “power”; to the left is Maat, the goddess of truth. Together the three symbols form an ancient Egyptian pun: they spell one of Ramses’s names, Usr-Maat-Re,“the Truth of Re is Power.” In front of the Great Temple were two stone basins where the priests purified themselves with Nile water before entering the temple.

     The Great Temple has four rooms: The first, called the great hall, has eight square pillars each with a statue of Ramses. The four on the right wear the double crown, signifying the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, and those on the left wear the white crown of Upper Egypt. In the second hall, the four pillars are decorated with religious scenes—the king in the company of the gods: Anubis, Satis, Min, Mut, Wadjet, Amun-Re, Hathor, Montu, and several manifestations of Horus. On the entrance to the vestibule the king makes offerings of wine, incense, bread, and flowers to the gods. The vestibule leads to the sanctuary, where statues of the gods are cut into the rock. From left to right are Ptah, Amun-Re, Ramses II (as a god), and Re-Hora-khty. The image of Ramses is the same size as those of the gods, suggesting he is the equal of the gods he is honoring. The holy of holies at Abu Simbel is oriented so that on February 21 (Ramses’s birthday) and October 21 (Ramses’s coronation date), the rays of the sun shine through the corridor into the sanctu-ary and illuminate Ramses and the gods. 

     Just north of Ramses’s temple is the Small Temple, built for Queen Nefertari, and dedicated to Hathor as Abshek, an obscure Nubian goddess of love and beauty. The front of Nefertari’s temple is shaped like a pylon and faced with six colossal statues: four of Ramses and two of Nefertari, each about 33 feet tall.

     

     An inscription over the door reads:

Rameses II, he has made a temple, excavated in
the mountain, of eternal workmanship, for the
chief queen Nefertari, beloved of Mut, in Nubia,
forever and ever, Nefertari for whose sake the
very sun does shine.

     

  Inside, the great hall is supported by six Hathor-head columns that incorporate the shape of the sis-trum, the sacred rattle used in religious ceremonies. In the vestibule, or second room, are religious scenes with Nefertari in the company of goddesses. On the right of the main vestibule door, Hathor-Abshek looks on as Isis places a crown upon Nefertari’s head. On the left side of the vestibule door, Nefertari stands with Ramses, who presents a bouquet of flowers to Tauret, the goddess of pregnancy and childbirth. The third room, the Holy of Holies, where the cult statues were kept, is decorated with various goddesses. One wall is carved to show Hathor as a cow goddess emerging from a mountain to protect the king, who stands in front of her. On the side walls, Ramses and Nefertari appear in the company of the gods with Ramses offeringincense and libations to himself and his queen, indicating that they are both deified.

     The temples at Abu Simbel are unique because they were carved from a mountain, not built of stone blocks. When the Aswan High Dam was being constructed in the 1960s, both temples were saved from the rising water that formed Lake Nasr behind the dam. UNESCO, the United Nations Educa-tional,Scientific and Cultural Organization, and the Egyptian government dismantled the temples, cut the facades into blocks, numbered them, and moved them to higher ground. The reassembled temples were carefully placed so the sun still shines into the holy of holies on February 21 and October 21, just as in ancient times. 
 Source : ( Egyptian Mythology , Pat Remler )

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