Questions tagged [egyptian]
For questions on the myths, legends, and religious beliefs of the people of Ancient Egypt.
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What is the original ancient Egyptian names for the "Book of Two Ways"?
After much research, I am asking for help with this matter. I can find no reverse translation for the "Book of Two Ways." Is it like the "Book of the Dead," a modern convenience ...
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Are there group names for gods in Egyptian mythology, similar to the Norse and Greek mythologies primordials, titans, Æsir, Vanir?
Like in the title said is there? If there is mind anyone help me by listing them?
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What is the story behind / are the circumstances surrounding the conception of Bastet by Ra and Isis?
Wikipedia lists them both as parents but gives no detail as to how it came about to be.
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Is there any evidence of Christianization of Egyptian myths?
Christian symbolism can be found in sources for Irish and Scandinavian mythologies, as the authors that recorded it were Christian and probably wrote about it centuries later. Was there ever a ...
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Is there any source before the decipherment of hieroglyphic scripts that mentions that the ancient Egyptians deified their kings?
According to Wikipedia:
Although the Egyptians recognized that the pharaoh was human and
subject to human weakness, they simultaneously viewed him as a god,
because the divine power of kingship was ...
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What is the ancient Egyptian name for "The Book of Gates"?
The Book of Gates is an ancient Egyptian funerary text which describes the various bxn.t (gates), also known as a pylon (πυλών) in ancient Greek. I have been unable to find the full name of the Book ...
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Prostration before bricks
The Talmud in Sanhedrin 107b and Sotah 47a brings a story about a sage named Yehoshua ben Perachiah and one of his students, called Jesus (whether this Jesus is the famous one of Christianity is ...
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Do any Mediterranean mythologies depict souls escaping from the Underworld without the help of a living rescuer?
Persephone was rescued from the Underworld (for a little while) by Hermes, who brought her back to Demeter.
Eurydice was (almost) rescued from the Underworld by Orpheus.
Semele was rescued from the ...
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Did the ancient Egyptians have a word for "cult"?
The ancient cultures of Greece, Rome, and Egypt did not have a word for religion, at least in our modern understanding of the word. Greece and Rome did have terms for religious practices though, ...
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Why does the Greek Silenus and the Egyptian Bes look similar?
Today I was going through an old book on Greek sculpture and I notice that a number of pre-classical Greek statues feature Silenus and form in which he is depicted, full frontal nudity with tongue ...
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What is the ancient Egyptian word for crocodiles?
I am doing research on the ancient Egyptian (Kemetic) gods, and am currently working on Sobek (Sbk). This made me wonder what the word for crocodile is in ancient Egyptian. I have found db or dbj, and ...
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Was there a concept of bringing about a perfect world in ancient pagan religions?
I was wondering whether there was a concept of bringing about a perfected world in ancient pagan religions, whether as something the gods were expected to do, something that mankind was expected to do,...
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Skagganauk abyss?
In Roger Zelazney's Creatures of Light and Darkness, he imagines the Egyptian Typhon, brother of Set, as a void that often takes the form of a stallion. He calls this entity "Skagganauk Abyss&...
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Egyptian Goddess Nakith
I am searching for background information on the ancient Egyptian goddess Nakith. Wikipedia says she's a goddess of the underworld. Apart from that I was unable to find more on the web, and Wikipedia ...
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Was Aaru considered part of the Duat (underworld) in ancient Egypt?
The sources I've found don't make a clear statement of whether Aaru was formally considered part of the Duat or distinct from it. I'm trying to understand if the deceased pass through the Duat and ...
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Do the myths of Malayalam Onam, Egyptian Osiris Myth and Vietnamese Tet show cultural contacts?
Were there any contacts between the ancient Egyptian, Keralan (South Indian), and Vietnamese civilizations that may have been significant enough for these people to have borrowed elements from each ...
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What is the name of Ancient Egyptian "water jousting"
I have come across a form of combat from ancient Egypt called 'water jousting'. Does anyone know the actual Egyptian term for this, or any other ancient Egyptian terms for things like wrestling, which ...
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Do any ancient sources describe Set as a mortal? And could Set be Sekhen?
Set
Set /sɛt/ or Seth /sɛθ/ (Egyptian: stẖ;[a]) is a god of deserts, storms, disorder, violence, and foreigners in ancient Egyptian religion.1 In Ancient Greek, the god's name is given as Sēth (Σήθ). ...
user7122
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Was the historical Hyksos account, the real story behind the biblical exodus narrative?
Hyksos
The Hyksos (/ˈhɪksɒs/; Egyptian ḥqꜣ(w)-ḫꜣswt, Egyptological pronunciation: hekau khasut,[4] "ruler(s) of foreign lands"; Ancient Greek: Ὑκσώς, Ὑξώς) were people of probable Levantine ...
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Who came first, Egyptian pharoah Horus-Aha 3100bc, or, Horus the Deity?
Horus-Aha
Hor-Aha (or Aha or Horus Aha) is considered the second pharaoh of the First Dynasty of Egypt by some Egyptologists, others consider him the first one and corresponding to Menes. He lived ...
user7122
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Is there a myth about someone who constantly creates their own demise?
Since this is certainly a common theme, I'm wondering if there is a myth about someone who ignorantly walks themselves repeatedly into ill-fate or their own misery. It would be like Sisyphus, but ...
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Hall of Two Truths: Ancient Egypt
Does anyone know what the proper ancient Egyptian name for the Hall of Truth, Hall of Two Truths, or Hall of Judgement is? This is the hall where a soul is weighed on a scale against the feather of Ma'...
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"Decipher me or I devour you" has been cited in Brazil for decades as a challenge of the Sphinx. Is it actually made up?
"Decifra-me ou te devoro"/"Decipher me or I'll devour you"
Just recently I remembered hearing this phrase when I was kid.. I'm brasilian and I was thinking how bad*ss it is and all ...
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What's the connection between the Greek and Egyptian gods?
I heard from a story once that when Cronus attacked the gods, most of them were so scared of him that they fled to Egypt and adopted animal characteristics (except for Zeus and Hermes). That's why you ...
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Why mythical god-like figures share common attributes like wings or lion body parts in different mythologies/cultures
I know some of this mythological depictions are supposed to represent many things like nature forces, and I know Jung's Archetypes theory about symbols founded on the unconscious mind. However I want ...
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School in the Sky?
I'm looking for references to schools in the sky. Was there a school that the Greek gods attended? A university frequented by the Norse pantheon? An academy in Tian? I'd love any pointers you've ...
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Are there any common concepts in Egypt and Norse mythology / civilization?
I'm looking for some concepts (could be objects, weapons, creatures, traditions, ...) that are common between both Egypt and Norse mythology/folklore or history/civilization.
Context: I'm working on ...
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Did the ancient Egyptians worship Cats and Dogs deities at the same period?
Did Egyptians worship feline and canine gods at the same period in history?
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Could it be the the Dendera Zodiak is a Glyphed description of the Egyptian Book of the Dead?
Deckenrelief (Kopie des Tierkreises) in der Kapelle des Tierkreises
(Zodiak) auf dem Dach des Hathor-Tempels von Dendera, Ägypten, 16
October 2014 by Olaf Tausch
Dear Egyptomaniacs, ...
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Did ancient Egypt use the abbreviation IHS for "Isis, Horus, and Seb"?
The Chick Publications tract "Are Roman Catholics Christians?" has all sorts of questionable content (including many fundamental misunderstandings of Roman Catholicism), but there is one historical ...
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If any Ancient Egyptian Texts exist as Hieroglyphics in Online Documents
Wondering if anyone has copied any Ancient Egyptian texts such as this into Unicode Hieroglyphs or something similar, rather than English translations. Or if not, if there are photographs of the ...
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What is the creation story of Taweret?
How was the goddess Taweret created? Is there a creation story, or was she just the child of two gods?
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Mother Earth or Father Earth?
To explain my title, we humans call the earth 'Mother Earth'. I can trace this back to Gaia, the Greek goddess of the earth, Demeter, the Greek goddess of agriculture and others. But, I remembered ...
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How many lost continents are in Mythology?
A majority of people will know of Atlantis. It is a Greek, fictional island, misregarded as oral history. Atlantis is mentioned in Plato's works Timaeus and Critias and is placed in the Atlantic Ocean....
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Did the inhabitants of the ancient Near East believe in an ocean in the sky?
An ocean in the sky shows up quite a lot in depictions, for example Psalms 148:4:
Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens!
But finding good evidence for it in Egyptian ...
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Do the Egyptian gods bleed?
In the 2016 film Gods of Egypt the gods bleed a bright golden liquid when hurt (which happens often).
I wonder if there's any basis for this in Egyptian mythology, an Egyptian equivalent to the ...
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What do we know about the ram-headed deities helping Shu support Nut in the Greenfield Papyrus?
The "Greenfield Papyrus" is a funerary illustrated manuscript from the "Book of the Dead" of Nestanebetisheru:
According to the British Museum curator's comments:
This scene is a symbolic ...
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Why did mankind rebel against Ra?
The Book of the Heavenly Cow revolves around mankind's rebellion against Ra:
The central theme of The Book of the Heavenly Cow is mankind's rebellion against the elder sun god, Re, resulting in the ...
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How did Atenism explain night-time?
Atenism was Egypt's state religion during the reign of Akhenaten. The religion considered Aten - the sun disc - as the supreme and only god, a radical departure from traditional beliefs.
I realize ...
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Why was Nekhbet depicted as a vulture?
Nekhbet, a predynastic goddess that eventually became the patron of Upper Egypt, was commonly depicted in art as a vulture.
Why is that? The vulture seems - at least to me - like an odd choice for ...
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Are the Memphis and Heliopolis cosmogonies competing or reconciliatory?
The Heliopolitan cosmogony attributes creation to Atum, the first god who created himself from the primordial waters.
The Memphis creation myth, however, places Ptah, god of craftsmen and architects,...
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What is known about A’ani, the ancient Egyptian God of Equilibrium?
Wikipedia’s article on Thoth states that A’ani is a form of Thoth, which is consistent with what I know about Thoth, although much of the information I'm working with comes through the hermeticism.
...
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What animals were represented in gods in ancient Egypt?
I cannot find many animals that were represented as gods and I am writing an essay on ancient Egypt.
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Is there an Egyptian Old Man of the Sea?
In Book VI of the Odyssey, the sea-nymph Eidothea identifies her father Proteus, the Old Man of the Sea, as an Egyptian:
"'Stranger,' replied she, 'I will make it all quite clear to you. There ...
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Anyone know what this symbol means?
Someone drew this symbol on my arm, and said it was an egyptian one and had some meaning, but I can't find it anywhere. The top that is obscured curls to the left.
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Do vegetation deities tend to be connected with the Moon?
Egyptian Osiris is associated with vegetation and this is what Wikipedia says about him:
Through syncretism with Iah, he is also the god of the Moon.
This is what Wikipedia says about Jarilo, ...
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Why were the lungs left inside the mummy of Herakleides, instead of the heart?
In ancient Egyptian mummies, the heart was the only organ that stayed in the body. This was because the heart would be weighed against the feather of Ma'at in the Hall of Two Truths.
The Romano-...
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Who are the twelve Egyptian gods?
Herodotus mentions an Egyptian Dodekatheon in Book 2:
The Egyptians, they went on to affirm, first brought into use the names of the twelve gods, which the Greeks adopted from them; and first erected ...
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Why did Heracles transform into a fawn, during the gods flight to Egypt?
In some tellings of Typhon's revolt, the gods take animal forms and flee to Egypt in panic. The version in the Metamorphoses of Antoninus Liberalis references Nicander of Colophon and explicitly ...
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Is there a 'Messenger of the Gods' figure in Egyptian mythology?
While Thoth is often equated with Hermes, he seems to be more of a keeper of secret wisdom than a messenger.
Is there any such figure in Egyptian mythology?
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