Questions tagged [egyptian]
For questions on the myths, legends, and religious beliefs of the people of Ancient Egypt.
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Why are cats so important in Ancient Egypt?
Cats were worshipped in ancient Egypt. This can be clearly seen by the large amount of cat statues, mummified cats, ... that have been found. There is even a God specific for cats (Bastet).
But why ...
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Are there any depictions of Horus being crucified and resurrected
In my internet adventures I've stumbled upon the idea that the story of Jesus was heavily inspired by the ancient Egyptian god Horus. See, for example, some positing it here—by its major modern ...
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What is the significance of this part in the myth of the resurrection of Osiris?
After Osiris is tricked and killed by Seth he is dismembered, and it is up to his wife Isis to recover all the pieces and bring him back to life. There is something that always caught my attention ...
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What were the five parts of the Egyptian soul?
This is an offshoot of a question asked about the Ba and Ka.
What were the other 3 parts of the Egyptian soul and what did they represent?
user28
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What was the more prominent of Ra's origins stories?
I was browsing Wikipedia and came upon three different variations for Ra's origins:
In the former version, a mound arises from the waters. An egg was laid upon this mound by a celestial bird. The egg ...
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Do Egyptian myths provide explanations for the shape of the pyramid?
Pyramids are iconic structures from Ancient Egypt. But why did the ancient Egyptians shape their pyramids in a, well, pyramidal shape? These are not exactly intuitively shaped tombs. Some research ...
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How were eclipses explained in Egyptian mythology?
Eclipses were probably one of the phenomena that puzzled the ancient people. How was it explained in Egyptian mythology, and were there any gods connected with it (like thunder is connected to Zeus)?
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Star islands in Egyptian cosmology
Among the phenomena they describe is the Milky Way, which the Egyptians called "the beaten path of stars". Like other parts of the sky, it could be navigated by boat, and was apparently viewed as a ...
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Is there a Western (Greek, Roman, Egyptian, or Norse) god of the cosmos?
I have heard of the Greek god, Chaos (the manifestation of the void), and of the Greek god Aither, (the manifestation of the upper air that gods breathe most often), but I can't find reference to any ...
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How does merging of two gods actually work?
The only two examples I can remember at the moment are:
Ra merging with Horus
In later Egyptian dynastic times, Ra was merged with the god Horus, as Ra-Horakhty ("Ra, who is Horus of the Two ...
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Why are the "Fields of Reeds" the Egyptian paradise?
Aaru, the Field of Reeds was the Egyptian idea of paradise. Food was unlimited, and menial funeral statues could gather it for you.
However, it is described as a “mirror image of one's life on earth”....
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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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Was Hermes Trismegistus a historical figure?
I am aware that Hermes Trismegistus is a combination of the greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. But he is credited as the writer of a few books with Asclepius and the Corpus Hermeticum. So in ...
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Sekhmet with the crown of Hathor?
In the astronomical ceiling of the tomb of Seti (KV17) one of the columns is denoted by the figure of Sekhmet wearing the crown of Hathor as below:
What does this signify? Although Sekhmet is ...
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Odin's Counterpart
I have always wondered are:
Odin,
Mercury,
Hermes,
Thoth
the same person?
If so, why they are celebrated by different cultures and praised by different myths?
I am in love with these deities...
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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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In ancient Egypt what did the Ba and the Ka represent?
In ancient Egypt what did the Ba and the Ka represent? They were parts of the soul but why two parts?
user28
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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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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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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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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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What is Sobek's place in the Egyptian pantheon?
What is Sobek's place in the Egyptian pantheon?
In some places, the Son of Nit/Neith), is Sobek primordial, existing alongside within the dark waters of Nun/Naunet?
Or was his original cult entirely ...
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How are Taweret and Nephthys related?
When I compare the two Egyptian goddesses Nephthys and Taweret, I see a number of parallels, but I also see distinct differences. Consider:
Both are associated with childbirth, but whereas Nephthys ...
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What is the connection of Egyptian mythology to Atlantis?
As writing an answer to my own question, I came across this,
Plutarch, Life of Solon 26. 1 (trans. Perrin) (Greek historian C1st - C2nd A.D.) :
"He [Solon] also spent some time in studies with ...
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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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What is the difference between Ra and Horus?
I'm wondering what the difference is between Ra and Horus. I know there are both the gods of the sun/sky.
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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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Are people who drown/die in the Nile deified (or divinized in some way)?
Many blogs and websites say that people who die on the Nile by drowning or being eaten by a crocodile are deified. They are chosen by Osiris and are somehow involved in the flooding of the Nile or ...
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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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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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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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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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Are there any instances where the Egyptian gods are promiscuous?
As we all probably know, the Greco-Roman and the Norse gods were, to put it in a mild manner, "lustful". They had extramarital affairs, took on numerous lovers without before marriage and even raped ...
user1385
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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 ancient Egyptian gods have weapons like the Greek gods?
Did ancient Egyptian gods have weapons, like the Greek gods (Zeus's thunderbolt or Poseidon's trident, for example)? If so, who made them? I've never read anywhere where they had weapons.
user28
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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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Was Helen of Troy in Egypt during the war?
In the myth of Helen of Troy, there has been noted a story from Egyptian mythology of Helen coming to Egypt and staying there, her double being sent on to be imprisoned and have a war fought over. ...
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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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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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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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Has Setne anything to do with Set?
So I found this person named Khaemsweset or Setne, son of Ramsseses II.
Does he have anything to do with Set? Because Setne sounds a lot like Set, the god of evil.
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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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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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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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Who are the parents of Taweret?
Taweret is arguably one of the most popular goddesses of the Egyptian pantheon. Although much about her consorts is known, nothing is said about the Hippo Goddess' parentage and I would like to find ...
user1385
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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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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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Why were baboons famous in Egypt?
Why were baboons famous in Egypt? They were sometimes kept as pets, had a god named for them, but did they have any significance?
ANOTHER EXAMPLE--Sun-worshipping baboons rise early to catch the ...
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Most gods in Egyptian pantheons are with animal faces? [duplicate]
Why there are gods with animal faces but human bodies in Egyptian pantheons? Are they out-numbered the human-faced ones? From biological perspective human is weak in physical (body) but strong in ...
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