Ancient Egyptian Religion, Part 5 — The Mansion of Millions of Years
A series of articles like this, or a book, lecture or Egyptology course, could be focused on Egyptian art, architecture, history, culture, politics, sociology, medicine or virtually anything, and still be about Egyptian religion. Conversely, this series on religion is likewise about everything else. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and in ancient Egypt, the tree is religion. In this installment, we will follow the deceased king into his his eternal home, the “Mansion of Millions of Years,” and begin to explore the meanings there — the ideas expressed in architecture. In Part 6, we will continue with a look at the grave goods, art and words that perpetuate life in the world beyond. The immediate purpose is to see the correspondences between Old Kingdom and New Kingdom tombs as they reflect religious ideology. [more…]
By Brian Alm
Book Review: Egyptian Myth – A Very Short Introduction
Williams reviews Egyptian Myth – A Very Short Introduction by Geraldin Pinch. Pinch has a formidable task. In 125 pages, Pinch outlines the framework within which Egyptian myths are contextualised before outlining the mythology itself. Such a brief book could have been facile but instead Williams is impressed by Pinch’s achievement. He explains why. [more…]
Ancient Egyptian Religion, Part 4 — Preparing for Eternity
Ultimately everybody has to deal with the final fact of life: death. How the Egyptians dealt with it was so profound in its cultural breadth and depth that it gives rise to the biggest misconception about them: that they were fixated on death. It was just the opposite: they were fixated on life. But we have to understand that for them, death was neither final nor fact. [more…]
By Brian Alm
Deities of the underworld in the New Kingdom
This article looks at the most important scene in a funerary text that the Egyptians called the Book of Going Forth by Day, better known today as the Book of the Dead. It consists of a series of spells to help the deceased tackle the challenges of the Afterlife. The subject of this article is the vignette (illustration) accompanying Spell 125, the scene in the Court of Judgment [more…]
By Brian Alm
A Context for Nehmes-Bastet (KV64): A Birds Eye View of the Early Third Intermediate Period – Part 2
In Part 1 the political background to and development of the Third Intermediate Period was described, emphasizing the way in which power became divided, both within the Delta and between the Delta and the south, where the Theban high priests became increasingly powerful. Part 2 looks at the blending of Libyan and Egyptian traditions, with new ideas expressed in funerary practices and in the role of religious institutions. [more…]
Ancient Egyptian Religion, Part 3 – Temples, Festivals and Personal Piety
By Brian Alm Published on Egyptological, Magazine Edition 3, December 7th 2011 Introduction Thus far we have covered the fundamental concepts and ideologies that informed the religion of ancient Egypt — cosmic order (maat), the duality of paired principles, and divine magic (heka) — and how theology explained Creation and equipped humankind with the […] [more…]
By Brian Alm
Notes on the Goddess Pakhet
In her article on Hatshepsut in the December 2011 edition of the Magazine, Barbara O’Neill mentions the deity Pakhet. The following introduces what little is known about this elusive deity. Pakhet was represented in the form of a woman with a lion’s head (figure 1- click to see the bigger image). She looks very like leonine representations of Sekhmet and Bastet and was often associated with them. [more…]
Ancient Egyptian Religion, Part 2 – Concepts of Creation, God, and Eternity
In Part 1 of this series I presented three guiding ideas of Egyptian religion: order (maat), duality (polarity, balance), and magic (heka). In this part I speculate briefly on how it all began and then we will see how the ancient Egyptians explained cosmogony (the creation of the universe) and deified the principles of Creation and order on Earth. [more…]
By Brian Alm
Edition - July, 2011
Book Review: Religion and Ritual in Ancient Egypt by Emily Teeter
If you’ve read Emily Teeter’s other books on Egyptology or her catalogues for the exhibits she manages at the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute, you will expect this book to be full of great detail and thorough scholarship, delivered with ease in a flowing style that makes it a fast read and enjoyable throughout. If those are your expectations, you will be rewarded. [more…]
By Brian Alm
A few thoughts about duality and the desert
Brian Alm’s excellent introductory article on ancient Egyptian religion in Edition 1 of Egyptological, the first in a series of five articles on the topic, includes a section on duality. I have often pondered the extent to which the Egyptians segregated religious belief, which potentially formed an explanatory but idealized model of life, from everyday pragmatism. Duality is a good case in point. [more…]