When we hear about the history of great civilizations, even ones like ancient Egypt, the stories are quite often told from a religious standpoint. For thousands of years, people saw the world through their religion and it was their way of explaining the things that went on around them. Naturally, some deities played a greater role in society than others. The best way to approach these differences is to look at religion from an archaeological perspective and try to figure out how Egyptians gods and goddesses were “ranked” in their importance and how it differed (or didn’t differ) on the basis of time, gender, location, and role in the world. This may seem like a trivial issue, but if we really want to understand life in ancient Egypt, it is important that we analyze every aspect of society including major ones like religion. For this research assignment, I will be looking primarily at depictions of religious figures through monumental architecture. Since the pantheon of ancient Egypt is quite extensive, I chose to focus only on “major” religious figures, six gods and six goddesses (This number may change slightly depending on how many sources can be found):
- Amun: God of the air, sun, and sky; he was first worshipped as a minor god but became one of the most important figures in Egyptian society.
- Osiris: God of death, the Underworld, and rebirth; one of the most important and easily recognizable figures in the ancient Egyptian pantheon.
- Anubis: Jackal-headed god of mummification and the journey to the afterlife; was an important figure to Egyptians, especially those involved in the embalming process.
- Ra: Hawk-headed god of the sun; revered by ancient Egyptians as the creator of everything
- Horus: Falcon-headed god associated with the sky and as a symbol of kingship/royalty; worshipped all across Egypt.
- Thoth: Ibis-headed god of knowledge, wisdom, and writing (specifically hieroglyphs); was originally a moon god.
- Hathor: Cow-headed goddess of love, beauty, motherhood, music, dance, and general happiness; may have been one of the important goddess in ancient Egypt.
- Sekhmet: Lion-headed goddess who was the patron of healers, physicians, and doctors; may have been introduced from south Sudan, but still became of the most important figures in the pantheon.
- Isis/Aset/Iset: Goddess of motherhood, children, healing, nature, and protection; seen by the ancient Egyptians as being the mother of Pharaohs and was greatly respected.
- Bastet/Bast: Cat-headed goddess of the home, domesticity, women, fertility, and childbirth; was revered as a protector of women and children.
- Ma’at/Mayet: Goddess of justice, truth, order, and regulation of the stars and seasons; she was believed to be the one that weighed the souls of the deceased in the Duat/Underworld.
- Mut: Goddess associated with motherhood; while Isis was revered as the “mother of the world”, Mut was believed to be the “grandmother of the world”.
Of course, the Egyptian pantheon is incredibly complicated and many different figures can occupy the same role. However, it’s normally pretty clear which or god/goddess is being depicted based on their physical characteristics. For example, Hathor and Sekhmet are very closely related, but Hathor is normally shown with a cow-head or a sun-disk while Sekhmet appears with the head of a human or the head of a lioness.
For this project, I chose to turn my attention towards finding the number of temples dedicated specifically to the deities I listed above (while focusing on a few specific examples). By doing this, we can track differences between the importance of gods and goddesses by time period, gender, location (Upper or Lower Egypt) and by the roles that they were believed to occupy in society. I have also identified a few sources that can be used to answer the research questions I have, including original field notes from the site, interpretations of these field notes by other archaeologists, pictures taken during excavation, and maybe even a few references to Google Earth (to get an idea of what the site looks like). Some of the sources that I have located thus far can be found down below:
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Wilkinson, Richard H.2017 The Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson Ltd, London
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Shafer, Byron E., Dieter Arnold, Lanny Bell, Ragnhild Bjerre. Finnestad, and Gerhard Haeny2005 Temples of Ancient Egypt. American Univerity in Cairo Press, Cairo
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Verner, Miroslav2013 Temple of the World: Sanctuaries, Cults, and Mysteries of Ancient Egypt. The American University in Cairo Press, Cairo
I definitely agree that it is very important to analyze every aspect of society especially religion. Religion has had a tremendous factor of the ancient Egyptian civilization in describing their lifestyle. It definitely does seem very complicating on how both gods and goddesses are interwoven with each other and how they play similar roles they played in their society. It will be very interesting to read the major impacts these religious figures had during this ancient civilization times and their physical creations have been interpreted by the society and going depth with each figure and how they played a role in the society and their lifestyle.
Your topic seems incredibly well thought out, and I like how you’ve split your focus evenly into gods and goddesses as opposed to just looking at the 12 most powerful or most worshipped deities in general, as this will allow you to look more clearly at gender as a variable and to see whether there might be a correlation between the number of temples and variables like gender (or, as you also mentioned, time, location, and said deities’ roles in the world). I personally find religion to be one of the most interesting features to study when it comes to analyzing a particular culture, and the vastness and complexity of the Egyptian pantheon makes it all the most interesting in this respect. You mentioned that conducting research of the major Egyptian deities can be complicated because different figures can occupy the same role, or the same figure can be referred to by many names, and this is something that I also ran into when doing research for my own paper (especially with Amun). Since you are looking at time as a variable as well, I wonder if you will see the use of different names for the same deities waxing and waning over time, and if these various names are a function of particular time periods. Your final paper seems like it will be very interesting, and I am curious as to what kinds of patterns will emerge when you analyze the topic so systematically, and with such clearly defined variables.
I’m writing my research paper on ancient Egyptian mortuary and funerary practices and the way these practices relate to their religion, philosophies, and the integration of magic in their lives. Drawing comparisons between the appearance of certain deities in Egyptian monuments and their relative importance in Egyptian religion is a very intriguing study, and I believe many parallels could be drawn between the topic of my research paper and yours. I intend to observe the manner in which the mortuary practices they reflected their religious beliefs, but from this I cannot determine the magnitude with which each deity is reflected in their practices, which is where your study would provide valuable insight.
An additional perspective that I think would be neat to study in collaboration with your current topic would include observing the importance of the acts, power, and status of each god in order to see if any correlations can be made between the rule of the god and their importance. For example, if the gods that were patrons of strength, or wisdom, were more heavily depicted than gods who played roles relating to death, or to the Duat. From this, a hierarchy could be made that ranked the importance of certain life forces that they related to certain deities.
I am looking forward to hearing the results of your study, and am especially excited to compare it alongside mine to see if any relations can be brought about between the two. It will be interesting to see if the religious figures with the highest ranking on your scale tend to be more involved or less involved with the mortuary practices of the ancient Egyptians. At the end of this study, I think it will be very interesting to see what other kinds of research questions might pop up after reviewing our own results.
I really like your topic! I think that it will be an interesting read. I think you took a subject of gods and goddesses and made it into a twist that makes me want to read more. I think that guiding your paper to focus on a few temples related to specific deities will have a positive outcome. I like that will in turn show us many differences between as you said the importance of gods and goddesses by time period, gender, location, and by the roles that they were believed to occupy in society. Maybe because you have so many deities and differences maybe focus on only a few. I’m interested on how that plays out I think that the subject can come with many challenges but in the end it will all come together.