Transcript Ancient Egyptian Religion

Ancient Egyptian Religion
Chapter 3.3
Egyptian gods and goddesses
• Early in Egyptian history towns and
villages had their own patron gods
and goddesses, who they believed
protected them.
• Early Egyptian gods were often
depicted as people, with human
bodies, but with the heads of
animals.
• All Egyptian people worshiped
certain principal gods, such as the
sun god, Re and the falcon god,
Horus who was the god of the sky.
• Eventually all of ancient Egypt
would come to worship in several
principal gods, and goddesses.
The Great god of Egypt: Amon-Re
• The chief god of the ancient
Egyptians was Amon-Re. Amon-Re
protected both the rich and the poor.
• Egyptians believed that Amon- Re
was born each morning with the
rising sun in the east.
• This is the reason why the desert in
the western region of Egypt was
believed to be the home of the dead.
gods and goddesses of Egypt
• Osiris- was the god of the living
and the dead
• Isis- the wife of Osiris and was
worshiped as the great mother,
and the goddess of women.
• Horus- the son of Osiris and
Isis. He was the god of the sky
and of Egyptian kingship.
• Thoth- was the Egyptian god of
wisdom and writing.
• Anubis-
Egyptian Mythology
http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/gods/story/main.html
Journey to the Afterlife
• The ancient Egyptians believed the spirits of the dead made their
way to the afterlife in heavenly boats.
• If they had pleased the gods in this world, they joined Osiris in the
afterlife, and would live a life of ease and pleasure, eating and
drinking and visiting family and friends who had gone before them.
• Egyptians did not believe in a hell, If a person was not properly
buried or mummified, then their life would cease to exist. If they
were properly taken care of then they would live forever in the
afterlife.
• Egyptians also believed that the souls of the dead could not survive
without food, clothing and other possessions from this world. That
is why they were buried with them.
Egyptian Mummification
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3Kt2FxhR_k
Preparing the Dead
• Before the pyramids and the
Valley of the Kings, most
Egyptians were buried in
shallow pits in the desert.
• Egypt’s hot and dry climate
dried out the body’s of the
dead, and created a mummya preserved body of a dead
person.
Preparing the Dead
• http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/mummies/story/main.html
• http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/mummies/story/main.html
The Egyptian Afterlife
• The Afterlife - The Egyptians believed
that to get to the afterlife they would
have to pass through a dangerous place
with perils such as monsters, boiling
lakes, fires and particularly nasty snakes
that spat out poison.
• These evils could be overcome by the
right spells and the Egyptians often
wrote down the spells on paper and left
them in or near the coffin. If they
overcame the evils they would reach the
gates of Yaru (the Egyptian afterlife) and
meet their friends again.
• But first they had to pass the greatest test
of all in the Hall of Two Truths.
The Egyptian Afterlife
• This test involved weighing the heart, the
only organ which had been left in the body.
• The heart was placed on one side of a
balance and in the other side was placed the
Feather of Truth: the Feather of Truth held all
the lies and sins of their past life.
• The 3 great gods, Osiris, Anubis and Thoth,
decided the result of the weighing. If the
heart passed the test then the dead person
was allowed to enter the gates of Yaru but if
the heart failed the test then it was eaten by a
terrifying monster known as the devourer.
• The devourer was part crocodile, part
hippopotamus and part lion and once it had
eaten a heart the dead person was gone for
ever.
The Pyramids of Egypt
• Egyptian Pharaohs first began
constructing pyramids as their places
of burial during the Old Kingdom in
the Fourth Century B.C.
• The largest and most famous of the
Egyptian pyramids is the great
pyramid of Giza built by the pharaoh
Khufu.
• His son Kafre, also built a smaller
pyramid at Giza, and ordered the
construction of the Great Sphinx.
Which has the head of the pharaoh
Kafre, with the body of a lion.
The Great Sphinx
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq1t_qPlyTw
The Construction of the Pyramids
• The pyramids required a great deal of organization to construct. Each
individual block weighs nearly 5,000 pounds, and the Great Pyramid is
made up of nearly 2 million stones.
• The first step that was taken in the construction of the pyramids of Giza
were their location.
• The pharaohs chose the West Bank of the Nile river, because in Egyptian
religion it represented the land of the dead.
•
The stones used to build the pyramids were taken from quarries, and were
shipped up the Nile to the site of construction.
• Here workers would use sleds, wooden rollers, and levers to drag pull and
lift the huge blocks into place.
• With the mass amount of labor, work and planning, it is no wonder why he
Great Pyramids of Giza are one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world.