|
Amen
/Amun/ Amon/
Amen-Re/
Amon-Ra/ Amon-Re
Alternate
spellings:
Amen /Amun/ Amon
Alternate spellings: Re/ Ra
Alternate spellings: Amen-Re/ Amen-Ra/ Amun-Re/ Amun-Ra/
Amon-Re/
Amon-Ra
Amun (pronounced
AM
mun)
Amun did not physically engender the universe. His
position as
King of gods developed to the point of virtual monotheism
where other
gods became manifestations of him. With
Osiris,
Amun-Ra is the
most widely recorded of the Egyptian gods.
Amun became depicted in human form, seated on a throne,
wearing on his
head a plain, deep circlet from which rise two straight
parallel
ostrich plumes, but
it
can also be worn by a king. It appears to associate the ruler
with
Amun and to legitimate his rule under the god's protection.
The plumes were
symbolic of the spirit of duality. The
Amun crown can be adorned
with horns, disks and uraei.
Chief
consort
was Mut.
|
 When
the army of the founder of the
Eighteenth dynasty expelled the Hyksos rulers from
Egypt, the victor's
city of origin, Thebes, became the most important
city in Egypt, the
capital of a new dynasty. The local patron deity of
Thebes, Amun,
therefore became nationally important. The pharaohs
of that new dynasty
attributed all their successful enterprises to Amun
and they lavished
much of their wealth and captured spoil on the
construction of temples
dedicated to Amun.
Subsequently,
when
Egypt conquered
Kush, they identified the chief
deity of the Kushites as Amun. This Kush deity was
depicted as
ram-headed, more specifically a woolly ram
with curved horns - so
Amun became associated with the ram. Indeed, due to
the aged
appearance of the Kush ram
deity, the Egyptians came to believe that this image
had been the
original form of Amun and, that Kush was where he
had been born. [See Karnak
Temple
Complex: Sphinxes]
As the
cult
of Amun grew in importance, Amun became identified
with the chief deity who
was worshipped in other areas during that period,
Ra-Herakhty, the
merged identities of Ra, and Horus. This
identification led to another
merger of identities, with Amun becoming Amun-Ra.
.Ra-Herakhty
had been a solar deity and this nature became
ascribed to Amun-Ra as
well,
Several
words derive from Amun
via the Greek form, Ammon: ammonia and ammonite.
-
Wikipedia:
Amun
|
The Temple
Complex at Karank
honors him.
The word Amen in Christianity is not derived from the
Egyptian
god.
|
| . |
|
Animals
Cat-headed -
Bastel
Cow-headed - Hathor
Cow-headed - Isis
Cobra - Wadjet
Falcon-headed - Horus
Falcon-headed - Ra
Ibis-headed -Thoth
Jackel-headed - Anubis
Lion-bodied - Sphinx
Lion-headed - Sekhmet
Vulture's wings - Nephthys
James
Stevens
Curl: "... the ancient Egyptians seem to have
regarded
animals as possessing the archetypal qualities of their deities
(e.g.
bull = power and regeneration; cow = mother; and ram = sexual
power and
fecundity ... the reverence shown to animals at certain
cult-centres
did not mean that the creatures themselves were worshipped: what
was
important was what the animals represented. The main cult
centres were
as follows:
|
Animal
|
Temples |
|
Bull:
|
Heliopolis,
Hermonthis,
and Memphis |
|
Cat:
|
Bubastis |
|
Cow:
|
Aphroditopolis
and Dendera |
|
Crocodile:
|
Crocodilopolis
and Kom
Ombo |
|
Falcon:
|
Edfu
and Philae |
|
Ibis:
|
Abydos
and Hermopolis |
|
Ram:
|
Elephantine,
Esna, Herakleopolis,
and Mendes |
See also:
Caroline
Seawright, Animals
and
the Gods of Ancient Egypt and Toby A. H.
Wilkinson,
Early
Dynastic
Egypt: The bull's tail
|
| . |
|
 Ankh
(Pron. ANGK
or ONK; Plural ankhs)
AKA
ansate
cross, crux ansata ("handle-shaped cross")
Ancient
Egyptian hieroglyph - a
cross shaped like a T with a loop at the top.
Symbol
of
eternal life,
It is found in ancient tomb inscriptions, including those of
the King
Tutankhamen. Egyptian gods are often portrayed
carrying it by its loop,
or bearing one in each hand, arms crossed over their chest.
Ra
is usually
represented with the body of a man and the head of a hawk,
holding an
ankh & scepter.
In ancient Egypt,
only kings, queens and gods were allowed to carry the ankh,
indicating
that only the king or god holding it had the power to give
life or take
it away from lesser mortals.
Possible
origins:
- A
sandal strap, with
the
loop going around the ankle
- Belt-buckle of
the mother goddess Isis
- Sun crowning
over the horizon
- The path of
the sun from east to west (with the loop representing
the Nile
- Combination of
the male and female symbols of Osiris
(the cross) and Isis (the oval)
respectively, and therefore signifies the union of heaven
and earth
- The oval head
represents the Nile delta, the vertical mark represents
the path of the
river, while the East and West arms represent the two
sides of the
country and their unification
- Illustration:
Karnak
Temple
Complex
- Daniel
Good
Mausoleum
- Kom
Ombo
Temple
- Karnak
Temple
Complex
- Display
Sign
in the Valley of Kings
|
| . |
|
Anubis
(a NOOB is)
Jackel-headed
god of embalming
(responsible for embalming)
Son of Osiris
and Isis
His
head is black.
Jackals
used
to haunt cemeteries, so they were linked with funerals - the
idea
being that a jackal god would protect the domain of the dead.
|
| . |
|
Apedemak
|
In
Ancient Nubian religion,
lion-god.
Apedemak was called "The Lord of Royal Power." In
Nubia, with the
kingdoms of Cush, the royal throne was always
depicted as a lion...
Apedemak originated in Meroë region, and had his
main cult centres near
the 6th cataract of the Nile river. The main temples
were at the lion
temples at Musawwarat al-Sufra and Naqa. There was
also a temple at
Meroë itself, and perhaps even at Basa.
Interestingly, inscriptions at Musawwarat al-Sufra
are in hieroglyphs,
not in Meroitic script, indicating a close link with
Egyptian religion,
although Apedemak was uniqe to Nubia.
At Naqa, walls are filled with reliefs of Apedemak
together with
Egyptian deities, forming a triad with Isis,
with Horus
as their son.
Apedemak is also represented together with Hathor
and Amon.
There are great similarities between Apedemak and
the obscure Egyptian
god, Maahes, who also represented a specific
religious dimension in the
oases of the Western Desert. Also, it is possible
that the cult of Sekhmet,
Egypt's lion
goddess, was introduced from Nubia, and related to
that of Apedemak.
-
Looklex
Encyclopdia: Apedemak
|
In Nubian
mythology, Isis was his wife.
|
|
|
Beard
From
the Old Kingdom onward, the
king often wears a long, square-ended artificial (or false)
beard,
fastened by a strap along the jawbone.
Gods
wear curved beards
Kings
wear
straight beards
|
| . |
|
Crook
and
flail
Scepters
Most commonly
represented together, held across the chest of the
kings,
Osiris
identified
with them.
See illustration on
The
Virtual
Egyptian Museum
|
| . |
Crowns/Headdresses
|
| . |
Eye
of Horus / Wedjat
/ Wadjet / Eye of Ra / Eye of the Moon / Udjat
An
ancient Egyptian symbol of
protection and royal power from deities, in this case from Horus
or Ra.
The symbol is seen on images of Horus' mother, Isis,
and on other
deities associated with her.
In the Egyptian language, the word for this symbol was "Wedjat,"
a solar deity
and this symbol began as her eye, an all seeing eye. The Wedjat
"was
intended to protect the king in the afterlife" and to ward off
evil.
The Eyes of Horus: Horus
fought
with
Seth (his uncle) for the throne of Egypt. In this battle one of
his
eyes was injured and
later it was healed by Isis (his mother).
His
right eye represented the sun; his left eye the moon.
In early artwork, Hathor
is also depicted with this eye.
Funerary amulets were often made in the shape of the Eye of
Horus.
Ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern sailors would frequently paint
the
symbol on the bow of their vessel to ensure safe sea travel. |
| . |
|
 Griffin:
Head
and
wings of an eagle and the body of a lion.
The griffin was
known in Egypt before 3300 BC and is possibly more ancient
still.
Emanated protective power.
Middle
Ages:
Griffins not only mated for
life, but also, if either partner died, then the other would
continue
throughout the rest of its life alone, never to search for a
new mate.
The griffin was thus made an emblem of the Catholic Church's
views on
remarriage.
|
| . |
|
 Hathor
(HATH
er)
Hathor is commonly depicted as a cow goddess with head
horns
in which is set a sun disk with Uraeus.
Hathor is at times the mother, daughter and wife of Ra
and, like Isis,
is at times
described as the mother
of Horus
Depicted as "Mistress of the West" welcoming the dead into the
next
life.
The Anc ient
Greeks identified Hathor
with the goddess Aphrodite and the Romans as Venus.
For more information, see Wikipedia:
Hathor
The Smaller
Temple
at Abu Simbel was dedicated to Hathor.
|
| . |
|
 Horus
(HOR us)
God
of
the sky, depicted as a falcon, or as a hawk/falcon-headed man.
Since Horus was
said to be the sky, he was considered to also contain the sun
and moon.
It became said that the sun was his right eye and the moon his
left,
and that they traversed the sky when he, a falcon, flew across
it. Thus
he became known as Harmerty - Horus of two eyes.
Myth of Osiris, Isis and Horus:
Osiris
was a king who taught the
Egyptians how to live, worship and grow corn. He was murdered
by his
jealous brother, Seth,
who cut up the body, scattering
it over Egypt. Osiris's beloved wife, Isis,
and her sister
collected all the pieces. Isis used her medical skills first
to
impregnate herself with the last drop of semen in her
consort's penis,
and then to reassemble the corpse as the first mummy
and bring
it back to life. The first magic worked, and she became
pregnant with Horus.
But the gods
refused to let Osiris return to the world of mortals, and he
went to
rule in the Underworld, the lord and judge of the dead.
Myth
of
Horus and Seth:
Horus
would avenge his father at Edfu
and Horus became
known as the Egyptian god of the sky. In that Horus was the
son of
Osiris, he became closely associated with the Pharaoh of Lower
Egypt
(where Horus was worshipped), and became their patron. Seth
was the
patron of Upper Egypt. Horus united Egypt and bestowed
divinity upon
the pharaohs who were viewed as incarnations of Horus in life.
On the other hand, , once the
two lands were united, Seth and Horus were often shown
together
crowning the new pharaohs,
as a symbol of their power over
both Lower and Upper Egypt.
For
a detailed account, see The
Sacred Temple
Island of Philae: The Great Quarrel
Later Egyptians
interpreted the myth of the conflict between Set and
Osiris/Horus as an
analogy for the struggle between the desert (represented by
Seth) and
the fertilizing floods of the Nile
(Osiris/Horus).
The
Eyes
of Horus:
Horus fought with
Seth (his uncle) for the throne
of Egypt. In this battle one of his eyes was injured and
later it was healed by Isis
(his mother). His right eye represented the sun; his
left eye
the moon.
Forms of
Horus:
Mythologically, the god was imagined as a celestial falcon,
whose right
eye was the sun and left eye the moon. The speckled feathers
of his
breast were probably considered to be the stars, while his
wings were
the sky that created the wind.
The most familiar
form of Horus
is as a full falcon, probably
the lanner (Falco biarmicus) or peregrine (Falco peregrinus).
It is as a
falcon-headed man that the god most frequently appears, often
wearing
one the following crowns:
Double
Crown (Pschent)
signifying his kingship over all Egypt.
Atef
(white
crown with a plume on
either side and a small disc at the top),
Triple atef
Disk with two plumes
Horus
is
also depicted with wings in a
solar
disk flanked by 2 cobras and vulture with outspread wings
See
also: Jimmy Dunn, Horus,
The
God of Kings
See also
illustration on The
Virtual
Egyptian Museum
|
| . |
|
 Isis
(EYE
sis)
The
principal goddess worshiped
by the Egyptians. She was regarded as the mother of Horus,
the sister and
wife of Osiris,
and the sister of Set
and Nebthet.
The Egyptians
adored her as the goddess of fecundity, and as the great
benefactress
of their country, who instructed their ancestors in the art of
agriculture.
Isis, Osiris and
Horus are sometimes referred to as a "trinity."
"Her cult continued
to grow in importance until it ultimately absorbed that of
nearly all
the other goddesses. ... It was not until the middle of the
sixth
century, in the reign of Justinian, that the temple
of
Philae - her chief sanctuary in the extreme south
of the
country - was closed to her cult and turned into a church." -
New
Larousse
Encyclopedia of Mythology, Prometheus Press,
1972
edition, p.19
Myth
of Osiris Isis and
Horus:
Osiris
was a king who taught the
Egyptians how to live, worship and grow corn. He was murdered
by his
jealous brother, Seth,
who cut up the body, scattering
it over Egypt. Osiris's beloved wife, Isis,
and her sister
collected all the pieces. Isis used her medical skills first
to
impregnate herself with the last drop of semen in her
consort's penis,
and then to reassemble the corpse as the first mummy
and bring
it back to life. The first magic worked, and she became
pregnant with Horus.
But the gods
refused to let Osiris return to the world of mortals, and he
went to
rule in the Underworld, the lord and judge of the dead.
Isis became known as the Egyptian goddess of the children. Horus
would avenge his
father and Horus became known as the Egyptian god of the sky.
In that
Horus was the son of Osiris, he became closely associated with
the
Pharaoh of Lower Egypt (where Horus was worshipped), and
became their
patron. Set(h) was the patron of Upper Egypt. Horus united
Egypt and
bestowed divinity upon the pharaohs who were viewed as
incarnations of
Horus in life.
The Temple
at
Dendur
and the Temple
at
Philae
were dedicated to Isis.
|
Depictions
Normally
represented
as a woman who bears on her head a throne,
the
ideogram of her name.
Occasionally,
but later, her
head-dress is a disk, set between
cow's horns,
occasionally flanked with two feathers.
Finally
we sometimes find her
represented with a cow's head set on a human
body. These horns
and the cow's head merely prove that Isis was by
then identified with Hathor.
Sculpture
and painting often
represent her beside Osiris,
whom she helps or protects - as
she does the dead - with her winged arms.
She may be seen mourning at the foot of sarcophagi
or watching over
canopic jars.
She
also frequently appears in
the role of mother suckling the infant Horus
or joining him in
his struggles with Set.
-
New Larousse Encyclopedia
of Mythology, Prometheus Press,
1972 edition, p.19
|
|
| . |
| Lotus |
| . |
|
 Nekhbet
(Nechbet, Nekhebit), Vulture
Goddess
Patron of Upper Egypt
Depicted
as
the Egyptian white vulture:
Depicted
as
the Egyptian white vulture - the
griffon vulture (Gyps
fulvus). The
priestesses of Nekhbet wore
robes of vulture feathers.
Nekhbet
usually
was depicted hovering, with her wings spread above the royal
image, clutching a shen symbol, frequently in both
of her claws.
A
shen ring is a circle with a line at a tangent to it,
which was used in hieroglyphics as a stylized loop of a
rope. In
particular, the circle represented eternity, as circles did
in many
ancient cultures (e.g.,. the wedding ring). In numerical
use, a circle
represented infinity, all, or everything.
Nekhbet is the protectress of the king and of the non-royal
deceased.
As such, she is represented as a vulture extending one wing
to the
front, the other to the ground, flying above the person she
is
protecting."
Depicted
as
one
of the
twin Uraei:
From the 18th
Dynasty onwards, she began to be represented as protecting
the royal
women in the form of one of the twin Uraei
(spitting cobras) on the headdresses of the queens
In art,
Nekhbet was depicted as the white vulture, always seen on
the front of
pharaoh’s double crown along with Wadjet
(cobra).
Depicted
as
woman wearing the Atef-crown
See
illustration
on Echoes:
The
Egyptian Vulture Goddess Nekhbet
See
also: Horus
who is depicted with wings in a solar
disk flanked by 2 cobras and vulture with
outspread wings
See
Wikipedia:
Nekhbet
|
| . |
|
 Osiris
(oh
SIRE is)
God
of the Underworld.
Osiris was usually depicted as a green-skinned
(green was the
color of rebirth) pharaoh wearing the Atef
crown
, a
crown worn by the god Osiris,
and by the king. It is composed of a central miter mounted
upon two
ram's horns, surmounted by a sun disk and flanked by two
ostrich
feathers.
Typically he was also depicted holding the crook and flail
which signified divine authority in Egyptian pharaohs and his
feet and
lower body were wrapped, as though already partly mummified.
Myth of Osiris Isis and Horus:
Osiris
was a king who
taught the Egyptians how to live, worship and grow corn. He
was
murdered by his jealous brother, Seth,
who cut up the
body, scattering it over Egypt. Osiris's beloved wife, Isis,
and her sister
collected all the pieces. Isis used her medical skills first
to
impregnate herself with the last drop of semen in her
consort's penis,
and then to reassemble the corpse as the first mummy
and bring
it back to life. The first magic worked, and she became
pregnant with Horus.
But the gods
refused to let Osiris return to the world of mortals, and he
went to
rule in the Underworld, the lord and judge of the dead.
Isis became known as the Egyptian goddess of the children. Horus
would avenge his
father and Horus became known as the Egyptian god of the sky.
In that
Horus was the son of Osiris, he became closely associated with
the
Pharaoh of Lower Egypt (where Horus was worshipped), and
became their
patron. Set(h) was the patron of Upper Egypt. Horus united
Egypt and
bestowed divinity upon the pharaohs who were viewed as
incarnations of
Horus in life.
In the
Serapeum
at Saqqara,
archaeologists found the
mummies of one and a half million ibises and hundreds of
thousands of falcons.
|
| . |
|
 Papyrus
scepter
Long, thin shaft
surmounted by a triangular umbel
Papyrus
|
| . |
|
 Pharaoh
"Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions
of the ancient
Egyptian rulers of all periods. In antiquity this title began
to be
used for the ruler who was the religious and political leader
of united
ancient Egypt. This was true only during the New Kingdom,
specifically
during the middle of the eighteenth dynasty. For simplification
however, there is a
general acceptance amongst modern writers to use the term to
relate to
all periods." - Wikipedia:
Pharaoh
The
pharaoh, or
king of Egypt, was viewed as both human and divine, and thus
acted as
intermediary between Egypt's people and the gods.
The king was also associated with several specific deities.
While
alive, a pharaoh was identified with Horus,
and given the
title "Son of Ra."
The goddesses Isis,
Hathor, and Mut
were all seen as the mother of the pharaoh.
A
deceased king was viewed as fully divine, and identified with
Osiris
(the father of
Horus) and with Ra.
A
common depiction of the king is his holding
a group of enemies of
Egypt by the hair and raising his club to smite them.
Crowns
/
Nemes
Ptolemaic
dynasty
The pharaoh often
was depicted as wearing a false beard made of goat
hair during rituals and
ceremonies
|
| . |
| Ram's
horns |
| . |
|
 Scarab
/ dung beetle
Dung
beetles
are beetles that feed partly or exclusively on feces. Many
dung
beetles, known as rollers, are noted for rolling dung
into
spherical balls, which are used as a food source or brooding
chambers.
Scarab dung beetles
lay eggs in a pellet which they roll along and the Egyptians
regarded
this action as an image of the sun and its course through the
heavens,
rolled by a gigantic beetle. Scarabs are associated with the
Egyptian
god, Khepri. It was Khepri that
pushed the
sun across the sky. The scarab beetle became an ancient
Egyptian symbol
for rebirth, the ability to be reborn. Each day the sun
disappeared,
always to rise again and be reborn the following day.
The god Khepri, which literally means "He who is
Coming into
Being", was a creator god and a solar deity. He was
represented as a
scarab or dung beetle, or as a man with a beetle head. Often
represented as a beetle within the sun-disk.
The scarab beetle
was observed to roll its eggs in a ball of dung along the
ground, and
the ball was identified with the sun. The baby beetles were
seen to
emerge from the primeval mound and so dung beetles were
thought capable
of spontaneous creation. Hence, the scarab became an important
symbol
of creation, resurrection and everlasting life in the
religious
mythology of ancient Egypt. Alternate myth: Isis
Small jars and
coffins containing dried (mummified) scarabs were often placed
in
Egyptian tombs as part of their ancient funeral rites to
ensure eternal
resurrection.
Winged
scarab
/ heart scarab:
So-called heart scarabs, usually flanked with falcon's wings,
were
funerary talismans. The stone heart scarab was laid upon the
breast of
the mummy, and this indicated that the guilty soul must stand
in the
judgment hall in the presence of Osiris.
The
scarab thus used was to secure exemption from the possible
performance
of an evil life. Perhaps the most famous example of such
"heart
scarabs" is the yellow-green pectoral scarab found among the
entombed
provisions of Tutankhamen.
Ra
was also
pictured as scarab that has the body of a scarab with
outstretched
falcon wings, scarab forelegs, and falcon back legs.
|
| . |
|
Scepter
A
rod or wand borne in the hand as an emblem of regal or
imperial power.
The hieroglyph
for "nobleman" or "official" shows a man carrying a long staff
of
office in front of him.
See
alsoAncient
Egypt
Online:
mks, Heqa, Was, Flail
See
also: Toby
A. H.
Wilkinson,
Early
Dynastic
Egypt:
mks, Heqa, Was, Flail
See also: Toby A.
H. Wilkinson,
Early
Dynastic
Egypt:
Mace and long staff
See
also: Wiklipedia:
Sekmen
scepter
|
| . |
|
 Sekhmet,
Sachmet,
Sakhet, Sekmet, Sakhmet and Sekhet
Appearance: Woman
with the head of a lioness. She was envisioned as a fierce
lioness, and
in art, was depicted as such, or as a woman with the head of a
lioness,
who was dressed in red, the colour of blood.
Sekhmet was the goddess of war.
For more
information, see Wikipedia:
Sekhmet
See also a poem by
Margaret Atwood, Sekhmet,
the
Lion-headed Goddess of War
|
| . |
Set(h)
Osiris
was a king who taught the
Egyptians how to live, worship and grow corn. He was murdered by
his
jealous brother, Seth,
who cut up the body, scattering
it over Egypt. Osiris's beloved wife, Isis,
and her sister
collected all the pieces. Isis used her medical skills first to
impregnate herself with the last drop of semen in her consort's
penis,
and then to reassemble the corpse as the first mummy and
bring
it back to life. The first magic worked, and she became pregnant
with Horus.
Seth and his followers changed themselves into crocodiles to
escape
Horus. The ancient Egyptians believed that by honoring the
fearsome
crocodile as a god, they would be safe from attacks.
Horus
would avenge his
father at Edfu
and Horus became
known as the Egyptian god of the sky. In that Horus was the son
of
Osiris, he became closely associated with the Pharaoh of Lower
Egypt
(where Horus was worshipped), and became their patron.
Seth was the patron of Upper Egypt. Horus united Egypt and
bestowed
divinity upon the pharaohs who were viewed as incarnations of
Horus in
life. On the
other
hand, once the two lands were united, Seth and Horus were often
shown
together crowning the new pharaohs,
as a symbol of their power over
both Lower and Upper Egypt.
For
a detailed account, see The
Sacred Temple
Island of Philae: The Great Quarrel |
| . |
|
Solar
(Sun)
disk flanked by 2 cobras and outspread wings:
Solar
disk represents Ra,
the sun god.
Cobras represent the Uraeuses
(Wadjet
and Nekhbet)
Wings: Vulture wings represent Nekhbet
- OR Falcon
wings represent Horus
A
symbol of protection.
Often
occurring
on a cavetto
cornice.
The
Winged Sun Disc is thought to have originated from the corona
effect of
a solar eclipse which can give the appearance of wings.
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 Sun
god
Overall, the sun
god was the dominant deity in Egyptian religion, although he
could take
different forms.. The earliest deities associated with the sun
are Wadjet,
Sekhmet,
Hathor,
Nut, Bast, Bat,
and Menhit. First Hathor, and then Isis,
give birth to
and nurse Horus
and Ra.
In the
eighteenth
dynasty, Akhenaten changed the polytheistic religion of Egypt
to a
pseudo-monotheistic one, Atenism. All other deities were
replaced by
the Aten, including, Amun,
the reigning
sun god of Akhenaten's own region. Unlike other deities, the
Aten did
not have multiple forms. His only image was a disk - a symbol
of the
sun.
Most common forms:
- At dawn - Khepri,
the scarab
beetle rolling the sun disk above the eastern
horizon
- In evening - Atum,
an old man - Atum-Ra
- Re-Harakhty,
the great hawk/falcon soaring in the sky, responsible for
all creation.
Amalgamation of Ra and Horus; Falcon-headed
Ra, sometimes crowned with a solar
disk
and Uraeus
(see illustration at left)
- Amun-Re,
king of the
gods and protector of the
pharaoh when he was on military campaigns. he handed the
scimitar to
great warrior pharaohs like Tuthmosis III.
Other
depictions:
- Atum
- A
man
wearing a pharaoh's crown (a
sign of his leadership of the deities) and the wadjet
(cobra with the
wings of a vulture), with sun disk above his head.
- Body
of a man and the head
of a hawk,
holding an ankh
& scepter.
"Re"
is an alternate form of "Ra."
Sun boat: Ra was thought to travel in a sun
boat
(The Boat of the Millions) to protect its fires from the
primordial
waters of the underworld it passed through during the night.
Ra
traveled in the sun boat with various other deities including
Set
and Mehen who
defended against the monsters of the underworld, and Ma'at who
guided
the boat's course. The monsters included Apep, an enormous
serpent who
tried to stop the sun boat's journey every night by consuming
it. The
Ra myth saw the sunrise as the rebirth of the sun by the
goddess Nut
and the sky, thus attributing the concept of rebirth and
renewal to Ra
and strengthening
his
role as a creator god. Alternate
myth: See "Scarab "
below.
The benu bird is Ra's bird and a symbol of fire and
rebirth (see
Obelisk).
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 Thoth
(TOTE)
Ibis-headed
(sometimes,
however, a baboon) god of wisdom.
The
Sacred Ibis (Threskiornis
aethiopicus)
is now extinct.
The
curved beak of the ibis was like the crescent moon, so the
bird became
the symbol of the moon god Thoth.
The ancient
Egyptians believed that Thoth gave them the gift of hieroglyphic
writing.
At the town of Hermopolis,
ibises were reared specifically
for sacrificial purposes and in the Serapeum at Saqqara,
archaeologists found the
mummies of one and a half million ibises and hundreds of
thousands of falcons.
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 Uraeus
(you REE us)
(plural: Uraei or Uraeuses)
Wadjet
(spitting cobra) and Sun disk. Nekhbet,
vulture wings
added later.
Spitting
cobra:
The
Uraeus
is the stylized, upright form of an Egyptian spitting cobra
used
as a symbol of sovereignty, royalty, deity, and divine
authority in
ancient Egypt.
The
Uraeus
is a symbol for the goddess Wadjet
, one of the
earliest of Egyptian deities, who often was depicted as a cobra.
The center of her cult was in Per-Wadje. She became the
patroness of
the Nile Delta and the protector of all of Lower Egypt
Spitting
cobra
plus white vulture:
At
the time of the unification of Egypt, the image of Nekhbet,
who was
represented as a white vulture and held the same
position as
the patron of Upper Egypt, joined the image of Wadjet
on the Uraeus
that would encircle the crown of the pharaohs who ruled the
unified
Egypt. Together they were known as, The Two Ladies,
who became
the joint protectors and patrons of the unified Egypt.
Worn
by the Pharaoh as a golden emblem on the forehead as a sort of
crown;
it was the symbol of supreme rulers, and a symbol of Pharaoh's
power.
Beside the
Uraeus being used as an ornament for statuary or as an
adornment on the
pharaoh, it also was
used for jewelry and in amulets.
However another important use is as the hieroglyph.
In that the
Uraeus was seen as a royal symbol, Horus
and Set also were depicted wearing
one.
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Wadjet
/ Wadjit / Wedjet / Uadjet / Ua
Zit
Cobra
goddess; Patron of Lower
Egypt.
AKA The Green
One
Depicted as a cobra in the Uraeus.
After
unification of Egypt, joined by her sister Nekhbet
with the wings
of a vulture in the Uraeus.
She came to be the patron and protector of Lower Egypt, and upon
unification with Upper Egypt, the joint protector and patron of
all of
Egypt with the goddess of Upper Egypt (Nekhbet).
The Two Ladies:
The
vulture-goddess Nekhbet and
the cobra-goddess Wadjet, representing the Upper Egypt and Lower
Egypt
respectively.
See above: Uraeus
and Eye
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 Was-scepter
Stood for
domination and power.
It was very common among gods/kings in all times.
Sometimes
depicted
as a stylized animal head on top and a forked end.
A staff made from a
dried bull's penis that was the symbol for the goddess Wosret
or Wasret.
Also used to hold
up roofs.
See also on another
website: 9
illustrations
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Wings
Horus
Isis
Nekhbet
Re-Harakhty
Scarab |
