GROUP 4

Egyptian
Mythology

GIANAN - DIZON- JIMENEZ

 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY
Egyptian mythology was the belief structure and underlying form of ancient
Egyptian culture from at least c. 4000 BCE (as evidenced by burial practices and
tomb paintings) to 30 BCE with the death of Cleopatra VII, the last ruler of the
Ptolemaic Dynasty of Egypt.

Every aspect of life in ancient Egypt was informed by the stories which related the
creation of the world and the sustaining of that world by the gods. Egyptian religion
influenced other cultures through transmission via trade and became especially
widespread after the opening of the Silk Road in 130 BCE as the Egyptian port city
of Alexandria was an important commercial center.
The significance of Egyptian mythology to other cultures was in its
development of the concept of an eternal life after death, benevolent
deities, and reincarnation. Both Pythagoras and Plato of Greece were said
to have been influenced by Egyptian beliefs in reincarnation and Roman
religious culture borrowed as extensively from Egypt as it did from other
civilizations.
 To the Egyptians, the journey began with the creation of the world and the universe out of darkness and
swirling chaos. Once there was nothing but endless dark water without form or purpose. Existing within
this void was Heka (god of magic) who awaited the moment of creation. Out of this watery silence (Nu)
rose the primordial hill, known as the ben-ben, upon which stood the great god Atum (or, in some versions
of the myth, Ptah). Atum looked upon the nothingness and recognized his aloneness and so, through the
agency of magic, he mated with his own shadow to give birth to two children, Shu (god of air, whom
Atum spat out) and Tefnut (goddess of moisture, whom Atum vomited out). Shu gave to the early world
the principles of life while Tefnut contributed the principles of order.

THE
Leaving their father on the ben-ben, they set out to establish the world. In time, Atum became concerned
because his children were gone so long and so removed his eye and sent it in search of them. While his
eye was gone, Atum sat alone on the hill in the midst of chaos and contemplated eternity. Shu and Tefnut

CREATION
returned with the eye of Atum (later associated with the Udjat eye, the Eye of Ra, or the All-Seeing Eye),
and their father, grateful for their safe return, shed tears of joy. These tears, dropping onto the dark, fertile
earth of the ben-ben, gave birth to men and women.

MYTH
These early creatures had nowhere to live, however, and so Shu and Tefnut mated and gave birth to
Geb (the earth) and Nut (the sky). Geb and Nut, though brother and sister, fell deeply in love and were
inseparable. Atum found their behavior unacceptable and pushed Nut away from Geb, high up into the
heavens. The two lovers were forever able to see each other but were no longer able to touch. Nut was
already pregnant by Geb, however, and eventually gave birth to Osiris, Isis, Set, Nephthys, and Horus
– the five Egyptian gods most often recognized as the earliest or, at least, the most familiar
representations of older god-figures. Osiris showed himself a thoughtful and judicious god and was
given rule of the world by Atum who then went off to attend to his own affairs.
THE FIRST
GODS The Book of the Dead, dating to the Second Intermediate
Period, portrays how the world was made by Atum, the god of
Heliopolis, the middle of the sun-god religion in Lower Egypt.
Within the starting, the world showed up as an interminable
scope of dull and directionless waters, named Sister. Sister was
exemplified as four sets of male and female deities. Each couple
spoke to one of four standards that characterized Nun:
hiddenness or intangibility, interminable water, straying or need
of course, and obscurity or lack of light.
Atum made himself out of a Nun by exertion of will or by expressing his
claim name. As the maker of the divine beings and people, he was capable
for bringing arrange to the heavens and the soil. As Lord of the Heavens
and Earth, he wears the Double Crown of Upper and Lower Egypt and
carries the ankh, an image of life and a was staff, a symbol of illustrious
authority. According to the Pyramid Writings, composed on the dividers of
pyramids, the maker god emerged from the chaotic obscurity of Sister as a
legendary Bennu fowl (comparable to a heron or phoenix). He flew to
Heliopolis, an old city close to Cairo, where, at daybreak, he alighted on
the Benben, a pillar speaking to a beam of the sun. After molding a settle of
aromatic boughs and flavors, he was expended in a fire and marvelously
sprang back to life. The capstone set at the best of an monolith or a
pyramid is related with the Bennu. Called a pyramidion or the Bennu, it
could be an image of resurrection and interminability.
The First
Gods
 THE CREATOR
GOD'S OFFSPRING

At a time the Egyptians called Zep Tepi (the first Time), Atum made two offspring. His child, Shu, spoken to dry discuss, and his girl,
Tefnut, spoken to destructive wet air. The twins symbolize two all inclusive standards of human presence: life and right (justice). The
twins isolated the sky from the waters. They delivered children named Geb, the dry arrive, and Nut, the sky. When the primitive waters
retreated, a hill of the earth (Geb) showed up, giving the primary strong dry arrive for the sun god, Re, to rest. Amid the dynastic period,
Atum was too known as Re, meaning the sun at its to begin with rising Geb and Nut delivered four descendant: Seth, the god of clutter;
Osiris, the god of order; and their sisters, Nephthys and Isis. This modern era completed the Heliopolitan Ennead, the bunch of nine
divinities that started with Atum, the antiquated maker god. In another adaptation of the creation story, the city of Hermopolis, in Center
Egypt, substituted the Ennead with a gather of eight divinities called the Ogdoad. It comprised of four sets of divine beings and
goddesses symbolizing diverse angles of the chaos that existed before creation. The goddesses were portrayed as snakes and the divine
beings as frogs. Their names were Religious woman and Naunet (water), Amun and Amaunet (hiddenness), Heh and Hauhet
(limitlessness), and Kek and Kauket (haziness).
 THE SUN GOD'S EYE
The sun god, Re (a form of Atum), ruled over the earth, where humans and divine beings coexisted.
Humans were created from the Eye of Re or wedjat (eye of wholeness). This happened when the eye
separated from Re and failed to return. Shu and Tefnut went to fetch it, but the eye resisted. In the
ensuing struggle, the eye shed tears from which humans were born.

The familiar eye motif is an enduring symbol for the creator, Atum, for Re and for Horus, the son of
Osiris and Isis. It represents the power to see, to illuminate and to act. The act of bringing the eye
back to the creator was equivalent to healing the earth – the restoration of right and order. Maintaining
right and order to prevent the earth from falling into chaos was central to the pharaoh's role.

Another version of the creation myth states that the wedjat simply wandered off, so Re sent Thoth, the
moon god, to fetch it. When it returned, the eye found that another eye had taken its place. To pacify
the furious eye, Re placed it on his brow in the shape of a uraeus (a cobra goddess), where it could
rule the whole world. Pharaohs wore the uraeus on their brows as a symbol of protection and to show
that they were descended from the sun god.
 When Re became old, the deities tried to take advantage of his senility. Even
humans plotted against him, which led to their fall from divine grace. In
reaction to the rebellion, Re sent his eye to slaughter the rebels, a deed he
accomplished by transforming himself into Sekhmet, a raging powerful
goddess (depicted as a lion). After punishing his foes, he changed himself
into the contented goddess Hathor (depicted as a cow).
In pain, and weary of these problems, Re withdrew from the world. Taking
the form of Hathor, he mounted on Nut (sky), who raised him to the heavens.
The other gods clung to Hathor's belly and became the stars. Following this,
Thoth, the moon god, was given a spell to protect humans from harm when

The First
the sun disappeared below the earth. From that moment on, humans were
separated from the gods, as earth was separated from the heavens.

Rebellion
Now Re lived in the heavens, where order was established. Each morning he RE'S JOURNEY
was reborn in the east and travelled across the sky in a boat, called the Bark of
Millions of Years, accompanied by a number of gods who acted as his crew.
The sun god was carried across the sky by the scarab god, Khepri, a dung
beetle. His chief enemy was the Apep, a huge serpent that lived in the Nile and
the waters of Nun. Apep tried to obstruct the solar bark's daily passage, but the
sun god was ultimately victorious.
The sun god was the most important deity in the Egyptian pantheon. He had
many names: as the sun disk, he was Aten; as the rising sun, he was Khepri, the
scarab; at the sun's zenith, he was Re, the supreme god of Heliopolis; and as
the setting sun, he was Atum. Egypt's pyramids and obelisks, as well as the
sphinx, were associated with the sun god. In the New Kingdom, the sphinx was
a symbol for the sun god as Re-Horakhty, the winged sun disk that appeared on
the horizon at dawn
EGYPTIAN
MYTH
GODS/
GODESSES Re/Ra
• The god of the sun. He was the ruler of everything.
• He is one of the oldest deities in the Egyptian pantheon and
was later merged with others such as Horus, becoming Ra-
Horakhty (the morning sun), Amun (as noonday sun), and
Atum (the evening sun) associated with primal life-giving
energy.
 Shu Tefnut
• god of the air and supporter of the sky • The ancient Egyptian goddess of water was one of the most
• Husband of Tefnut important deities in Old Egypt.
• Shu was portrayed in human form with the hieroglyph of • Tefnut is commonly depicted in art alongside her twin
his name, an ostrich feather, on his head. brother and husband Shu, the god of air, wind, and peace.
 Geb Nut
• Geb was believed to be the deity of earth and was central to the • The goddess of the sky. She is depicted as blue with stars covering
ancient Egyptian creation myth. her body and the sky on her back.
• Additionally, because the hieroglyph for the name Geb was a goose, • Nut is usually depicted with stars covering her body, particularly
the deity was often assigned the head of a goose when depicted. her hands and feet, which were seen as the four cardinal points.
• god of the air and supporter of the sky • She was the granddaughter of the great sun god Ra, but also an
• Husband of Tefnut important mother figure to him in many of the legends.
• Shu was portrayed in human form with the hieroglyph of his name, an
ostrich feather, on his head.
 Set
OSIRIS • Brother of Osiris, he is the god of chaos, evil, and storms. He is
depicted as a composite animal.
• The god of death. Osiris is depicted a s a pharaoh. He is brother of Set • Set, God of Confusion and Disorder
• Set, also known as Seth and Suetekh, was the Egyptian god of war,
and Isis (also her husband). He is the son of Nut and the father of
chaos, and storms, brother of Osiris, Isis, and Horus the Elder,
Horus.
uncle to Horus the Younger, and brother-husband to Nephthys. His
• also called Usir, one of the most important gods of ancient Egypt.
other consort was the goddess Tawaret, a hippo-headed deity who
presided over fertility and childbirth
 Isis
• Osiris’s wife and sister. She was the goddess of life. Shown as a beautiful
woman.
• Isis was the ancient Egyptian goddess of fertility and was also known as the Nephthys
goddess of motherhood, magic, death, healing, and rebirth. Isis was the first
• Nephthys, also known as Nebthet or Nephthys, is the goddess of
daughter of Geb and Nut who was the god of the earth and the goddess of the
sky. Isis was the sister of Osiris who later on became her husband as well. the night in Egyptian mythology.
• She is depicted with crown hieroglyph representing a house,
The son of Isis and Osiris was Horus.
• Other names by which Isis was known in Egypt are Auset, Aset, or Eset, usually with a basket, and sometimes she is represented by the
which are words that were often associated with the word for "throne." hawk.
 HORUS Anubis
• Was the son of Isis and Osiris. The protector of pharaohs. Viewed as half • The god of funerals. He is depicted as half man, half jackal.
falcon, half human. • Anubis is the son of Osiris and Nephthys.
• Horus is the son of Osiris and Isis, the divine child of the holy family triad. • He is the one who presided over the embalming process and
He is one of many gods associated with the falcon. accompanied dead kings in the afterworld.
 Bastet
• The goddess of protection. She was seen as half human,
half cat.
• She was the daughter of the sun god Ra and is associated
with the concept of the Eye of Ra (the all-seeing eye) and
the Distant Goddess (a female deity who leaves Ra and
returns to bring transformation).
NOTABLE EGYPTIAN
KINGS AND QUEENS
KING TUTANKHAMEN

Very interesting stories of the boy king. He died

at the young at of 19. There was the “kings
curse” that whoever entered the tomb of King
Tut would die shortly.
KING RAMESSES II

He had lived a long life of 96 years, having

many wives, sons, and daughters. He is famous
for his long life and his great temple.
KING HATSHEPSUT

Queen Hatshepsut reigned over Egypt for more than 20 years. She
served as queen alongside her husband, Thutmose II, but after his
death claimed the role of pharaoh while acting as regent to her
nephew, Thutmose III. She reigned peaceably, building temples and
monuments, resulting in the flourishing of Egypt. After her death,
Thutmose III erased her inscriptions and tried to eradicate her
memory.
QUEEN CLEOPATRA

The struggle with her teenage brother over the throne of Egypt was
not going as well as Cleopatra VII had hoped. In 49 B.C., Pharaoh
Ptolemy XIII—also her husband and, by the terms of their father's
will, her co-ruler—had driven his sister from the palace at
Alexandria after Cleopatra attempted to make herself the sole
sovereign. The queen, then in her early twenties, fled to Syria and
returned with a mercenary army, setting up camp just outside the
capital.