Polytheism is the religious belief that there are several deities (gods or godesses) which exist and which rule the universe as separate and distinct entities. With regard to polytheism in ancient Egypt Barbara Mertz, in her Red Land, Black Land: Daily Life in Ancient Egypt, writes:
“The Egyptians were just about the most polytheistic people who ever lived. No one knows how many gods they had; one list gives over eighty, and I suspect it is incomplete.”
The estimate of only eighty gods may be rather conservative. More recently, Bob Brier and Hoyt Hobbs, in their
Ancient Egypt: Everyday Life in the Land of the Nile, write:
“At the peak of their civilization during the Eighteenth Dynasty, Egyptians worshipped more than a thousand gods. Some were the same deity celebrated under different names in different cities, but most were separate gods.”
With somewhere between 80 and 1,000 different gods, how do we begin to make sense out of Egyptian religion? First, we have to remember that this rather complex pantheon did not suddenly appear, but developed piecemeal over a period of several thousand years.
While it is common to think of ancient Egypt as a monolithic, unchanging kingdom for three thousand years, this is not really true. Like all civilizations, ancient Egypt changed and evolved over time. Each new era built upon the legacy of the past and adopted it to present reality.
If we go back to the beginnings of ancient Egypt, to a time before Egypt was unified, a time about 4,000 BCE called the Predynastic by archaeologists, gods developed out of the human need to explain and understand the world around them. Bob Brier and Hoyt Hobbs write:
“Because no scientific principles existed to explain natural phenomena, Egyptians believed that whatever occurred in their lives or environment had a supernatural cause.”
The earliest gods, therefore, were the ones that were associated with important natural phenomena. Since life for these early agriculturalists was dependent on the life-giving waters of the Nile River and its annual flooding, the river was a living entity: the god Hapi. Recognizing that the sun was an important part of their lives, the sun was the god Ra. To propitiate the gods—making sure that the sun rose every morning and that the Nile flooded every year—the people made offerings to the gods.
As Egypt edged toward unification and developed strong kings, both government and religion became more hierarchical. By the time of the Early Dynastic Period (3150 BCE to 2686 BCE) when Narmer became the first pharaoh and writing was developed, there were temples to some of the important gods. While there were still gods whose images could be found in the homes of the people where they were worshipped, the temple gods were seen primarily by the priests who cared for them and carried out the rituals to ensure the continuation of prosperity. Lorna Oakes and Lucia Gahlin, in their book Ancient Egypt, write:
“It was the pharaoh’s duty to build temples and to ensure that offerings were made to the gods housed in them. In return, the gods would bestow blessings on the people, such as victory in battle, bountiful harvests and recovery from sickness.”
For most Egyptians, the only time they would see the statues of the temple gods would be during certain special feasts. The temple gods were served by special priests who made the offerings and cared for the gods. Temples were for the gods and their priests, not for the people.
The practice of religion among the vast majority of the people was not centered on the temple and the temple gods, but rather on special gods with special attributes. For example, when a woman became pregnant, she would wear the amulet of the god Tauret around her neck for protection. Tauret (Taweret) is usually portrayed as a bipedal pregnant hippopotamus.
After giving birth, the woman would wear the amulet of the god Bes, who provided protection for the newborn. Bes is usually portrayed as a lion-headed male dwarf.
Bes, whose images date back to the Predynastic Period, is a household protector. Bes drives off evil spirits and snakes, as well as watching over children. He symbolizes the good things in life and is thus associated with music, dance, and sexual pleasure. It is not uncommon for him to be portrayed with an erect penis (ithyphallic).
For most Egyptians religious practice was centered on the home. Even the homes of the poorest Egyptians contained shrines to certain gods and the nobles would have a special pavilion set in the garden. In the home of a scribe, one of the shrines might honor Thoth, the god who invented numbers and served as the patron of writing. A scribe might also have a shrine to the goddess Seshat who is associated with writing. A craftsman might have a shrine to Ptah, the patron of the crafts, in his home. Some homes might have a shrine to the goddess Mafdet who was a protector against scorpions and snakes.
The Egyptian gods were often associated with particular regions or particular Egyptian cities and they changed over time. For example, Min, an ancient god of fertility who is portrayed as a semi-mummified human holding his erect penis with his left hand, was associated with Koptos and Akhmim (called Panopolis by the Greeks who associated Min with their god Pan). By the New Kingdom (1550 to 1069 BCE), Min had merged with the Theban god Amun.
The ancient Egyptians lived in a world controlled by numerous gods and these gods were a part of their daily lives. The people propitiated and prayed to certain gods based on their needs, where they lived, and the time period (the gods changed through time). While the massive numbers of gods and the many conflicting stories about them and their attributes seems confusing to modern people, for the ancient Egyptians these gods helped them understand and live in their world.