For questions on the myths, legends, and religious beliefs of the people of Ancient Egypt.
Questions tagged [egyptian]
82 questions
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Why are cats so important in Ancient Egypt?
Cats were worshipped in ancient Egypt. This can be clearly seen by the large amount of cat statues, mummified cats, ... that have been found. There is even a God specific for cats (Bastet).
But why were cats seen as sacred animals?
Arperum
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Are there any depictions of Horus being crucified and resurrected
In my internet adventures I've stumbled upon the idea that the story of Jesus was heavily inspired by the ancient Egyptian god Horus. See, for example, some positing it here—by its major modern proponent Acharya S—and here, a short clip by Bill…
6D65
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What is the significance of this part in the myth of the resurrection of Osiris?
After Osiris is tricked and killed by Seth he is dismembered, and it is up to his wife Isis to recover all the pieces and bring him back to life. There is something that always caught my attention about the way she does this, since there is a piece…
Kreann
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What were the five parts of the Egyptian soul?
This is an offshoot of a question asked about the Ba and Ka.
What were the other 3 parts of the Egyptian soul and what did they represent?
user28
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What was the more prominent of Ra's origins stories?
I was browsing Wikipedia and came upon three different variations for Ra's origins:
In the former version, a mound arises from the waters. An egg was laid upon this mound by a celestial bird. The egg contained Ra. In some variants, the egg is laid…
yannis
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Do Egyptian myths provide explanations for the shape of the pyramid?
Pyramids are iconic structures from Ancient Egypt. But why did the ancient Egyptians shape their pyramids in a, well, pyramidal shape? These are not exactly intuitively shaped tombs. Some research suggests that the pyramids might have been shaped in…
Semaphore
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How were eclipses explained in Egyptian mythology?
Eclipses were probably one of the phenomena that puzzled the ancient people. How was it explained in Egyptian mythology, and were there any gods connected with it (like thunder is connected to Zeus)?
anon
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Why did Heracles transform into a fawn, during the gods flight to Egypt?
In some tellings of Typhon's revolt, the gods take animal forms and flee to Egypt in panic. The version in the Metamorphoses of Antoninus Liberalis references Nicander of Colophon and explicitly mentions the animals each god transformed into:
[28.…
yannis
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Star islands in Egyptian cosmology
Among the phenomena they describe is the Milky Way, which the Egyptians called "the beaten path of stars". Like other parts of the sky, it could be navigated by boat, and was apparently viewed as a series of islands in the midst of celestial…
inzenity
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How does merging of two gods actually work?
The only two examples I can remember at the moment are:
Ra merging with Horus
In later Egyptian dynastic times, Ra was merged with the god Horus, as Ra-Horakhty ("Ra, who is Horus of the Two Horizons").
Amun merging with Ra
After the…
Ero Sɘnnin
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Is there a Western (Greek, Roman, Egyptian, or Norse) god of the cosmos?
I have heard of the Greek god, Chaos (the manifestation of the void), and of the Greek god Aither, (the manifestation of the upper air that gods breathe most often), but I can't find reference to any deities that personify 'space' or 'the…
user1314
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Why are the "Fields of Reeds" the Egyptian paradise?
Aaru, the Field of Reeds was the Egyptian idea of paradise. Food was unlimited, and menial funeral statues could gather it for you.
However, it is described as a “mirror image of one's life on earth”.
Yet, Egypt’s real fields of reeds, in the delta…
Reed -SE is a Fish on Dry Land
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Was Hermes Trismegistus a historical figure?
I am aware that Hermes Trismegistus is a combination of the greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. But he is credited as the writer of a few books with Asclepius and the Corpus Hermeticum. So in the end was he a historical figure that was…
John Demetriou
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Sekhmet with the crown of Hathor?
In the astronomical ceiling of the tomb of Seti (KV17) one of the columns is denoted by the figure of Sekhmet wearing the crown of Hathor as below:
What does this signify? Although Sekhmet is sometimes represented wearing the sun disk, it is never…
Tyler Durden
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