From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Egyptian mythology (or Egyptian religion) is the name for the succession of beliefs held by the people of Egypt until the coming of Christianity and Islam. The timespan involved is nearly three thousand years, and beliefs varied considerably over time, so an article or, indeed, even one whole book, cannot do more than outline the many entities and subjects in this complex system of beliefs. Egyptian Mythology is different from Greek or Roman Mythology, in that in Egyptian Mythology most deities are of human body and animal head or vice versa.
A "received pronunciation" of the names of ancient Egyptian deities has formed. By and large, this pronunciation is acceptable for most consonants and utterly wrong for the vowels. The actual vowels of ancient Egyptian are essentially unknown. Egyptologists developed a set of conventions to make it easier to talk about the terms they used. Two distinct different glottal consonants were both replaced with "a". A consonant similar to the "y" in the English word "yet" was replaced with "i". A consonant similar to the "w" in the English word "well" was replaced with "u". Then, "e" was inserted between other consonants. Thus, for example, the Egyptian king whose name is most accurately transcribed as "R?-mss" is known as "Rameses", even though cuneiform tablets that mention him suggest that a more accurate rendering with vowels might have been "Ri`amasesa".
See also: Egyptian language, The Pronunciation of Ancient Egyptian.
(Note: This list came from Deities.)
known temples include Abu Simbel...
Started with Ptolemy I of Egypt and ended with Cleopatra VII.
Afterward, the original Egyptian pantheon survived more or less as the dominant faith, until the establishment of Coptic Christianity and later Islam, even though the Egyptians had encountered monotheism in other cultures (e.g. Hebrewss).
See also History of Egypt, Sun mythology
A Note on Pronunciation
The Articles
See http://touregypt.net/godsofegypt/ for the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism's extensive information on Egyptian Deities.Worship
Temples
temples as representations of the world...
Some temples today are still standing, which you can see in Egypt. Others are in crumbles from wear and tear. Pharaoh Ramses II built a lot of temples in his day.The World
Creation
Heaven and earth
The Nile
The Afterlife
Egyptian embalming
Since preservation of the body was instrumental in keeping the Ka and Ba souls, embalming was developed by the Egyptians around the 4th Dynasty.
Burial
The book of the dead
The weighing of the heart
External influences
Libyan period
Ptolemaic period
Roman period
The coming of monotheism
A short period of monotheism occured under the reign of Akhenaten, and was focused on the Egyptian sun deity Aten. Akhenaten outlawed the worship of any other god and built a new capital (Amarna) around the temple for Aten. The religious change survived only until the death of Akhenaton's son Tutankhamun, but it was highly unpopular and was quickly reverted afterwards. In fact, Akhenaten and Tutankhamun's removals from the Wall of Kings are likely related to the radical religious change.
