Lecture 3: Religion

Question 1

What does Herodotus say about Egyptian religion?

Answer 1

That the Egyptians were more religious than any other.

Question 2

Why do we believe that the Egyptians were obsessed with death?

Answer 2

Evidence was bias, as this was just what happened to survive, Temples and tombs..

Question 3

Name 3 religious texts.

Answer 3

The book of the Dead, the book of gates and funerary texts.

Question 4

What did you’re religious beliefs depend on?

Answer 4

Where and when you lived.

Question 5

What evolved from the Pyramid texts?

Answer 5

Coffin texts.

Question 6

What evolved from Coffin texts?

Answer 6

The Book of the Dead

Question 7

When is the Book of the dead from?

Answer 7

The New Kingdom

Question 8

When are Pyramid texts from?

Answer 8

The Old Kingdom

Question 9

When are Coffin texts from?

Answer 9

The Middle Kingdom.

Question 10

Who were the pyramid texts for?

Answer 10

The King.

Question 11

What origin stories did the Egyptians believe in?

Answer 11

Nun, Atum from Heliopolis, Ptah from memphis, The Ogodoad from Hermopolis , Amun from Theban + Khnum

Question 12

Where did the world come from?

Answer 12

The waters of chaos, Nun, from which the ben ben sprang and became the earth.

Question 13

Who was born of Atum?

Answer 13

Shu and Tefnut

Question 14

Who represents the earth and the sky?

Answer 14

Geb and Nut.

Question 15

Who holds apart Nut and Geb and why?

Answer 15

Shu, if they come together the world will return to its original mass of chaos.

Question 16

Name the sun god personifications.

Answer 16

Ra, Aten, Khepri and the sun-barque.

Question 17

The counterpart of the sun?

Answer 17

The Moon, Thoth.

Question 18

What is the bases of Egyptian mythology?

Answer 18

Opposites.

Question 19

Why did the Egyptians show their gods as anthropomorphic?

Answer 19

They represented the characteristics of the gods.

Question 20

Give one example of an anthropomorphic god who changes.

Answer 20

Sekhmet, to Bastet.

Question 21

Name three deities anthropomorphised to decrease fear.

Answer 21

Seth, Taweret and Anubis.

Question 22

What was Taweret the goddess of?

Answer 22

Protection of pregnant woman.

Question 23

Why is the mythological symbol of the unification of upper and lower Egypt?

Answer 23

Seth and Horus tying the two plants of Egypt together, the papyrus and the lotus.

Question 24

What is Ma’at?

Answer 24

Justice, order or truth. The idea of cosmic order and the opposite of chaos.

Question 25

What is the symbol of Ma'at?

Answer 25

An Ostrich feather.

Question 26

What is Sekhmet the goddess of and what does her name mean?

Answer 26

Healing, but also disease and destruction. Name means power.

Question 27

Who was the king in relation to the divine?

Answer 27

He was the reincarnation of Horus, king of the gods.

Question 28

Who was Horus?

Answer 28

the son of Osiris and Isis, and was believed to be the representative of the gods and the people, shown as a child.

Question 29

Who was the opposite of Horus, and why?

Answer 29

Seth is almost always shown as an adult or a strange animal mixture. He is the unknown, the chaotic, the barren.

Question 30

What was the role of the king?

Answer 30

The Keep Ma'at and please the gods. He had to provide for them at the temples.

Question 31

Name one important temple .

Answer 31

Karnak temple

Question 32

Who would have been allowed into temples?

Answer 32

The King and possibly high elites.

Question 33

What scenes are found inside temples?

Answer 33

Cult practises.

Question 34

What scenes are found on the exterior of the temples?

Answer 34

Battles and tributes.

Question 35

Who was Osiris?

Answer 35

King of the gods, until his brother decided to kill him, and then he became king of the underworld.

Question 36

What is the hieroglyphic symbol of unity?

Answer 36

A pair of lungs.

Question 37

Where does imagery of the unification of Egypt often appear?

Answer 37

On thrones.

Question 38

What was the Egyptian concept of Sin and Forgiveness?

Answer 38

In the weighing go the heart ceremony, a man would be deemed either good or bad. There was no forgiveness or real sin.

Question 39

Name one relic proving the Egyptian concepts of Sin and forgiveness and where was it from?

Answer 39

Neferabu Stela from Deir el-Medina.

Question 40

Name 2 major cults which expanded from local cults.

Answer 40

Amun from Thebes in the N.K and Seth during the N.K under the rule of Hyksos.

Question 41

Name one god who was adopted from foreign pantheons.

Answer 41

Reshep.

Question 42

What would happen to a king upon his death?

Answer 42

He would join the sun god on his journey across the heavens everyday.

Question 43

What happened to the dead after the weighing of the heart?

Answer 43

They would become part of Osiris and go to the underworld.

Question 44

What did a curved beard symbolise?

Answer 44

Divinity.

Question 45

Why was Osiris' skin portrayed as grey, green or black?

Answer 45

A symbol of death and mummification, but also rebirth (colour of silt = good harvest)

Question 46

What was the ideal age to live to?

Answer 46

106