Lecture 3: Religion Flashcards
What does Herodotus say about Egyptian religion?
That the Egyptians were more religious than any other.
Why do we believe that the Egyptians were obsessed with death?
Evidence was bias, as this was just what happened to survive, Temples and tombs..
Name 3 religious texts.
The book of the Dead, the book of gates and funerary texts.
What did you’re religious beliefs depend on?
Where and when you lived.
What evolved from the Pyramid texts?
Coffin texts.
What evolved from Coffin texts?
The Book of the Dead
When is the Book of the dead from?
The New Kingdom
When are Pyramid texts from?
The Old Kingdom
When are Coffin texts from?
The Middle Kingdom.
Who were the pyramid texts for?
The King.
What origin stories did the Egyptians believe in?
Nun, Atum from Heliopolis, Ptah from memphis, The Ogodoad from Hermopolis , Amun from Theban + Khnum
Where did the world come from?
The waters of chaos, Nun, from which the ben ben sprang and became the earth.
Who was born of Atum?
Shu and Tefnut
Who represents the earth and the sky?
Geb and Nut.
Who holds apart Nut and Geb and why?
Shu, if they come together the world will return to its original mass of chaos.
Name the sun god personifications.
Ra, Aten, Khepri and the sun-barque.
The counterpart of the sun?
The Moon, Thoth.
What is the bases of Egyptian mythology?
Opposites.
Why did the Egyptians show their gods as anthropomorphic?
They represented the characteristics of the gods.
Give one example of an anthropomorphic god who changes.
Sekhmet, to Bastet.
Name three deities anthropomorphised to decrease fear.
Seth, Taweret and Anubis.
What was Taweret the goddess of?
Protection of pregnant woman.
Why is the mythological symbol of the unification of upper and lower Egypt?
Seth and Horus tying the two plants of Egypt together, the papyrus and the lotus.
What is Ma’at?
Justice, order or truth. The idea of cosmic order and the opposite of chaos.
What is the symbol of Ma’at?
An Ostrich feather.
What is Sekhmet the goddess of and what does her name mean?
Healing, but also disease and destruction. Name means power.
Who was the king in relation to the divine?
He was the reincarnation of Horus, king of the gods.
Who was Horus?
the son of Osiris and Isis, and was believed to be the representative of the gods and the people, shown as a child.
Who was the opposite of Horus, and why?
Seth is almost always shown as an adult or a strange animal mixture. He is the unknown, the chaotic, the barren.
What was the role of the king?
The Keep Ma’at and please the gods. He had to provide for them at the temples.
Name one important temple .
Karnak temple
Who would have been allowed into temples?
The King and possibly high elites.
What scenes are found inside temples?
Cult practises.
What scenes are found on the exterior of the temples?
Battles and tributes.
Who was Osiris?
King of the gods, until his brother decided to kill him, and then he became king of the underworld.
What is the hieroglyphic symbol of unity?
A pair of lungs.
Where does imagery of the unification of Egypt often appear?
On thrones.
What was the Egyptian concept of Sin and Forgiveness?
In the weighing go the heart ceremony, a man would be deemed either good or bad. There was no forgiveness or real sin.
Name one relic proving the Egyptian concepts of Sin and forgiveness and where was it from?
Neferabu Stela from Deir el-Medina.
Name 2 major cults which expanded from local cults.
Amun from Thebes in the N.K and Seth during the N.K under the rule of Hyksos.
Name one god who was adopted from foreign pantheons.
Reshep.
What would happen to a king upon his death?
He would join the sun god on his journey across the heavens everyday.
What happened to the dead after the weighing of the heart?
They would become part of Osiris and go to the underworld.
What did a curved beard symbolise?
Divinity.
Why was Osiris’ skin portrayed as grey, green or black?
A symbol of death and mummification, but also rebirth (colour of silt = good harvest)
What was the ideal age to live to?
106
