Gods and Goddesses from Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egyptians had 42 areas along the Nile and each of those 42 areas had hundreds of gods that today can be called “spirits” and “fairies”. Some of the gods grew popular and became deities who were the main gods for all of Egypt.



Ancient Egyptians had a creation myth just like we have a creation story from the bible. There are lots of creation myths in Ancient Egypt but here is one:

At first there was only Nun. Nun was the dark waters of chaos. One day, a hill rose up out the waters this hill was called Ben-Ben. On this hill stood Atum, the first god. Atum coughed and spat out Shu, the god of air, and Tefnut, the goddess of moisture. Shu and Tefnut had two children. First, there was Geb, the god of the earth. Then there was Nut, the goddess of the sky. Shu lifted Nut up so that she became a canopy over Geb. Nut and Geb had four children named Osiris, Isis, Seth and Nepthys. Osiris was the king of the earth and Isis was Queen. Osiris was a good king, and he ruled over the earth for many years. However everything was not well. Seth was jealous of Osiris because he wanted to be king of the earth. He grew angrier and angrier until one day he killed Osiris. Osiris went down to the underworld and Seth remained on earth and became king. Osiris and Isis had a son called Horus. Horus battled against Seth and regained the throne. After that, Horus was the king of the earth and Osiris was the king of the underworld.

this story is from
http://nemo.nu/ibisportal/0egyptintro/1egypt/index.htm

Gods and goddesses from ancient Egypt usually had a human body and an animal head or an animal body and a human head. Some gods like Osiris had a flail they held. Nearly all of the gods and goddesses held a stick like thing called a staff. There were two kinds of gods; one was a god, a man and one was a goddess, a woman. Some of the animals whose heads or bodies were used were; birds, crocodiles, snakes, frogs, turtles, cows and cats. Gods and goddesses wore headgear which sometimes looked like hats and sometimes was symbols above their heads.



Some of the gods and goddesses looked after different towns and locations while other’s were gods for; creation, flood, afterlife, war, sun, food, beer, moon, plant’s, digestion and mummification. Each god or goddess had a special job. The god Re/Ra had the most important job, he was the god of all gods. The second most important god was Osiris for he submits people to the afterlife.



The ancient Egyptians believed that to get to the afterlife you had to journey through the under world. After the journey, the heart is weighed against a feather. If the heart is heavier than the feather, he would not be able to enter the afterlife but if the heart is the same as the feather he or she will live forever with Osiris in the afterlife. The ancient Egyptians built statues and temples for the gods. The ancient Egyptians had “the book of the dead”, which is just like our bible. The ancient Egyptians found it important to bury their dead the proper way so they embalmed the body with oils and ointment’s then wrapped them in linen stirps. They called these embalmed people “mummies”.



The ancient Egyptian religion was very complicated and the ancient Egyptians often got there gods mixed up. Even though this system is not used any more, it