W. M. Flinders Petrie

“ It is impossible to suppose a people uniting two gods, both of which belonged to them aboriginally; there would be no reason for two similar gods in a single system, and we never hear in classical mythology of Hermes-Apollo or Pallas-Artemis, while Zeus is compounded with half of the barbarian gods of Asia. So in Egypt, when {29} we find such compounds as Amon-Ra, or Ptah-Sokar-Osiris, we have the certainty that each name in the compound is derived from a different race, and that a unifying operation has taken place on gods that belonged to entirely different sources. ”

“ Not only must we widely distinguish the demonology of races worshipping numerous earth spirits and demons, from the theology of races devoted to solitary great gods; but we must further distinguish the varying ideas of the latter class. Most of the theologic races have no objection to tolerating the worship of other gods side by side with that of their own local deity. It is in this way that the compound theologies built up the polytheism of Egypt and of Greece. But others of the theologic races have the conception of 'a jealous god,' who would not tolerate the presence of a rival. ”

“ The gods were also supposed to share in a life like that of man, not only in Egypt but in most ancient lands. Offerings of food and drink were constantly supplied to them, in Egypt laid upon the altars, in other lands burnt for a sweet savour. ”

“ We must beware of reading our modern ideas into the ancient views. As we noticed in the first chapter, each tribe or locality seems to have had but one god originally; certainly the more remote our view, the more separate are the gods. ”

“ The gods, therefore, have no divine superiority to man in conditions or limitations; they can only be described as pre-existent, acting intelligences, with scarcely greater powers than man might hope to gain by magic or witchcraft of his own. This conception explains how easily the divine merged into the human in Greek theology, and how frequently divine ancestors occurred in family histories. (By the word 'theology' is designated the knowledge about gods.) ”

“ The conception of the nature of the world was that of a great plain, over which the sun passed by day, and beneath which it travelled through the hours of night. The movement of the sun was supposed to be that of floating on the heavenly ocean, figured by its being in a boat, which was probably an expression for its flotation. The elaboration of the nature of the regions through which the sun passed at night essentially belongs to the Ra theology, and only recognises the kingdom of Osiris by placing it in one of the hours of night. ”

“ Horus was the hawk-god of Upper Egypt, especially of Edfu and Hierakonpolis. Though originally an independent god, and even keeping apart as Hor-ur, 'Horus the elder,' throughout later times, yet he was early mingled with the Osiris myth, probably as the ejector of Set who was also the enemy of Osiris. He is sometimes entirely in hawk form; more usually with a hawk's head, and in later times he appears as the infant son of Isis entirely human in form. ”

“ This is only a small side of the present subject, but it will be found fully stated in Religion and Conscience in Ancient Egypt.
The repudiation of sins before the judgment of Osiris is the earliest code of morals, and it is striking that in this there are no family duties. Such an exclusion points to the family being unimportant in early times, the matriarchate perhaps then excluding the responsibility of the man. In the earliest form the prominence of duties is in the order of those to equals, to inferiors, to gods, and to the man's own character. ”

“ We have now passed briefly over the principal gods which combined the animal and human forms. We see how the animal form is generally the older, and how it was apparently independent of the human form, which has been attached to it by a more anthropomorphic people. We see that all of these gods must be accredited to the second stratum, if not to the earliest formation, of religion in Egypt. ”

“ In Egypt even Osiris, Isis, and Horus (so familiar as a triad) are found at first as separate units in different places, Isis as a virgin goddess, and Horus as a self-existent god. Each city appears to have but one god belonging to it, to whom others were added. Similarly in Babylonia each great city had its supreme god; and the combinations of those, and their transformations in order to form them in {5} groups when their homes were politically united, show how essentially they were solitary deities at first. ”

“ In other aspects Osiris seems to have been a corn god, and the scattering of his body in Egypt is like the well-known division of the sacrifice to the corn god, and the burial of parts in separate fields to ensure their fertility.
How we are to analyse the formation of the early myths is suggested by the known changes of later times. When two tribes who worshipped different gods fought together and one overcame the other, the god of the conqueror is always considered to have overcome the god of the vanquished. ”

“ At Thebes the divine wife of the god, or high priestess, was the head of the harem of concubines of the god; and similarly in Babylonia the chamber of the god with the golden couch could only be visited by the priestess who slept there for oracular responses. The Egyptian gods could not be cognisant of what passed on earth {3} without being informed, nor could they reveal their will at a distant place except by sending a messenger; they were as limited as the Greek gods who required the aid of Iris to communicate one with another or with mankind. ”

“ We now come to three animal-headed gods who became associated with the great Osiride group of human gods. Set or Setesh was the god of the prehistoric inhabitants before the coming in of Horus. He is always shown with the head of a fabulous animal, having upright square ears and a long nose. When in entirely animal form he has a long upright tail. The dog-like animal is the earliest type, as in the second dynasty; but later the human form with animal head prevailed. His worship underwent great fluctuations. At first he was the great god of all Egypt ”

“ The setting up of the pillars or dad emblem was a great festival in which the kings took part, and which is often represented.
The creation of life was variously attributed to different great gods where they were worshipped. Khnumu, Osiris, Amen, or Atmu, each are stated to be the creator. The mode was only defined by the theorists of Heliopolis; they imagined that Atmu self-produced Shu and Tefnut, they produced Seb and Nut, and they in turn other gods, from whom at last sprang mankind. But this is merely later theorising to fit a theology in being. ”

“ Heliopolis was the centre of his worship, where Senusert I, in the twelfth dynasty, rebuilt the temple and erected the obelisks, one of which is still standing. But Ra was preceded there by another sun-god Atmu, who was the true god of the nome; and Ra, though worshipped throughout the land, was not the aboriginal god of any city. In Heliopolis he was attached to Atmu, at Thebes attached to Amen. These facts point to Ra having been introduced into Egypt by a conquering people, after the theologic settlement of the whole land. ”

“ The myth of Horus striking off the head of his mother Isis and replacing it by a cow's head, points to the Horus worshippers uniting Hathor with Isis. Statuettes of Hathor are not common; the head was used for an architectural capital and in the form of the sistrum, a rattle which was employed in her worship.
Maat was the goddess of truth. She is always of human form, and shown as seated holding the ankh, emblem of life, in her hands. She was never worshipped, and had no temples or shrines, but was represented as being offered by the kings {61} to the gods. ”

“ If the animal worship were due to totemism, or a sense of animal brotherhood in certain tribes, we must also assume that that was due to these qualities of the animal; whereas totemism in other countries does not seem to be due to veneration of special qualities of the animals. It is therefore more likely that the animal worship simply arose from the nature of the animals, and not from any true totemism, although each animal came to be associated with the worship of a particular tribe or district. ”

“ Besides the classes of gods already described there are others who stand apart in their character, as embodying abstract ideas. Of these some are probably tribal gods; but the principle of each is so clearly marked that they must have been idealised by people who were at a relatively high level of mind. Others are frankly abstractions of artificial ideas devised in a civilised state, much like the deities Flora or the Genius of the Roman Emperor. The general inference is that these gods all belong to the latest of the peoples who contributed to the mythology, the dynastic rulers of the land. ”

“ If we can thus succeed in connecting the archaeology of the prehistoric age with the history preserved in the myths, it shows that Osiris must have been the national god as early as the beginning of prehistoric culture. ”

“ But unfortunately we have no graphic or connected view of their private devotions. At the present day a few natives will scrupulously follow the daily ritual of Islam; many keep up some convenient portion, such as the religious aspect of an evening bath after the day's work; but most of the peasantry have little or no religious observances. Perhaps the average of mankind does not differ very greatly, in various countries, in its extent of religious observance: and most likely the ancient Egyptian varied in usages much like the modern. ”

“ Now in all these views that we have named there is no occasion for preserving the body. It is the ba that is fed in the cemetery, not the body. It is an immaterial body that takes part {17} in the kingdom of Osiris, in the sky. It is an immaterial body that can accompany the gods in the boat of the sun. There is so far no call to conserve the body by the peculiar mummification which first appears in the early dynasties. ”

“ In the general interchange of social life perhaps the main feature was that of consideration for others. A higher standard of good feeling and kindliness existed than any that we know of among ancient peoples, or among most modern nations. ”

“ The gods which belonged to peoples who did not conquer or occupy Egypt must be ranked as foreign gods.
Animal-Headed Gods.—Beside the worship of species of animals, which we have noticed in the last chapter, certain animals were combined with the human form. It was always the head of the animal which was united to a human body; the only converse instance of a human head on an animal body—the sphinxes—represented the king and not a god. ”

“ Ptah the creator was especially worshipped at Memphis. He is figured as a mummy; and we know that full length burial and mummifying begin with the dynastic race. He was identified with the earlier animal-worship of the bull Apis; {59} but it is not likely that this originated his creative aspect, as he creates by moulding clay, or by word and will, and not by natural means. He became united with the old Memphite god of the dead, Seker, and with Osiris, as Ptah-Seker-Osiris. ”

“ All offerings were considered to be presented only by the king, as the great high-priest of all the land. Every formula of offering began 'May the king give an offering'; and the figure of the king making the offering, while the offerer stands behind him, is actually shown as late as the eighteenth dynasty. ”

“ Her worship and priesthood were far more popular than those of Osiris, persons were named after her much more often than after Osiris, and she appears far more usually in the activities of life. Her union in the Osiris myth by no moans blotted out her independent position and importance as a deity, though it gave her {44} a far more widespread devotion. The union of Horus with the myth, and the establishment of Isis as the mother goddess, was the main mode of her importance in later times. Isis as the nursing mother is seldom shown until the twenty-sixth dynasty ”

“ Where, however, the household depended on the work of the man, he naturally took the leading part. But the code of abstract morality, and the dictates of common prudence, between men and women, were of as high a standard as in any ancient or modern peoples. No reasonable legislator would wish to {88} add more, although six thousand years and Christianity have intervened since the Egyptian framed his life. The family sense of duty in training and advancing a man's sons was strongly urged. ”

“ Man in all times and places has speculated on the nature and origin of the world, and connected such questions with his theology. In Egypt there are not many primitive theories of creation, though some have various elaborated forms. ”

“ The twenty-sixth dynasty almost dropped the Ra theory; the Osirian kingdom and its population of slave figures is the most familiar view, and the preservation of the body by amulets was essential. Offerings of food rarely appear in these later times. This dominance of Osiris leads on to the anthropomorphic worship, which interacts on the growth of Christianity as we shall see further. ”