Through the Eras

Religionperiod papyrus of these texts, and coined the nameTotenbuch, which in English is Book of the Dead, andthat is how these texts have been known ever since.NEW KINGDOM. In addition to the Book of theDead, the New Kingdom pharaohs included in theirtombs a new type of funerary text, which scholars callunderworld books. These books described the nightlyjourney of the sun through the underworld, and it wasa goal of the dead pharaoh to join the sun god on thisvoyage. Scholars include several different compositionsamong the underworld books. The most important arethe Amduat, the Book of Gates, the Book of Caverns, andthe Book of the Earth. A similar category of text is foundin tombs after the Amarna period, which scholars callbooks of the sky. These texts represent the sun’s voyageas a passage along the body of the sky-goddess Nut. Duringthe day, the sun passes along her body, and at nightit is swallowed by Nut, passes through her internally untildawn, when the sun is reborn between her thighs.The compositions known as the Book of Nut, Book ofDay, and Book of Night belong to this genre of text.LITERATURE. Funerary texts are not the only sourceof knowledge on Egyptian religion. Egyptian literatureis replete with references to the gods and to people’s interactionswith them. Hymns and prayers are commonlyfound carved on tomb walls and on stelae (carved stoneslabs) set up as monuments to the king, memorials tothe deceased, or as votive offerings to the gods. Privateletters, contracts, royal decrees, and medical texts, whilenot “religious” in purpose, all contain references to thegods and preserve important information on Egyptianreligion. Instructional texts, used to train scribes, containadvice on how to live a life pleasing to the gods.Magical spells are an important source for some of themyths of the gods. Fortunately for modern scholarship,the ancient Egyptians covered the walls of their templeswith texts and scenes relating to the activities which wenton inside these massive buildings. The best-preservedtemples are also the latest (Ptolemaic and Roman periods),and caution must be exercised when using theselate sources to throw light on earlier religious practices.ARTIFACTS. The practice of burying goods with thedeceased has preserved important artifacts relating toEgyptian religion. Earliest evidence for Egyptian religioncomes from the burials of people and animals during thePredynastic period (4500–3100 B.C.E.). The fact thatpeople at this early stage were buried with grave goodsand foodstuffs indicates a belief in some sort of life afterdeath. Human figurines of clay and ivory includedin some of the burials may represent deities, but this isuncertain. The number of animal burials discoveredfrom this period may indicate that the Egyptians alreadyworshipped divine powers in animal form. Excavationsat the New Kingdom town sites of Amarna and Deir el-Medina have revealed important information about thepersonal religious practices of their inhabitants, andabout the types of shrines at which these practices werecarried out.THE GODSTOPICSin ReligionCHARACTERISTICS. For the Egyptians, the gods representedthe powers of nature conceived as personalizedbeings. They helped to explain the world, how it cameinto existence, why it continued to exist, and why eventsoccurred as they did. The Egyptian gods had many characteristicsthat distinguish them from the Western conceptionof “god.” Egyptian gods had a beginning; theydid not always exist. Egyptian texts speak of a time whenthe gods did not yet exist. The creator god (of whomthere are several) is unique in that he (or she, in one instance)creates himself; the other gods were born tomothers and fathers. This brings up another characteristicof Egyptian gods: they have gender, male and female.Some are said to go through a childhood and growto maturity. Not only did the Egyptian gods grow up,they grew old, and even died. An Egyptian deity couldbe killed, as when Seth killed his brother Osiris, or theycould simply grow old and die. Every day, the Egyptiansvisualized the setting sun as an old man near death. TheIbis-headed god Thoth determined the life spans of bothmen and the gods. Egyptian texts even make referencesto the tombs of the gods, and one late text even mentionsan entire graveyard of gods.LIMITATIONS. Egyptian gods had other limitationsas well. The Egyptians did not consider them to be omnipotent.Most gods and goddesses had power onlywithin certain closely defined areas, such as a particulartown, nome (province), or region of the world. Egyptianshad a term that meant “local gods,” meaning thegods of any particular locality. When an Egyptian travelerwas in another part of Egypt, or in another countrysuch as Nubia, he would pray to the local gods to protecthim. Egyptian gods were not considered omniscient;they did not know everything. The story of Isis and Re,in which Isis concocts a plan to learn Re’s secret name210 Arts and Humanities Through the Eras: Ancient Egypt (2675 B.C.E.–332 B.C.E.)