Primitive, or primitive, mythology is that figurative, poetic language that the ancient peoples used to explain the phenomena of nature. Everything visible in nature was taken by the ancients as the visible image of a deity: earth, sky, sun, stars, mountains, volcanoes, rivers, streams, trees - all these were deities, whose history was sung by ancient poets, and their images were sculpted by sculptors. Egyptian mythology comes closest to Greek. The Greeks, having conquered Egypt, became interested in its history and culture and studied its beliefs; they also gave the Egyptian myths their coloring and identified many Egyptian gods with the Olympian gods. “At the top of the divine Egyptian pantheon,” says Mariette, a famous French Egyptologist, “sits a single, immortal, uncreated god, invisible and hidden to ordinary mortals in the depths of his essence. He is the creator of heaven and earth, he created everything that exists, and nothing is created without him. This is a god who exists exclusively for those initiated into the sacrament of the sanctuary. The latest discoveries Egyptologists confirmed these assumptions. But outside the sanctuary, God takes on a thousand images, the most diverse, because his own attributes, embodied, are visible gods for the uninitiated crowd, whom art reproduces and, as it were, multiplies in countless images, infinitely varied. All the various forms that the Egyptian gods take in the images of the artists can be explained by the different conditions of the country and beliefs. The Egyptian religion was a collection of various cults which, over the course of many centuries, underwent numerous changes. Peoples of all races converged in the valley of the Nile, and each brought into religious belief the imprint of his general character and mind, philosophical or superstitious.
Egyptian mythology is not like any of the mythologies of other peoples, and a European cannot even understand it in the slightest degree on his own: two or three lines of the translated text for the average reader need to write five pages of notes and comments - otherwise he will not understand anything.
It turned out, for example, that the Egyptians did not even have rules that would prescribe how it is supposed to portray the gods. One and the same god was depicted either in the form of some animal, or in the form of a man with an animal head, or simply in the form of a man. Many gods in different cities were called differently, and for some, even during the day, their names changed several times. For example, the morning sun was embodied by the god Khepri, who, according to the Egyptians, took the form of a scarab beetle and rolled the solar disk to the zenith - just as a dung beetle rolls its ball in front of it; the daytime sun was embodied by the god Ra - a man with a falcon's head; and the evening, "dying" sun is the god Atum. Ra, Atum and Khepri were, as it were, three "varieties" of the same god - the god of the sun.
But the innumerable number of gods worshiped by the Egyptians could not completely erase from them the concept of a supreme and single deity, which, by whatever name it may be called, the sacred myths define everywhere by the same expressions, leaving no doubt that it is precisely this supreme and single being. Osiris is the sun god, Isis is his sister and wife, and Horus is their son. There were mythological legends about these gods, retold to us by Greek writers, and these myths are, as it were, symbols of the struggle between the sun and darkness, light and darkness. The details of these legends, or rather, Greek retellings, are interesting already because they explain to us the many Emblems and symbols that are often found on the monuments of Egyptian art. Isis was the first to give people rye and barley, and Osiris, the inventor of agricultural tools, founded society and social life, giving people laws, he also taught them to harvest. Then, wanting to extend his benefits to everyone, he travels all over the world, conquering people not with brute force, but with the charms of music. In his absence, his brother, the insidious Typhus, he, or Seth, personifying the barrenness of the desert, wants to reign in his place, but all the plans of the villain are broken by the willpower and stamina of Isis. Osiris returns. Typhon pretends to be delighted with the return of his brother, but in community with Azo, the queen of the Ethiopians, these primordial enemies of Egypt, he invites Osiris to a feast, where death awaits him. During the feast, a magnificent coffin is brought, causing enthusiastic praise from the feasters. The Egyptians took great care of their coffins and often, even during their lifetime, ordered luxurious coffins for themselves, which can explain this legend about the trick used by Typhon. Typhon announces that he will give the coffin to the one who fits freely in it, the coffin was ordered by him to measure his brother.
Everyone present tries to fit in it, but in vain. The turn of Osiris comes: he, suspecting nothing, lies down in it, and Typhon and his accomplices slam the lid, fill it with lead and throw the coffin into the Nile, from where it falls into the sea through one of the mouths of the river. Thus Osiris perished after a reign of twenty-eight years. As soon as Osiris dies, the whole country resounds with plaintive cries: the sad news of the death of her husband reaches Isis; she dresses in mourning clothes and goes to look for his body. She finds a coffin in the reeds near Byblos, but while she goes after her son Horus, Typhon takes possession of the body of Osiris, cuts it into fourteen pieces and throws the pieces into all the sleeves of the Nile. According to legend, Osiris, before becoming a god, reigned in Egypt, and the memory of his beneficence led him to identify with the principle of good, while his murderer identifies with evil. The same legend had another religious, moral explanation: Osiris is the setting sun, killed or swallowed up by darkness-gloom.
Isis - the Moon absorbs and stores, as much as it can, the rays of the sun, and Horus - the rising sun - avenges his father, dispelling the darkness. But if the sun is the visible manifestation of Osiris, then good is its moral manifestation; when the setting sun dies, it reappears on the horizon in the form of Horus, the son and avenger of Osiris. In the same way, good, perishing under the blows of evil, reappears in the form of triumphant good, in the form of evil that has conquered evil. Osiris personifies the setting, night sun, therefore he presides in the underground countries, judges the dead, and awards rewards to the righteous and punishment to sinful souls. On earth, the Nile valley belonged to the good gods - Isis and Osiris, while the barren and burning desert, as well as the harmful swamps of Lower Egypt, belonged to the evil Typhon. The agricultural tribes that inhabited the Nile Valley worshiped Apis, this incarnation of Osiris in the form of a bull - a symbol of agriculture, and the bull was dedicated to Osiris. And the nomadic tribes of the desert, always despised by the sedentary inhabitants of the cities, used the donkey for riding, and the donkey is an animal dedicated to Typhon. But since the destructive fumes of swamps are also the work of an evil spirit, they were embodied in a crocodile, an animal, and also dedicated to Typhon. Horus did not kill Typhon, because evil continues to exist on earth, but he weakened him and thereby strengthened the victory of divine law over the disorderly forces of nature. Osiris was often depicted as a mummy; his usual attributes are a hook or whip, a symbol of power, and the emblem of the Nile in the form of a cross with an eyelet at the top; this, however, is a hallmark of all Egyptian gods and is called by many scientists - researchers of mythology the key of the Nile.
One and the same act - the creation of the world, for example, or the creation of people - in each major city was attributed to different gods. All Egypt honored and loved the good god Osiris - and at the same time his killer, the god of evil Seth, was revered; names in honor of Seth were worn by the pharaohs; and - again at the same time - Seth was cursed. One religious text says that the crocodile god Sebek is the enemy of the solar god Ra, in another - that he is a friend and protector. The Underworld is described in completely different ways in different texts ... And in general - about any natural phenomenon at the same time there were many different ideas that contradicted each other in the most incomprehensible way. So, the sky was depicted in the form of a cow, and in the form of the wings of a kite, and in the form of a river - the heavenly Nile, and in the form of a woman - the heavenly goddess Nut.
It is very difficult to understand the psychological make-up, the way of thinking of another people, even when these people are our contemporaries. And even more so, the psychology of the ancient Egyptians is incomprehensible to us. How, for example, is it possible to imagine that they perceived the mysteries (a kind of “theatrical performances” on mythological plots) not as IMAGES of mythological events on the “stage”, but as THE EVENTS themselves that occur in reality? How to understand that the priest-embalmer, who during the mummification of the deceased put on the mask of the jackal-headed god of embalming Anubis, was considered the GOD ANUBIS HIMSELF as long as the mask was on him?
The Egyptians attached great importance to words - whether they were carved on a stone slab, written on papyrus, or spoken aloud. Words were for them not just a set of sounds or hieroglyphs: the Egyptians believed that words had magical properties that any phrase can affect the world. And the name of the person was of particular importance. If someone wanted to bring evil on his enemy, he wrote his name on a piece of papyrus and then burned this piece.
CONTENT
Introduction………………………………………………………. .3
Chapter 1.
Religious and mythological representations of the ancient Egyptians………………………………………………….5
Introduction.
The fragments of the religious texts of Ancient Egypt that have come down to us testify to how important a place was occupied in the Egyptian religion and culture by the belief in magic, that is, that with the help of magical practices (names, spells, charms, formulas, figures, images and amulets, as well as ceremonies accompanied by "words of power" 1), supernatural results can be achieved. From the very beginning of their history until its completion, the ancient Egyptians were influenced by this faith.
Egyptian magic arose at a time when the primitive inhabitants of pre-dynastic and prehistoric Egypt believed that the earth, the underworld, the air, the sky, were inhabited by countless creatures, visible and invisible. These creatures were considered friendly or hostile to man, depending on whether the natural phenomena that they allegedly commanded were favorable or unfavorable for people. The favor of meek and friendly beings could be achieved by gifts and sacrifices. And manifestations of hostility on the part of the harsh and unforgiving could be avoided either by pleasing them and flattering them, or by calling for help - by means of an amulet, a secret name, a magic formula, a drawing - forces more powerful than the one that threatened him. Most of the ancient peoples used magic to give a person the power of a supernatural being, to allow him to achieve what is beyond his capabilities, and become for a time as powerful as the true owner of this power. But Egyptian magic forced friendly and hostile forces to do the will of man, regardless of their desire.
From the religious books of ancient Egypt, we know that the power of a priest or a person who knows and skillfully uses magic was considered almost limitless.
Elements of Egyptian "black" and "white" magic can be traced in the magical systems of many countries of the world. It is impossible to say exactly how many beliefs and religious systems of other nations were influenced by them, but one thing is certain: the religious ideas of many pagan cults and Christian sects originate in Egypt.
The purpose of this work is to present the ideas of the beliefs of the ancient Egyptians regarding the gods, Judgment, Resurrection and Immortality. Consider in what ways they influenced the fate of a person, people and the state as a whole. An attempt to give an idea of the magical side of the Egyptian religion.
Chapter 1. Religious and mythological representations of the ancient Egyptians.
1.1 Egyptian mythology.
Sources for studying the mythology of Ancient Egypt are characterized by incompleteness and unsystematic presentation. The character and origin of many myths are reconstructed on the basis of later texts. The main monuments that reflected the mythological ideas of the Egyptians are a variety of religious texts: hymns and prayers to the gods, records of funeral rites on the walls of the tombs. The most significant of them are the "Pyramid Texts" - the oldest texts of royal funeral rituals carved on the walls. interior spaces pyramids of the pharaohs of the V and VI dynasties of the Old Kingdom (XXVI - XXIII centuries BC); "Texts of the sarcophagi", preserved on the sarcophagi of the Middle Kingdom (XXI - XVIII centuries BC), "The Book of the Dead" - compiled from the period of the New Kingdom to the end of the history of Egypt.
Egyptian mythology began to take shape in the 6th - 4th millennium BC. e., long before the rise of class society. Each region (nome) develops its own pantheon and the cult of gods embodied in heavenly bodies, stones, trees, birds, snakes, etc.
Cosmogonic myths, judging by the data of archeology, in the most ancient period of Egyptian history there were no cosmic gods who were credited with the creation of the world. Scholars believe that the first version of this myth originated shortly before the unification of Egypt. According to this version, the sun was born from the union of earth and sky. This personification is undoubtedly older than the cosmogonic ideas of priests from large religious centers. As usual, the already existing myth was not abandoned, and the images of Geb 2 and Nut 3 as the parents of the sun god Ra have been preserved in religion throughout ancient history. Nut brings forth the sun every morning and hides it every night in her womb.
Common to all cosmogonic concepts was the idea that the creation of the world was preceded by the chaos of water, immersed in eternal darkness. The beginning of the exit from chaos was associated with the emergence of light, the embodiment of which was the sun. The notion of an expanse of water from which a small hill initially emerges is closely related to Egyptian realities: it almost exactly corresponds to the annual flood of the Nile, the muddy waters of which covered the entire valley, and then, retreating, gradually opened up land ready for plowing. In this sense, the act of creation of the world, as it were, was repeated annually.
Egyptian myths about the beginning of the world do not represent a single, integral story. Often the same mythological events are depicted in different ways, and the gods in them appear in different guises. It is curious that with the multitude of cosmogonic plots explaining the creation of the world, very little space is given to the creation of man. It seemed to the ancient Egyptians that the gods created the world for people. In the written literary heritage of Egypt, there are very few direct indications of the creation of the human race, such indications are an exception. In the main, the Egyptians limited themselves to the belief that man owes his existence to the gods, who expect gratitude from him for this, understood very simply: a person must worship the gods, build and maintain temples, and regularly make sacrifices.
The priests of Heliopolis created their own version of the origin of the world, declaring it to be the creator of the sun god Ra, identified with other gods - creators Atum 4 and Khepri 5 . Atum was usually depicted as a man, Khepri as a scarab, which means that his cult dates back to the time when the gods were given the form of animals. Curiously, Khepri never had a place of worship of its own. As the personification of the rising sun, he was identical to Atum - the setting sun and Ra - the shining day. The appearance of a scarab attached to it was associated with the belief that this beetle is able to reproduce on its own, hence its divine creative power. And the sight of a scarab pushing its ball suggested to the Egyptians the image of a god rolling the sun across the sky.
The myth of the creation of the world by Atum, Ra and Khepri is recorded in the Pyramid Texts, and by the time its text was first carved in stone, it probably existed for a long time and was widely known.
According to the Pyramid Texts, Ra - Atum - Khepri created himself, emerging from the chaos called Nun. Nun, or the First Ocean, was usually depicted as a boundless pre-eternal body of water. Atum, emerging from it, did not find a place where he could hold on. Therefore, he created Ben-ben hill in the first place. Standing on this island of solid ground, Ra-Atum-Khepri set about creating other cosmic gods. Since he was alone, he had to give birth to the first pair of gods himself. From the union of this first pair, other gods were born, thus, according to the Heliopolitan myth, the earth and the deities ruling it appeared. In the ongoing act of creation from the first pair of gods - Shu (Air) and Tefnut (Moisture) - Geb (Earth) and Nut (Sky) were born. They in turn gave birth to two gods and two goddesses: Osiris, Set, Isis and Nephthys. Thus arose the Great Nine gods - the Ennead of Heliopolis.
Sometimes the vault of heaven was presented in the form of a cow with a body covered with stars, but there were also ideas according to which the sky is a water surface, the celestial Nile, along which the sun flows around the earth during the day. Under the ground there is also the Nile, along it the sun, having descended beyond the horizon, floats at night. The Nile, flowing through the earth, was personified in the image of the god Hapi, who contributed to the harvest with his fertile spills. The Nile itself was also inhabited by good and evil deities in the form of animals: crocodiles, hippos, frogs, scorpions, snakes, etc. The fertility of the fields was in charge of the goddess - the mistress of the bins and barns Renenutet, revered in the form of a snake that appears on the field during the harvest, careful harvesting. The grape harvest depended on the vine god Shai.
Myths of the funeral cult.
An important role in Egyptian mythology was played by ideas about the afterlife as a direct continuation of the earthly one, but only in the grave. Its necessary conditions are the preservation of the body of the deceased (hence the custom to mummify corpses), the provision of a dwelling for him (tomb), food (commemorative gifts and sacrifices brought by the living). Later, ideas arise that the dead (i.e., their ba, soul) go out into the sunlight during the day, fly up to heaven to the gods, wander through the underworld (duat). The essence of a person was conceived in the inseparable unity of his body, souls (it was believed that there were several of them: ka, ba; the Russian word “soul”, however, is not an exact match of the Egyptian concept), name, shadow. All sorts of monsters lie in wait for the soul wandering through the underworld, and you can escape from them with the help of special spells and prayers. Over the deceased, Osiris, together with other gods, administers the afterlife judgment (the 125th chapter of the Book of the Dead 6 is specially dedicated to him). Before the face of Osiris, psychostasia occurs: the weighing of the heart of the deceased on the scales, balanced by the truth (the image of the goddess Maat or her symbols). The sinner was devoured by the terrible monster Amt (a lion with the head of a crocodile), the righteous came to life for happy life in the fields of the Iaru. Justified at the court of Osiris could only be humble and patient in earthly life, one that did not steal, did not encroach on temple property, did not rebel, did not speak evil against the king, etc., and also “pure in heart” (“ I'm clean, clean, clean"- claims the deceased in court).
Agricultural myths.
The third main cycle of myths of Ancient Egypt is connected with Osiris. The cult of Osiris is associated with the spread of agriculture in Egypt. He is the god of the productive forces of nature (in the "Book of the Dead" he is called grain, in the "Pyramid Texts" - the god of the vine), withering and resurrecting vegetation. So, sowing was considered the funeral of grain - Osiris, the emergence of seedlings was perceived as his rebirth, and cutting ears during harvest - as the killing of a god. These functions of Osiris were reflected in the extremely common legend describing his death and rebirth. Osiris, who happily reigned in Egypt, was treacherously killed by his younger brother, the evil Seth. The sisters of Osiris, Isis (at the same time being his wife) and Nephthys, look for the body of the murdered man for a long time, and when they find it, they mourn. Isis conceives from the dead husband of the son of Horus. Having matured, Horus enters the fight against Set, at the court of the gods, with the help of Isis, he achieves recognition of himself as the only eligible heir of Osiris. Having defeated Set, Horus resurrects his father. However, Osiris, not wanting to remain on earth, becomes the king of the underworld and the supreme judge over the dead. The throne of Osiris on earth passes to Horus.
The myths associated with Osiris are reflected in numerous rituals. At the end of the last winter month "hoyak" - the beginning of the first month of spring "tibi", the mysteries of Osiris were performed, during which the main episodes of the myth about him were reproduced in dramatic form. The priestesses in the images of Isis and Nephthys depicted the search, mourning and burial of the god. Then there was a "great battle" between Horus and Seth. The drama ended with the erection of the “djed” pillar dedicated to Osiris, symbolizing the rebirth of God and, indirectly, of all nature. In the pre-dynastic period, the festival ended with a struggle between two groups of participants in the mysteries: one of them represented summer, and the other winter. Summer has always won (the resurrection of nature). After the unification of the country under the rule of the rulers of Upper Egypt, the nature of the mysteries changes. Now two groups are fighting, one of which is in the clothes of Upper Egypt, and the other is of Lower Egypt. The victory, of course, remains with the group symbolizing Upper Egypt. During the days of the mysteries of Osiris, the dramatized rites of the coronation of the pharaohs also celebrated. During the mystery, the young pharaoh acted as Horus, the son of Isis, and the deceased king was portrayed as Osiris sitting on the throne.
The character of Osiris as the god of vegetation was reflected in another cycle of rites. In a special room of the temple, a likeness of the figure of Osiris made of clay was erected, which was sown with grain. By the feast of Osiris, his image was covered with green shoots, which symbolized the rebirth of the god. In the drawings, the mummy of Osiris is often found with seedlings sprouting from it, which the priest waters.
The idea of Osiris as a god of fertility was also transferred to the pharaoh, who was considered the magical center of the country's fertility and therefore participated in all the main agricultural rites: with the onset of the rise of the Nile, he threw a scroll into the river - a decree that the beginning of the spill had come; the first solemnly began preparing the soil for sowing; he cut the first sheaf at the harvest festival, for the whole country he made a thanksgiving sacrifice to the goddess Renenutet 7 and the statues of the dead pharaohs after the completion of field work.
A bright trace in Egyptian mythology was left by the cult of animals, widespread in all periods of Egyptian history. Gods in the form of animals, with the heads of birds and beasts, scorpion gods, serpent gods act in Egyptian myths along with deities in human form. The more powerful the god was considered, the more cult animals were attributed to him, in the guise of which he could appear before people.
The Egyptian myths reflect the peculiarities of the worldview of the inhabitants of the Nile Valley, their ideas about the origin of the world and its structure, which have developed over thousands of years and have their roots in primitive times. Here are attempts to find the origins of being in the biological act of the creation of the gods, the search for the original substance personified by divine couples - the embryo of later teachings about the primary elements of the world, and, finally, as one of the highest achievements of Egyptian theological thought - the desire to explain the origin of the world, people and all culture as a result of the creative power embodied in the word of God.
1.2 Ancient Egyptian "Book of the Dead"
Ancient Egyptian Book of the Deada collection of spells that the Egyptians (during the New Kingdom and later) placed in tombs so that the dead could safely overcome the dangers of the other world and gain enlightened immortality. The current Egyptians used this term to designate papyrus scrolls with mysterious writings and drawings that they found along with the mummies of their distant ancestors, without extending it in any way to the content of the text, which they, of course, did not know.
The original title of The Book of the Dead was "Er nu peret em heru" 8 . It reflects the main essence of this wonderful text: to help the deceased pass all the dangers of the afterlife, pass the posthumous judgment and, together with the solar barge of the god Ra, return to earth again, that is, come to life, resurrect - "renew", as the Egyptians said. To conquer death in order to lead a spiritual and sensual existence later in a rejuvenated, beautiful, ageless body on an eternally beautiful fertile land surrounded by one's relatives and friends. This is a book about overcoming death, about defeating it, and at the same time about how to do it.
The history of the "Book of the Dead" dates back to infinitely distant times, when the primitive religious ideas of the ancient inhabitants of the Nile Valley began to take shape in an increasingly complex cult of local gods and a funeral ritual that took shape in its main features. Apparently, even before the unification of Egypt into one state, in the pre-literate period, a collection of funeral formulas began to take shape, much later, under the pharaohs of the V-VIth dynasties (c. 2355 BC), inscribed on the walls of burial chambers is already very modest but the size of the royal pyramids (the famous grandiose pyramids in Giza are "silent"). The first time this happened under Pharaoh Unis, already at the end of the Old Kingdom.
These inscriptions were discovered at the end of the last century by the outstanding French Egyptologist G. Maspero and called them "Pyramid Texts". This work, apparently, was a record of a funeral ritual and concerned exclusively the royal person, which, of course, does not mean that all other inhabitants of Egypt did not have any ideas about posthumous existence at all. However, in the tombs of the necropolises of the Old Kingdom, there are no texts concerning the posthumous residence of the "simple" dead. So, speaking about the era of the Old Kingdom, we can only judge the posthumous existence of the pharaoh, who was expected to stand before the gods and join their host. After death, he flew up to the sky and there, in the endless starry space, he sailed together with the sun god Ra in the “Boat of Millions of Years”. “Your wings grow like a falcon, you are broad-chested like a hawk, which is looked at in the evening after it has crossed the sky”; “The flying one flies. He flew away from you, people, because he does not belong to the Earth, he belongs to the sky ... "
With the completion of the Old Kingdom, at the end of the third millennium BC. e., funerary literature undergoes significant changes. Now not only the pharaoh had funeral texts, going to the kingdom of the gods: a similar fate awaited everyone. Already during the last dynasties of the Old Kingdom, the Pyramid Texts began to leave the burial chambers of all Egyptian rulers and appeared on the inner and outer walls of the rectangular wooden sarcophagi of their subjects. In many ways, these are the same "Texts of the Pyramids", but nevertheless they are already so different from them that they clearly represent a new stage in the development of funeral literature. In the "Texts of the Sarcophagi" (as they are called in the scientific literature), the solar cult associated with the deified pharaoh is intertwined with the chthonic (earthly); the afterlife is located in a very special place in the space of the universe, where every night Ra goes with his retinue to fight the forces of darkness. Here, as in the Pyramid Texts, there are many magical formulas and spells, references to ancient myths (already more related to Osiris) and liturgical recitatives. All this is divided into separate "sayings", or chapters, which have their own names, many of which later entered the "Book of the Dead". On the sarcophagi of the XIIth Dynasty (c. 1991 BC), another text appears, dedicated to afterlife wanderings and related in language to the era of the Old Kingdom. This is the famous "Book of Two Ways", created in order to ease the way for the deceased to the Fields of Hotep (Fields of the World) fields of eternal bliss, where wheat is the height of a man, where there are no crop failures and hunger, where the dead are in endless bliss under the shadow of Naunet- the mysterious sky of the underworld.
It is in The Book of Two Ways that the text-illustrating images that are so important in the Book of the Dead first appear. B. A. Turaev writes about the “Book of Two Ways” as follows: “This is an illustrated vade mecum of the deceased, facilitating his journey on land and water of the afterlife and consisting of a map of the latter and texts that fall into 16 “chapters” (collection of “sayings ”) in three groups. The first group begins with an appeal to some deity, who gives a pass to travel through the necropolis of Sokar Ra-Setau, where the deceased eases the suffering of Osiris, who is then glorified. The wanderer then speaks of his victory over the enemy, whom he holds in his claws like a lion. It all ends with the words: “This book was under the sandals of Thoth. The end of it..." The second group speaks of the pilgrimage of the deceased to various Egyptian shrines, apparently transferred to another world. He goes to Heliopolis, and to Buto, and to the "House of Life of Abydos", and "to the pure land of the Nile"; everywhere he sees local shrines and sights. The third group actually presents The Book of Two Ways. After depicting the doors to these paths, a map is given, divided in full length by a red stripe depicting the “sea of fire”: above it are “water routes”, below are land routes. The former lead first along the fiery lake; the text warns at the crossroads by the fiery sea: "do not go to him." On land, the soul passes through dams guarded by guards, in front of which one has to read the "saying of passage" or impersonate gods for free passage. As can be seen from the above description, reaching the places of eternal bliss was not easy, and sometimes deadly, and became almost impossible without an accurate knowledge of the topography of the afterlife and a “face-to-face” representation of its inhabitants. Without an accurate map and a detailed image, it was impossible to travel along the two paths of the realm of the dead. From now on, funeral literature began to be accompanied by drawings that facilitated this risky journey and eventually became an independent type of Egyptian graphics - an integral part of the papyri of the Book of the Dead.
With the end of the Middle Kingdom, a new period in the development of religious literature begins. At this time, the funeral texts written on papyrus become the property of almost all strata of the population. As in the previous era, the main collection of funerary texts is being formed, replacing the "Texts of the Sarcophagi" of the Middle Kingdom. Already at its very end, the first papyrus scrolls appear, and from the 18th dynasty (c. 1552 BC) they spread everywhere. “From this time onwards, ... the religious texts concerning the underworld were collected together and written down in the form we now know as the Book of the Dead, and every Egyptian who was wealthy enough to afford to pay the scribe even for the most incomplete list of sacred texts, took with him to the grave a papyrus scroll, which might be a short passage, containing no more than the most necessary chapters, or might be an imposing work, reaching a hundred feet or more in length, and containing all the precautions that the wisdom of the Egyptian the scribe knew against the dangers of the dark world of the Duat. This is why nine out of every ten Egyptian papyri are funerary papyri, and why nine out of every ten funerary papyri are copies of what we know as the Book of the Dead, while others are copies of later versions and abbreviations of this basic book, the Book of Gates. "The Book of Breathing", "The Book of Knowledge of What is in the Underworld", and so on" 9 . Of course, the manufacture of papyrus scrolls required much less cost time and money than painting bulky wooden boxes. It should also be remembered that in the era of the New Kingdom, anthropoid sarcophagi became widespread, repeating the shape of the human body and unsuitable for placing long inscriptions. The new papyrus collection was produced almost “on the fly” leaving free space for the name of the buyer. This is how the vast majority of the scrolls are made.
The "Book of the Dead" was, as it were, the result of the entire long development of Egyptian religious literature. This, the third stage of its existence, corresponding to the era of the New Kingdom (1580-1085 BC), shows what a difficult path theological thought has traveled over many hundreds of years. The main object of the funeral cult is Osiris - the chthonic deity, the Good God, the wise lord of the kingdom of the dead, the underground sun, administering the posthumous judgment and restoring justice, whose house is located right on the Fields of Ialu (Fields of Reeds), where the deceased work.
Like so many other peoples, the Egyptians were sure that some events in the other world could be influenced from here. It is possible, for example, to somehow influence the fate of the deceased or influence the higher forces acting "from there." For these purposes, they resorted to magic.
The magic of the ancient Egyptians is one of the most attractive phenomena for modern admirers of mysticism and the secret knowledge of antiquity, but in fact it is very close to the actions performed by shamans, whose activity is mainly aimed at influencing the otherworldly forces of another world.
Now - about the text itself. The "Book of the Dead" is a collection of sayings of various purposes, often conventionally referred to as chapters in literature. They can be divided into three categories: prayers and hymns to various gods, magic spells and records of the funeral ritual (explanations on how to set up a burial bed, how to furnish a burial chamber, etc.). The order and number of sayings in different lists were different. And, not the last role here was played by the solvency of the customer. The total number of sayings found in different copies of the Book of the Dead is 193, but in fact complete collection chapters do not seem to exist. There was also a text called "Peret em heru in one chapter", which, if necessary, could replace all the others.
The current numbering of the chapters was proposed by the German Egyptologist of the last century R. Lepsius on the basis of a copy of the Book of the Dead published by him of a rather late, Ptolemaic era (305-30 BC), when the order of sayings was already unified. Although the vast majority of sayings have titles, they do not always correspond to the content of the text itself; First of all, this applies to spells. It is difficult to talk about the logical structure of each scroll, but if we consider the entire collection as a whole, then it becomes more noticeable.
The contents of the "Book of the Dead" can be divided into four parts (as the French Egyptologist A. Moret did): 1) Chapters 1-16. procession of the funeral procession to the necropolis; prayers for "going out into the day"; hymns to the sun and Osiris. 2) Chapters 17-63: "going out into the day" and the resurrection of the dead; his victory over the forces of darkness; impotence of enemies; the power of the deceased over the elements. 3) Chapters 64-129: "going out into the day" - the transformation of the deceased into a deity; his introduction to the solar boat: the knowledge of various sacraments; aversion to the tomb; afterlife court. 4) Chapters 130-162: glorification of the deceased - texts intended to be read throughout the year (on certain holidays, on the days of offering gifts to the deceased) and aimed at protecting the mummy. This is the content of Peret em Heru itself; before the 63rd chapter is the title: “Brought in from another book in addition -“ Peret em heru ”, and then 30 more chapters follow.
The drawings placed together with the text played a colossal role: the first example of a book illustration in history. So the content received not only verbal, but also pictorial expression.
The nature of Egyptian picture writing is such that the images on the pages of the Book of the Dead were not only viewed by the Egyptians, but were read in much the same way as the text. In this respect, the illustrations for the collection were more informative for contemporaries than for us.
Chapter 2. Magic in Ancient Egypt.
“Magic” among the Egyptians existed in two varieties: on the one hand, it was used legally for the benefit of the living and the dead, on the other hand, it was an instrument of secret conspiracies and was designed to harm those against whom it was used. There is no doubt that the main purpose of magical books and ceremonies was to benefit those who had acquired sufficient knowledge. Unfortunately, the foreigners who visited Egypt did not understand its customs, as a result of which a misinterpretation of the religion of the Egyptians and an exaggerated opinion of their capabilities were spread among the neighboring peoples. The magical ceremonies performed at burials seemed to the ignorant to be either stupid superstitions or methods of "black" magic.
If the magic of any people of the Ancient East was directed against the forces of darkness and the people who used it sought to counteract their cruel plans by attracting a number of benevolent creatures to their side, then the Egyptians sought to gain power over their gods and be able to call them on to your desire. Such grandiose results were achieved with the help of certain words, which, in order to have an effect, had to be pronounced in a special way by a specially trained person. It was also possible to write them on some material - papyrus, precious stone and similar things that a person wore on himself, if, of course, the effect of these words could be transmitted over a distance. Such amulets or talismans in Egypt were worn by almost everyone who could afford it (whether a man, woman or child), so it is not surprising that the Egyptians from ancient times were considered a people of magicians and sorcerers. Jewish, Greek and Roman authors speak of them as experts in the occult sciences and lords of forces, which, depending on the circumstances, can be used for the benefit or harm of a person.
Having reached a high level of development of crafts, the Egyptians were very skilled also in literary compositions and in the production of books, especially those that were associated with ceremonies performed for the benefit of the dead.
Now we will briefly consider the main means used by the Egyptians to perform magical actions: stones, amulets, figurines, images, formulas, names, ceremonies, and so on.
2.1 Magic stones and amulets.
We call amulets various items, jewelry and clothing items that were used by the Egyptians, and later by other peoples, to protect the body of a living or deceased person from death.
etc.................
Sources for studying the mythology of Ancient Egypt are characterized by incompleteness and unsystematic presentation. The character and origin of many myths are reconstructed on the basis of later texts. The main monuments that reflected the mythological ideas of the Egyptians are a variety of religious texts: hymns and prayers to the gods, records of funeral rites on the walls of the tombs. The most significant of them are the "Pyramid Texts" - the oldest texts of royal funeral rituals carved on the walls of the interiors of the pyramids of the pharaohs of the V and VI dynasties of the Old Kingdom (XXVI - XXIII centuries BC); "Texts of the sarcophagi", preserved on the sarcophagi of the Middle Kingdom (XXI - XVIII centuries BC), "The Book of the Dead" - compiled from the period of the New Kingdom to the end of the history of Egypt.
Egyptian mythology began to take shape in the 6th - 4th millennium BC. e., long before the rise of class society. Each region (nome) develops its own pantheon and the cult of gods embodied in heavenly bodies, stones, trees, birds, snakes, etc.
The significance of Egyptian myths is invaluable, they provide valuable material for a comparative study of religious ideas in the Ancient East, and for the study of the ideology of the Greco-Roman world, and for the history of the emergence and development of Christianity.
Cosmogonic myths
Judging by the data of archeology, in the most ancient period of Egyptian history there were no cosmic gods to whom the creation of the world was attributed. Scholars believe that the first version of this myth originated shortly before the unification of Egypt. According to this version, the sun was born from the union of earth and sky. This personification is undoubtedly older than the cosmogonic ideas of priests from large religious centers. As usual, the already existing myth was not abandoned, and the images of Geb (the earth god) and Nut (the sky goddess) as the parents of the sun god Ra have been preserved in religion throughout ancient history. Nut brings forth the sun every morning and hides it every night in her womb.
Theological systems that offered a different version of the creation of the world probably arose at the same time in several of the largest cult centers: Heliopolis, Hermopolis and Memphis. Each of these centers declared the creator of the world to be its main god, who, in turn, was the father of other gods who united around him.
Common to all cosmogonic concepts was the idea that the creation of the world was preceded by the chaos of water, immersed in eternal darkness. The beginning of the exit from chaos was associated with the emergence of light, the embodiment of which was the sun. The notion of an expanse of water from which a small hill initially emerges is closely related to Egyptian realities: it almost exactly corresponds to the annual flood of the Nile, the muddy waters of which covered the entire valley, and then, retreating, gradually opened up land ready for plowing. In this sense, the act of creation of the world, as it were, was repeated annually.
Egyptian myths about the beginning of the world do not represent a single, integral story. Often the same mythological events are depicted in different ways, and the gods in them appear in different guises. It is curious that with the multitude of cosmogonic plots explaining the creation of the world, very little space is given to the creation of man. It seemed to the ancient Egyptians that the gods created the world for people. In the written literary heritage of Egypt, there are very few direct indications of the creation of the human race, such indications are an exception. In the main, the Egyptians limited themselves to the belief that man owes his existence to the gods, who expect gratitude from him for this, understood very simply: a person must worship the gods, build and maintain temples, and regularly make sacrifices.
The priests of Heliopolis created their own version of the origin of the world, declaring it to be the creator of the sun god Ra, identified with other gods - the creators of Atum and Khepri ("Atum" means "Perfect", the name "Khepri" can be translated as "He who arises" or "He who who brings it into being." Atum was usually depicted as a man, Khepri as a scarab, which means that his cult dates back to the time when the gods were given the form of animals. Curiously, Khepri never had a place of worship of its own. As the personification of the rising sun, he was identical to Atum - the setting sun and Ra - the shining day. The appearance of a scarab attached to it was associated with the belief that this beetle is able to reproduce on its own, hence its divine creative power. And the sight of a scarab pushing its ball suggested to the Egyptians the image of a god rolling the sun across the sky.
The myth of the creation of the world by Atum, Ra and Khepri is recorded in the Pyramid Texts, and by the time its text was first carved in stone, it probably existed for a long time and was widely known.
According to the Pyramid Texts, Ra - Atum - Khepri created himself, emerging from the chaos called Nun. Nun, or the First Ocean, was usually depicted as a boundless pre-eternal body of water. Atum, emerging from it, did not find a place where he could hold on. Therefore, he created Ben-ben hill in the first place. Standing on this island of solid ground, Ra-Atum-Khepri set about creating other cosmic gods. Since he was alone, he had to give birth to the first pair of gods himself. From the union of this first pair, other gods were born, thus, according to the Heliopolitan myth, the earth and the deities ruling it appeared. In the ongoing act of creation from the first pair of gods - Shu (Air) and Tefnut (Moisture) - Geb (Earth) and Nut (Sky) were born. They in turn gave birth to two gods and two goddesses: Osiris, Set, Isis and Nephthys. Thus arose the Great Nine gods - the Ennead of Heliopolis.
This version of the creation of the world was not the only one in Egyptian mythology. According to one of the legends, the creator of people was, for example, a potter - the god Khnum, who appeared in the form of a ram - who fashioned them from clay.
The theologians of Memphis, the largest political and religious center of Ancient Egypt, one of its capitals, included in their myth of the creation of the world many gods belonging to different religious centers, and subordinated them to Ptah as the creator of everything. The Memphis version of cosmogony is much more abstract compared to the Heliopolis version: the world and the gods were not created with the help of a physical act - as in the process of creation by Atum - but exclusively by thought and word.
Sometimes the vault of heaven was presented in the form of a cow with a body covered with stars, but there were also ideas according to which the sky is a water surface, the celestial Nile, along which the sun flows around the earth during the day. Under the ground there is also the Nile, along it the sun, having descended beyond the horizon, floats at night. The Nile, flowing through the earth, was personified in the image of the god Hapi, who contributed to the harvest with his fertile spills. The Nile itself was also inhabited by good and evil deities in the form of animals: crocodiles, hippos, frogs, scorpions, snakes, etc. The fertility of the fields was in charge of the goddess - the mistress of the bins and barns Renenutet, revered in the form of a snake that appears on the field during the harvest, careful harvesting. The grape harvest depended on the vine god Shai.
Mortuary cult myths
An important role in Egyptian mythology was played by ideas about the afterlife as a direct continuation of the earthly one, but only in the grave. Its necessary conditions are the preservation of the body of the deceased (hence the custom to mummify corpses), the provision of a dwelling for him (tomb), food (commemorative gifts and sacrifices brought by the living). Later, ideas arise that the dead (i.e., their ba, soul) go out into the sunlight during the day, fly up to heaven to the gods, wander through the underworld (duat). The essence of a person was conceived in the inseparable unity of his body, souls (it was believed that there were several of them: ka, ba; Russian word"soul", however, is not an exact match of the Egyptian concept), name, shadow. All sorts of monsters lie in wait for the soul wandering through the underworld, and you can escape from them with the help of special spells and prayers. Over the deceased, Osiris, together with other gods, administers the afterlife judgment (the 125th chapter of the Book of the Dead is specially dedicated to him). Before the face of Osiris, psychostasia occurs: the weighing of the heart of the deceased on the scales, balanced by the truth (the image of the goddess Maat or her symbols). The sinner was devoured by the terrible monster Amt (a lion with the head of a crocodile), the righteous came to life for a happy life in the fields of Iaru. Justified at the court of Osiris could only be a humble and patient in earthly life, one that did not steal, did not encroach on temple property, did not rebel, did not speak evil against the king, etc., as well as “pure in heart” (“I am pure , pure, pure," the deceased claims at the trial).
Agricultural myths
The third main cycle of myths of Ancient Egypt is connected with Osiris. The cult of Osiris is associated with the spread of agriculture in Egypt. He is the god of the productive forces of nature (in the "Book of the Dead" he is called grain, in the "Pyramid Texts" - the god of the vine), withering and resurrecting vegetation. So, sowing was considered the funeral of grain - Osiris, the emergence of seedlings was perceived as his rebirth, and cutting ears during harvest - as the killing of a god. These functions of Osiris were reflected in the extremely common legend describing his death and rebirth. Osiris, who happily reigned in Egypt, was treacherously killed by his younger brother, the evil Seth. The sisters of Osiris, Isis (at the same time being his wife) and Nephthys, look for the body of the murdered man for a long time, and when they find it, they mourn. Isis conceives from the dead husband of the son of Horus. Having matured, Horus enters the fight against Set, at the court of the gods, with the help of Isis, he achieves recognition of himself as the only eligible heir of Osiris. Having defeated Set, Horus resurrects his father. However, Osiris, not wanting to remain on earth, becomes the king of the underworld and the supreme judge over the dead. The throne of Osiris on earth passes to Horus. (In another version of the myth, the resurrection of Osiris is associated with the annual floods of the Nile, which are explained by the fact that Isis, mourning Osiris, after the "night of tears" fills the river with her tears.)
The myths associated with Osiris are reflected in numerous rituals. At the end of the last winter month "hoyak" - the beginning of the first month of spring "tibi", the mysteries of Osiris were performed, during which the main episodes of the myth about him were reproduced in dramatic form. The priestesses in the images of Isis and Nephthys depicted the search, mourning and burial of the god. Then there was a "great battle" between Horus and Seth. The drama ended with the erection of the “djed” pillar dedicated to Osiris, symbolizing the rebirth of God and, indirectly, of all nature. In the pre-dynastic period, the festival ended with a struggle between two groups of participants in the mysteries: one of them represented summer, and the other winter. Summer has always won (the resurrection of nature). After the unification of the country under the rule of the rulers of Upper Egypt, the nature of the mysteries changes. Now two groups are fighting, one of which is in the clothes of Upper Egypt, and the other is of Lower Egypt. The victory, of course, remains with the group symbolizing Upper Egypt. During the days of the mysteries of Osiris, the dramatized rites of the coronation of the pharaohs also celebrated. During the mystery, the young pharaoh acted as Horus, the son of Isis, and the deceased king was portrayed as Osiris sitting on the throne.
The character of Osiris as the god of vegetation was reflected in another cycle of rites. In a special room of the temple, a likeness of the figure of Osiris made of clay was erected, which was sown with grain. By the feast of Osiris, his image was covered with green shoots, which symbolized the rebirth of the god. In the drawings, the mummy of Osiris is often found with seedlings sprouting from it, which the priest waters.
The idea of Osiris as a god of fertility was also transferred to the pharaoh, who was considered the magical center of the country's fertility and therefore participated in all the main agricultural rites: with the onset of the rise of the Nile, he threw a scroll into the river - a decree that the beginning of the spill had come; the first solemnly began preparing the soil for sowing; he cut the first sheaf at the harvest festival, for the whole country he made a thanksgiving sacrifice to the goddess of the harvest Renenutet and the statues of the dead pharaohs after the end of the field work.
A bright trace in Egyptian mythology was left by the cult of animals, widespread in all periods of Egyptian history. Gods in the form of animals, with the heads of birds and beasts, scorpion gods, serpent gods act in Egyptian myths along with deities in human form. The more powerful the god was considered, the more cult animals were attributed to him, in the guise of which he could appear before people.
The Egyptian myths reflect the peculiarities of the worldview of the inhabitants of the Nile Valley, their ideas about the origin of the world and its structure, which have developed over thousands of years and have their roots in primitive times. Here are attempts to find the origins of being in the biological act of the creation of the gods, the search for the original substance personified by divine couples - the embryo of later teachings about the primary elements of the world, and, finally, as one of the highest achievements of Egyptian theological thought - the desire to explain the origin of the world, people and all culture as a result of the creative power embodied in the word of God.
Sometimes Egypt is called the most religious culture in the history of mankind, and this statement has sufficient grounds. In any traditional society, religious and mythological systems are meaningful, largely determining the specifics of civilization and the originality of culture, but in Egypt the religious system was distinguished by its special integrity and immutability, as well as the important social role played by the priesthood.
Yanko Slava(Library Fort/Da) || [email protected] || http://yanko.lib.ru
The mythological system of Egypt can be described as polytheistic, since it included the cults of many gods (circa 2000). The gods were local and general, most of the gods had their own native city where the main temple was located. With the strengthening of certain Egyptian centers, the transfer of capitals, the places of the gods in the hierarchy changed. The supreme god was the god Ra - the god of the Sun. All cosmogonic myths are connected with him, he acted as a demiurge - the creator and ruler of the world. The sun among the Egyptians had many names and forms, but the main one was the god Ra. At the same time, there were ideas about the goddess of Heaven - Nut, who gives birth to the sun in the morning, and swallows it in the evening - and night comes. The multivariate explanation of the same natural phenomenon (the myth of the god Ra, in a golden boat sailing along the heavenly Nile, has already been mentioned) - salient feature mythological consciousness in general, and Egyptian mythology in particular. Some gods and goddesses personified natural elements or phenomena, many had the appearance of animals and birds. Most of the gods and goddesses were related by kinship. God Osiris belongs to the type of cultural heroes: according to the myths, he was the first pharaoh of Egypt, taught people agriculture and cattle breeding, gave them wine and cereals. In the era of the Middle Kingdom, the cult of Osiris became the central link in funeral beliefs, he was revered primarily as the god of the dead. Egyptian beliefs include a very complex system of myths, not amenable to logical ordering, since it was a system of figurative thinking. The most famous is the myth of Osiris and Isis, retold in detail by the Roman historian Plutarch. According to the myth, Osiris was an exemplary ruler, but his brother Seth, jealous of him, tricked Osiris into a magnificent sarcophagus and killed him. The wife of Osiris, Isis, goes in search of the body of Osiris and, with the help of Anubis, brings him back to life.
The son of Osiris and Isis Horus becomes the ruler of Egypt, and Osiris rules in the Kingdom of the Dead.
In the era of the Old Kingdom, it was believed that only the pharaoh, thanks to a magical funeral rite, could come to life after death, just as Osiris came to life. In the era of the Middle Kingdom, every dead Egyptian is identified with Osiris. It was assumed that with strict observance of the funeral ritual, each Egyptian, like Osiris, would be able to be reborn for an eternal afterlife.
The goddess Isis, sister and wife of Osiris, was the goddess of fertility and navigation, a symbol of femininity, family fidelity and motherhood. Isis gained particular popularity in the Greco-Roman world. The cult of Isis influenced Christian dogma and art. The image of the Mother of God with the baby in her arms goes back to the image of Isis and her son Horus. The myth of Osiris refers to the myths of the dying and resurrecting god or calendar myth (because it was supposed to be related to seasonal changes in nature). Researchers working within the framework of the psychological approach in mythology (the so-called transpersonal psychologists) believe that in myths about a dying and resurrecting god, religious experience reflects the unconscious mental experiences of a child in the womb and during childbirth, thus this type of myth does not reflect the regularity of natural changes, but is, in their opinion, a special form of psychotherapy, removing and healing mental trauma.
The god Thoth also belongs to the type of cultural heroes - the god of wisdom and knowledge, time calculation, the god - the patron of the priesthood.
Zoomorphic (animal-like features) can be traced in the image of many Egyptian gods. A characteristic feature of Egyptian mythology was the deification of animals as the embodiment of various deities. Such animals as a bull (Apis), a cat (Bast), a crocodile (Sebek), a lioness (Tefnut), a jackal (Anubis) were revered. zoomorphic
features in the appearance of deities were preserved in mythology, combined with anthropomorphic ones. So, for example, the god Horus, the son of Osiris and Isis, was depicted with the head of a falcon, and the god Thoth was depicted with the head of a baboon or an ibis bird.
Textbook=HISTORY OF WORLD CULTURE-(World Civilizations)=Managing Editor I. Zhilyakov
Yanko Slava(Library Fort/Da) || [email protected] || http://yanko.lib.ru
The funeral cult played a huge role in Egyptian mythology: afterlife It was presented as a direct continuation of the earth, a necessary condition was the preservation of the body of the deceased (in connection with which the rite of mummification spread), the construction of dwellings (pyramids and tombs), and the sacrifice of gifts as food. The Egyptians saw death not so much as a transition to a better life in the other world (the position to which Christianity has accustomed us), as much as a continuation of life on earth. In the ancient Egyptian papyri, modern researchers find the principles of the ethics of hedonism (ethics of pleasure). Life, its value and originality, beauty and happiness were so valued that they were supposed to live in the afterlife, where people continue to live as on earth.
Primitive, or primitive, mythology is that figurative,
poetic language used by ancient peoples to explain natural phenomena. Everything visible in nature was taken by the ancients as the visible image of a deity: earth, sky, sun, stars, mountains, volcanoes, rivers, streams, trees - all these were deities, whose history was sung by ancient poets, and their images were sculpted by sculptors. Egyptian mythology comes closest to Greek. The Greeks, having conquered Egypt, became interested in its history and culture and studied its beliefs; they also gave the Egyptian myths their coloring and identified many Egyptian gods with the Olympian gods. “At the top of the divine Egyptian pantheon,” says Mariette, a famous French Egyptologist, “sits a single, immortal, uncreated god, invisible and hidden to ordinary mortals in the depths of his essence. He is the creator of heaven and earth, he created everything that exists, and nothing is created without him. This is a god who exists exclusively for those initiated into the sacrament of the sanctuary. The latest discoveries in Egyptology have confirmed these assumptions. But outside the sanctuary, God takes on a thousand forms, the most diverse. All the various forms that the Egyptian gods take in the images of the artists can be explained by the different conditions of the country and beliefs. Egyptian mythology is not like any of the mythologies of other peoples.
It turned out, for example, that the Egyptians did not even have rules that would prescribe how it is supposed to portray the gods. One and the same god was depicted either in the form of some animal, or in the form of a man with an animal head, or simply in the form of a man. Many gods in different cities were called differently, and for some, even during the day, their names changed several times. For example, the morning sun was embodied by the god Khepri, who, according to the Egyptians, took the form of a scarab beetle and rolled the solar disk to the zenith - just as a dung beetle rolls its ball in front of it; the daytime sun was embodied by the god Ra, a man with the head of a falcon; and the evening, "dying" sun is the god Atum. Ra, Atum and Khepri were, as it were, three "varieties" of the same god - the god of the sun.
But the innumerable number of gods worshiped by the Egyptians could not completely erase from them the concept of a supreme and single deity, which, by whatever name it may be called, the sacred myths define everywhere by the same expressions, leaving no doubt that it is precisely this supreme and single being. Osiris is the sun god, Isis is his sister and wife, and Horus is their son. There were mythological legends about these gods, retold to us by Greek writers, and these myths are, as it were, symbols of the struggle between the sun and darkness, light and darkness. The details of these legends, or rather, Greek retellings, are interesting already because they explain to us the many Emblems and symbols that are often found on the monuments of Egyptian art.
Isis was the first to give people rye and barley, and Osiris, the inventor of agricultural tools, founded society and social life, giving people laws, he also taught them to harvest. Yielding to his brother's deceit, he was killed. Several versions of the death of Osiris are known. His body was divided into fourteen parts and sent to all the branches of the Nile. According to legend, Osiris, before becoming a god, reigned in Egypt, and the memory of his good deeds made him identify with the principle of good, while his killer - Seth (Typhos) identifies evil. The same legend had another religious, moral explanation: Osiris is the setting sun, killed or swallowed up by darkness-gloom. Isis - the Moon absorbs them, hurts them as much as it can, the rays of the sun, and Horus - the rising sun - avenges his father, dispelling the darkness. The agricultural tribes that inhabited the Nile Valley. worshiped Apis, this incarnation of Osiris in the form of a bull - a symbol of agriculture, and the bull was dedicated to Osiris. And the nomadic tribes of the desert, always despised by the sedentary inhabitants of the cities, used the donkey for riding, and the donkey is an animal dedicated to Typhon. But since the destructive fumes of swamps are also the work of an evil spirit, they were embodied in a crocodile, an animal, and also dedicated to Typhon. Horus did not kill Typhon, because evil continues to exist on earth, but he weakened him and thereby strengthened the victory of divine law over the disorderly forces of nature. Osiris was often depicted as a mummy; his usual attributes are a hook or whip, a symbol of power, and the emblem of the Nile in the form of a cross with an eyelet at the top; this, however, is a hallmark of all Egyptian gods and is called by many scientists - researchers of mythology the key of the Nile.
The religion of Egypt is a very diverse phenomenon. For more than three thousand years of Egyptian history, its religion has undergone various changes, the gods of individual nomes became the main gods of the state, changed names or merged with other gods, but the basic concept remained unchanged. Belief in the afterlife, judgment on deeds committed during life, the need to take care of the safety of the body of a deceased person, the deification of the pharaoh, etc. remained until the advent of Christianity, and later gradually passed into Christianity in the form of veneration of the bodies or their remains of various martyrs, saints, etc. guardians for all mankind.
It should be mentioned that in Egypt there was no state religion in the modern sense, just as there was no single church organization. Although each god had its own high priests, they were not united and there was constant rivalry between the priestly factions for influence. In this regard, there were no obligatory religious dogmas for the whole country, and there was no unification of religious beliefs. The religion of the Egyptians was a combination of often contradictory, and sometimes mutually exclusive beliefs that arose in different times and in different parts of the country. The Egyptians themselves felt these contradictions, the priests of such large religious centers as Heliopolis, Hermopolis, Memphis, Thebes, and others sought to streamline the historically emerging chaotic conglomeration of religious beliefs. But the psychological impossibility of abandoning the ancient religious views, even with their contradiction to new religious concepts, a deep adherence to tradition is characteristic of the Egyptian religion.
Egyptian magic, originating in pre-dynastic times, became the basis of religion. It existed in two varieties: on the one hand, it was used for the benefit of the living and the dead, on the other hand, it was an instrument of secret conspiracies and was designed to harm those against whom it was used. The ancient Egyptians attached great importance to amulets, they were called upon to protect the body of a living or dead person from fatal influences and attacks by visible or invisible enemies.
Along with amulets, the Egyptians also believed that it was possible to transfer the soul of the one whom it depicts to the figurine of any living creature. These include the so-called "ushabti" which were placed along with the deceased, so that in the afterlife he performed all the duties that the gods would order the deceased. Figurines of people or animals with the appropriate magic words were also used to protect people from evil forces.
Great importance was also attached to magical drawings and spells. The Egyptians believed that without food, the soul of the deceased could begin to harm the living. Initially, food was left next to the mummy and new food was brought at regular intervals.
The Egyptians also knew the movement of celestial bodies well, on the basis of which they laid the foundation for astrology. They also introduced the concept of happy and unlucky days.
Most of the elements of the Egyptian religion penetrated into Christianity in its original form, the other part of the elements in a modified form, but with clearly traceable Egyptian roots. The main one, of course, is the myth of the resurrection of Christ, a complete analogy to the myth of the resurrection of Osiris. Christ, like Osiris, dies in suffering, but after death, ascends to heaven, where he becomes a god. The battle between Satan and Christ, after which the Kingdom of God will come on earth, an analogy of the battle between Horus and Set. The Virgin Mary's immaculate conception is also consistent with Egyptian mythology, after Set killed Osiris and threw the dead body into the soda lakes for 40 days.
The ancient Egyptians settled on the east bank of the Nile. The West Bank was given to "eternity" - the afterlife. Pyramids were erected here and tombs were built. This custom was also based on symbolism: just as Ra, that is, the sun, is “born” on the eastern bank of the heavenly river and “dies” on the western, so people, “the cattle of the god Ra”, spend their earthly life in the east, and after death they move to the west - to the Fields of Kamysh, the afterlife paradise, a place of calm, bliss and eternal life. Death for the Egyptian was simply a departure to another world, which was similar in every way to the earthly world: the dead ate, drank, harvested, had fun hunting and catching fish. Only there was no death in the Kingdom of the Underworld: the Egyptian lived there forever.
In Egypt, there was a cult of ancestors and a funeral cult associated with it, which contributed to the ideological strengthening of the power and authority of the ancestor. The Egyptians, like other ancient peoples, believed that death is not the destruction of a human being, but only his transition to another world. This world of the afterlife was drawn by him in the form of fantastic, distorted forms of the earthly world. Believing that the afterlife is only a kind of continuation of earthly existence, the Egyptians tried to enable the deceased to use in this imaginary world all those objects that he used during his lifetime. The funeral cult was vividly expressed in the way the body was buried - the bodies of the dead were wrapped in leather, mat or cloth, often buried lying on their side in a crouched position, imitating the position of a sleeping person.
The body of the deceased was artificially preserved, for which the insides were taken out and placed in special vessels, and the body was mummified - soaked in special saline solutions and resinous compounds. The mummy made in this way was wrapped in a lot of linen covers impregnated with special resins and placed in the tomb. On the walls of the rooms located inside the tomb, scenes of the life of the deceased and his family were usually depicted, providing them with explanatory inscriptions and texts; household items, food, wine, etc., were placed inside the tomb. This was to enable the deceased to continue to lead his usual way of life and use his property in the afterlife. In addition to these religious and magical inscriptions, hymns, prayers and spells appear, which were also first written on the walls, and then on papyrus scrolls, forming the so-called "Book of the Dead", which described the fate of a person after his death. The Book of the Dead was the largest and most widespread religious and magical collection.
