Artists often depicted him facing forward, rather than in profile. Sakhmet was goddess of war, destruction and misfortune. She is an aggressive deity who is usually depicted as a lion-headed figure. The cat-headed goddess Bastet was the gentle counterpart to the lion-headed Sakhmet. She was protector of the home and pregnant women and was also linked to worship of the moon. Horus , the falcon-headed sky god, was the son of Osiris and Isis and the embodiment of divine kingship.
His eye, or udjat sometimes spelt wedjat , was a powerful protective amulet. Rulers of Egypt were considered to be earthly representations of Horus so many falcon statues and images bear the crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. Falcon-headed Qebehsenuef , a son of Horus, protector of the intestines. The ancient Egyptians feared death and decay and protected the deceased by removing the organs and mummifying the body.
Thoth , a moon-god, was the god of wisdom, maker of laws and chief scribe to the gods. He was also a guide and helper to the spirits of dead people travelling in the underworld. Artists depicted him as an ibis, a baboon or a man with the head of either of these animals. The Australian Museum respects and acknowledges the Gadigal people as the First Peoples and Traditional Custodians of the land and waterways on which the Museum stands.
Image credit: gadigal yilimung shield made by Uncle Charles Chicka Madden. This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Learn more. Skip to main content Skip to acknowledgement of country Skip to footer Osiris, chief god of the dead and the afterlife, is usually depicted as a mummy-shaped human wearing the atef crown a white crown flanked by ostrich feathers and holding a crook and a flail signs of kingship and justice Occasionally, Osiris' skin is green or black, a reference to his aspects of vegetation and fertile earth.
The ancient Egyptians were a polytheistic people who believed that gods and goddesses controlled the forces of the human, natural, and supernatural world.
In traditional Egyptian belief, the fundamental governing principle was the abstract concept of maat represented by the goddess Maat which is often translated as truth, justice, and cosmic order.
To maintain maat , the living had to constantly worship and make sacrifices to the gods to pacify the deities and spirits of the afterlife. The soul, known as ka , accompanies an individual throughout life, and then after death it leaves the body to enter into the realm of the dead. An individual's ka could not exist without his or her body. Extensive rituals and preparation of the body for death, which included tomb building, mummification, and funerary ceremonies, was meant to protect the body and the soul for the afterlife.
The Egyptian pantheon was composed of many gods and goddesses often arranged in family groups of three consisting of a mother, father, and child. During the New Kingdom, these temples honoured a triad of gods based on the pattern established by the mythical family of Osiris, Isis and Horus.
L ike all religions, that of ancient Egypt was complex. It evolved over the centuries from one that emphasized local deities into a national religion with a smaller number of principal deities. Some theologians think that Egypt was moving towards a monotheistic faith in a single creator, symbolized by the sun god.
There was no single belief system, but the Egyptians shared a common understanding about the creation of the world and the possibility of reverting to chaos if the destructive forces of the universe were unleashed. W hen the Greeks and the Romans conquered Egypt, their religion was influenced by that of Egypt. Ancient pagan beliefs gradually faded and were replaced by monotheistic religions.
Today, the majority of the Egyptian population is Muslim, with a small minority of Jews and Christians. Back to Exhibitions. Gods and Goddesses.
0コメント