egyptian religion

1. Ancient Egyptian
Religion

2. The Idea of the Soul
• -3 parts—Ba, Ka, Akh
• -one part couldn’t live w/o
other, one died—all died
• -mummification was to keep
them together
• -Ba—personality, character
of the person, human headed
bird,
• could leave the tomb, visit
living in any form

3. • -Ka—double of the body in the
heart, had to stay in the tomb near
the body
• -Ka was why body had to be
preserved and objects and food
left in the tomb
• -Akh—immortality of the person,
represented as a ghost, shadow,
take any shape
• traveled to the underworld to take
its place in afterlife

4. Cats
• -Egypt became first to use cats as
pets, first used to ward off snakes,
and rodents along the Nile
• cats painted in many tomb
stories—represented a protector of
children and the home
• two cat gods—one a protector, the
other represented war and
pestilence (disease)

5. • when cats died owners
mourned deeply, shaved
eyebrows, cats were
mummified and left with
bowls of milk, dead
mice and rats
• law said if you killed a
cat—punishment was
death
• Persia used this against
Egyptian—cats on
battlefield

6. Gods and Goddesses
• -polytheistic with gods related and many
stories
• Ra—sun god, hawk and sun disk, died
every night and boat through underworld

7. • Osiris—god of
the dead, and
resurrection,
killed by
brother Seth,
mummified
man, white
with feathers

8. • Seth—god of
Chaos, killed
Osiris cut up his
body, defeated
by Horus, animal
head but not
clear the type

9. • -Isis—wife of Osiris, mother of Horus—
goddess of protection, fertility, tears were
when the Nile flooded

10. • Horus—son of Isis
and Osiris, god of
the sky, defeated
Seth, lost an eye,
god who protects
Egypt, Pharaoh
seen as the living
Horus, eye of
Horus symbol
important, falcon

11. • -Thoth—symbol—Ibis (bird), god of
writing and knowledge
• Hathor—goddess of love and joy,
wife of Horus, seen as mother of the
Pharaoh, sun disk and cow horns

12. • -Anubis-god of mummification
and embalming, jackal, weighing
of the heart, took the dead to
Osiris

13. Symbols
• -ankh—symbol of life and love, like the Christian
cross
• -scarab—beetle, often created as jewelry in mummy
wrappings, protector of dead

14. • Eye of Horus—symbol of sun god,
protection, part of ying and yang