The Mysterious Gods of Egypt

By NORAH ROMNEY

At the beginning of time, there was only Nun, the primeval waters of chaos, then in a great flood, the Sun got interned, rose from the water, and willed himself into creation. Atum then created Ayr, a son he named shu and moisture, a daughter he named Tefnut.
They were the first divine pair and soon had children of their own. The earth named gab and the sky called nut the second divine pair then had four children: Osiris, Isis, Seth, and Neftis.

They were completing the group of nine primeval gods known as the Ennead. Osiris then married his sister Isis, and the two ruled over Egypt together in an unprecedented time of peace and prosperity; however they're jealous, brother Seth desired the throne for himself and murdered Osiris, dismembering his body scattering the parts across the land.

Isis then searched for the pieces of her husband's body and, with the help of her sister Nephthys was eventually able to collect them with the help of the scholar god Thoth and the funeral god Anubis. Isis was able to reconstruct Osiris, creating the first mummy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: DTTV PUBLICATIONS
• Release date: Mar 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393851530

NORAH ROMNEY

Norah Romney is a Maori- Inuit ambassador with lineage to both cultures, she was orphaned early in her life losing both parents in a plane crash in the Pacific, she was adopted in the UK to  a family of archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, and folklorists. She is the first woman to be appointed as a lecturer in ethno-archaeology, and cultural folklorist as ambassador to to the Inuit's, she has spoken vastly on Maori traditions in 74 nations. Adopted into a wealthy middle-class English family in the United Kingdom, she sees herself as a global citizen with diverse roots, Having achieved Egyptology and Mesoamerican Qualifications her focus is now on Global Mythologies and their insight into ancient civilizations.

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DTTV PUBLICATIONS, B.V.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

DTTV PUBLICATIONS EDITORS

Senior Editor: Ryan Moorhen

Photography: Norah Romney

Introduction

At the beginning of time, there was only Nun, the primeval waters of chaos, then in a great flood, the Sun got interned, rose from the water, and willed himself into creation. Atum then created Ayr, a son he named shu and moisture, a daughter he named Tefnut.

They were the first divine pair and soon had children of their own. The earth named gab and the sky called nut the second divine pair then had four children: Osiris, Isis, Seth, and Neftis.

They were completing the group of nine primeval gods known as the Ennead. Osiris then married his sister Isis, and the two ruled over Egypt together in an unprecedented time of peace and prosperity; however they're jealous, brother Seth desired the throne for himself and murdered Osiris, dismembering his body scattering the parts across the land.

Isis then searched for the pieces of her husband's body and, with the help of her sister Nephthys was eventually able to collect them with the help of the scholar god Thoth and the funeral god Anubis. Isis was able to reconstruct Osiris, creating the first mummy.

Osiris impregnated Isis after his resurrection; however, he was too weak to remain in the world, instead of traveling to the Duat, the Land of the Dead, where he became Lord. Seth then took the throne for himself, forcing Isis to flee and give birth to her son Horus in hiding. She raised Horus until he was an adult and able to challenge his uncle Seth for the throne. After a violent contest, the case was settled in a divine legal trial hosted by the Ennead.

Acting as judge was Geb, the God of the earth who ruled in favor of Horus, who then took his rightful place as king of Egypt. Future Pharaohs claimed descent from Horus, with it being this divine ancestry that gave them the right to rule.

Amun, the hidden one, was the foremost God of Egypt thought to be the invisible force behind all things, even creation itself, unlike other gods linked to only one aspect of the world: the sky, the earth, or the Sun. Amun was a universal God who had links to all parts of the cosmos; his prominence also increased as he absorbed other gods throughout Egyptian history, taking on their roles and powers.

The most important of these was his merger with the Sun God Ra combining to become Amon Ra. In this role, he became linked with the Sun, an essential part of the Egyptian world. In this combined state, Amon Ra rose to prominence, becoming Egypt's chief deity and the king of the Gods. Amon became so widely worshipped that he came close to becoming the sole deity of Egypt. The other gods merely being aspects of his great power.

Osiris, judge of the Dead and King of the underworld, was one of the most respected ancient Egyptian gods. His death and resurrection story inspired the Egyptians to follow in his footsteps and seek immortality for themselves. The elaborate tombs and burial rituals found in ancient Egypt were all built-in search of this goal, with the funerary practices being done to aid the spirit in its journey through the underworld. Pharaohs and wealthy Nobles could afford more elaborate burials with trinkets and spells to help them in their journey, but the average Egyptian could survive the underworld as well.

The soul would travel through the underworld, avoiding dangerous monsters until it reached the Hall of Maat, the goddess of truth. Here the soul would stand before 42 judges and proclaim its innocence of a specific sin to each. After this, the sword of its heart weighed on a scale by the gods Anubis and Thoth. The pure of the heart, the lighter it would be. If it rose above the weight or the feather of truth placed on the other scale, then the soul would pass the trial, and Osiris would evaluate his worthiness to pass into the afterlife. If it were more decadent, the monster Amit would devour the heart erasing the soul from existence.

Egypt's most important goddess Isis was so beloved that her worship practically eclipsed that of her husband Osiris. as the mother of Horus, the God who represented kingship, she was thought of as the mother of the Pharaoh, with each Pharaoh thought to be under her protection. Her healing magic was invoked by ordinary people, greatly aiding her popularity, and she was supposed to use magic to protect the entire kingdom from its enemies. Her magic was so strong that she even used it to challenge the mighty Sun God RA. She created a snake to bite him, only hailing him of its venom when he revealed his real name to her, which greatly enhanced her power.

Son of isis and Osiris and God of kingship Horus took an essential place in gods' pantheon. As the mythological rightful king of Egypt, each Pharaoh was thought to embody Horus during life and his father Osiris during death. Horus was also considered Lord of the sky, imagined as a great cosmic falcon whose right eye was the son and left eye was the moon, with the down sweep of his wings producing the winds.

Seth's good of chaos and destruction opposed the harmony presented by Osiris, Isis, and Horus's divine triad. Known as the red one, Seth personified anger violence and was often thought of as the embodiment of evil. He was a god of the desert or red land, threatening growth and vegetation needed for life itself. As a mythological opponent of Osiris and his rightful heir, Horus Seth represented rebellion and discord within the kingdom. Seth was sought to express himself through crime, disease, civil unrest, and foreign invasion. Despite all this, Seth played an essential role in the sun god RA's nightly journey through the underworld.

Every night Seth would travel with rah in his bark until the serpent Apophis Ra's mortal enemy attacked. The snake would hypnotize all the gods, including raw, and would only be resisted by Seth, who would stab it with his spear repelling the Beast.

Arguably the most important deities of Egyptian mythology were the Sun gods. Foremost of these gods was RA, whose body was thought to be the Sun itself. RA was supposed to have created man from his tears, which fell to the earth. He then began kingship and ruled over his subjects as the first king until he became old and weary. He decided to depart the world and was raised to the heavens on the sky goddess nut's back. It was here that he became king of the sky, now ruling over the gods instead.  The Scarab God Khepri represented the Morning Sun as he pushed the solar disc from the horizon to the sky in the same way scarab beetles rolls balls of mud along the ground. Ra represented the midday Sun as he sailed across the sky in his day bark from sunrise to sunset, accompanied by gods' entourage.

The Creator God Atum was then thought to represent the Setting Sun each day. At nightfall,