Ancient Egyptian Gods
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One of the eight primal deities or divine forces known as
One of the eight divine forces of chaos known as the
Ogdoad. Amon was worshipped as a fertility god at Thebes
in Upper Egypt and became a national deity in the Second
millennium BC. His name was fused with that of the
supreme solar deity, RA, to create Amon-RA, one of the
four great creator deities [ the others being Atum, Khnum
and Ptah ]. Amon-Ra was the hidden power who created the
gods. According to one account the snake form of Amon was
the earliest being to exist in the primeval waters.
A female warrior deity of Syrian (Canaanite) origin: She
is derived from the goddess Anath. In Egyptian mythology
Anat is the daughter of the solar deity Ra. She was
usually depicted carrying a shield, spear and axe. Anat
was also a cow goddess.
The jackal-headed god of embalming, also known as Anpu.
He is sometimes said to be the son of the god Osiris, the
first king or pharaoh on earth, and his sister Nephthys.
After Osiris was killed by his brother Seth, Anubis
embalmed the body and wrapped it in linen bandages making
Osiris the first mummy. Anubis later defended the corpse
against the attacks of Seth. After death Osiris became
ruler of the underworld. Anubis, as one of the most
important officials, guided the deceased through the
underworld into the presence of Osiris and oversaw their
A great serpent or dragon of the underworld, also known
as Apophis. Apep, lord of darkness, was the arch-enemy of
the sun god and attacked his barque every night as it
travelled through the underworld. The barque was
successfully defended by the hosts of the dead, led by
Seth, the strongest of the gods.
A warrior goddess of Middle Eastern origin (her
Mesopotamian counterpart was Inanna/Ishtar), said by the
Egyptians to be the daughter of the sun god or of the
creator god Ptah. Astarte was a wife of the god Seth.
One of the four principle creator deities (the others
being Amon, Khnum and Ptah). Atum, whose cult centre was
at Heliopolis, first emerged from the primeval chaos in
the form of a serpent, but was usually represented in
human form. Like other creator deities, the god
represented a totality which contained both male and
female. He caused the first division into male and female
when he put his semen in his mouth and sneezed or spat it
out, creating the first divine couple, Shu and Tefenet.
As Ra-Atum, he represented the evening sun.
goddess of love, sex and fertility. Like the ferocious
war goddess Sekhmet, Bastet was originally a lioness
deity, but from c.900BC she began to be
represented as a cat, perhaps because of her gentler
nature. She was sometimes depicted with kittens, which
symbolized her role as a fertility deity. Mummified cats
were often buried near her shrines.
A protective deity. Bes, usually portrayed as a hideous
but jovial dwarf, was revered as the god of pleasure and
entertainment and as a protector of the family,
especially of children and women in childbirth.
- Ennead, The
The collective name
given to the great deities otherwise known as the Nine
Gods of Heliopolis, who feature in the fullest ancient
Egyptian account of the creation of the world. The first
of the Ennead (derived from the Greek ennea,
meaning nine) was the sun god Atum or Ra-Atum, who came
into existence on the mound that rose from the Nun, the
dark primordial waters. He planned all creation and then
put his semen in his mouth, spitting or sneezing it out
to produce the next two members of the Ennead, Shu, the
god of air, and Tefenet, the goddess of wetness and
water. This was the first division into male and female.
Shu and Tefenet went to explore the Nun, and Atum,
fearing them lost, sent his eye (a powerful divine force
thought to be his daughter) to find them. When the eye
returned with his children, the god wept tears of joy
which became the first humans. Shu and Tefenet had
intercourse and produced the next two deities of the
Ennead, the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut. Geb
and Nut also had intercourse but embraced so tightly that
their children could not be born until they were
separated by their father, Shu. The air god supported Nut
above the earth with the assistance of eight beings known
as the Heh gods, thereby making room for living creatures
and giving them air to breathe. Nut eventually gave birth
to two sets of divine twins; Osiris and Isis, and Seth
and Nephthys. Osiris, who was the eldest child, became
the first ruler of Egypt.
The god of the Earth, the offspring of Shu, the god of
air, and Tefenet, the goddess of wetness and water.
A powerful and
complex goddess with numerous attributes. Hathor was the
protector of women, whom she assisted in conception and
childbirth. As the guardian of children, she suckled the
young god Horus in the form of a cow, and later restored
his sight after the god Seth tore out his eyes. She was
also the protector of lovers. Hathor was associated with
death and rebirth. She greeted the souls of the dead in
the underworld and offered them refreshments of food and
- Heh and Hehet
A pair of primal deities embodying infinity. They formed
part of the group of eight divinities known as the
The falcon-headed god, the son of the goddess Isis and
the god Osiris. Seth caused the death of his brother
Osiris, the first king of Egypt, and seized his throne.
Isis retrieved her husband's body and hovered over it in
the form of a sparrowhawk, fanning enough life back into
him for her to conceive a son, Horus. She knew Seth would
harm her child, so she fled the Nile delta and gave birth
to Horus at Chemmis near Buto. With the assistance of
other deities, such as the goddesses Hathor and Selqet,
Isis raised Horus until he was old enough to challenge
Seth and claim his royal inheritance.
- The sun god invited Horus and Seth
to put their cases before the Ennead. Seth declared that
he should be king because only he was strong enough to
defend the sun during its nightly voyage through the
underworld. Some deities accepted this argument, but Isis
persuaded them to change their minds.
Seth refused to proceed with Isis there, so he adjourned
the tribunal to an island to which Isis was refused
access. However, the goddess bribed Nemty, ferryman of
the gods, to take her across. Then she tricked Seth into
agreeing that it was wrong for a son to have his
inheritance stolen. Seth complained about her trickery
and the gods punished Nemty by cutting off his toes.
Further confrontations between Horus and Seth proved
inconclusive. In the end the gods wrote to Osiris, who
threatened to send demons to the realm of the gods if
Horus was not made king of Egypt at once. The sun god
found in favour of Horus.
Horus was seen as a sky god whose left eye was the moon
and whose right eye was the sun. The Eye of Horus or
Wedjat (whole one) Eye was frequently depicted in
An architect and priest-minister of the pharaoh Djoser
(27th century BC). Imhotep, a historical figure, was
revered as a demi-god of wisdom, medicine and magic. His
parents were apparently the creator deity Ptah, the god
of crafts and intellect, and a human mother.
A great goddess, the wife and sister of Osiris, the
sister of Seth and Nephthys, and the mother of Horus.
Isis, one of the nine great deities known as the Ennead,
is featured in myth principally as the devoted wife of
Osiris, the first king on earth, and mother of Horus. As
the devine exemplar of the dedicated wife and mother,
Isis was the center of an important cult which spread
over, and out of, the borders of ancient Egypt.
The goddess's adversary was her brother Seth, who brought
about the death of Osiris and stole his throne. Isis
retrieved her husband's corpse and protected it from
Seth, using magic powers to halt or reverse the decay. In
one account, Isis hovered over the body as a sparrowhawk
and fanned enough life into Osiris with her wings to
enable her to conceive a son, the god Horus. Isis
protected Horus from Seth and assisted him to regain his
birthright, the Egyptian kingship, from his uncle.
- Kek and Keket
A pair of primal deities embodying darkness. They formed
part of the group of eight divinities known as the
A divine scarab beetle which was the dawn manifestation
of the sun god. Khepry is typically represented pushing
the sun up into the the sky, an image derived from the
scarab rolling a ball of dung. To the Egyptians, the
scarab beetle was a symbol of rebirth, regeneration and
One of the four principal creator gods of the Egyptians,
the others being Amon-Ra, Atum and Ptah. Khnum was shown
as a potter who molded deities, humans and animals from
clay on his potting wheel, and then breathed life into
them. He was usually depicted as a man with the head of a
ram, his sacred animal and a symbol of male creative
power. Khnum was believed to control the rising of the
waters of the Nile, an annual phenomenon crucial to the
fertility of the land and life itself.
The goddess of truth and justice. Maat, the daughter of
the sun god and wife of Thoth, embodied divine order and
harmony. She was depicted standing or squatting, with her
symbol, an ostrich feather, in her headdress. In the
underworld, the heart - or the conscience - of a dead
person was weighed against the feather of Maat; or Truth.
If the heart was burdened by sin so that it was heavier
than the feather, the deceased was devoured by a monster.
If the scales balanced, the deceased became a spirit
among the gods. * See The Book of the Dead for a complete
description of this process.
A snake goddess of the mountain peak overlooking the
royal tombs of Thebes (modern Luxor). She was generally
benevolent and had the power to cure disease, but she
could also inflict sickness on sinners.
A primal deity embodying the primeval waters. Naunet and
her male counterpart Nun formed part of the Ogdoad, eight
divinities which personified the forces of chaos.
The great mother goddess. According to one account, she
emerged from the Nun, the primordial waters waters, and
created deities and humans. When she spat into the Nun
her spittle became Apep, the sepent of chaos. She was
also the mother of Sobek, the crocodile god.
During the struggle of Horus and Seth over Egypt's
kingship, the gods and goddesses wrote Neith seeking her
advice. She replied that to compensate for giving up the
throne to Horus, Seth should receive Anat and Astarte,
two goddesses of foreign origin, as wives. This judgment
probably implies that Neith considered Seth unworthy of
marriage to native goddesses.
Neith was a formidable figure who was also associated
with hunting and warfare. Her sign or emblem was a shield
displaying two crossed arrows. The center of her cult was
at Sais (modern Sa el-Hagar) in the Nile delta.
The vulture goddess of the Southern city of Nekheb
(modern el-Kab) and the patron goddess of Upper Egypt.
With Wadjet, the patron goddess of Lower Egypt, Nekhbet
was the protector of the Egyptian Pharaoh and was often
depicted as a vulture hovering with her wings spread
above the royal image. She was also the goddess of
childbirth, and was identified by the Greeks with the
A goddess, the daughter of Geb and nut, sister of Isis,
Osiris and Seth. Nephthys, less prominent in Egyptian
myth than her siblings, married Seth but produced no
children, so she committed adultrey with Osiris and
consequently bore the god of embalming, Anubis. She
deserted Seth after he had brought about the death of
Osiris and then she lamented with Isis over her brother's
corpse. It was the custom at Egyptian funerals for two
women to impersonate Nephthys and Isis and lament over
the body of the deceased.
By: Anthony C. DiPaolo, M.S.
Revised: November 12, 2009.
Copyright © 1997 by Anthony C. DiPaolo, M.S. / Osiris Web