The Egyptian Worldview Do Their Temple Rituals
What insights into the Egyptian worldview do their temple rituals, festivals and apotropaic rituals offer us?
A central factor in ancient Egyptian religion is that the gods melded into daily life. There were links for humans to gods and this is admired in temple rituals, festivals and apotropaic rituals. The Egyptian worldview is molded from the belief that magic, kings and physical and non-physical components of humans were attributed to gods. All repeated earthly rituals, such as the setting of the sun, were an embodiment of a god. Egyptians believed maintaining life was due to the “predictable and repetitive manner” of Maat (Teeter, 2007. pp. 310). Any unexpected event was the work of isfet or chaos. The Egyptian worldview of continually …show more content…
Make reference to the evidence on which your conclusions are based.
While discussing ancient Egyptian culture, one may point to their polytheism as being their most recognisable cultural influence. Their celebration of many gods shaped their entire existence, such as their adoration to the god Hapi who provided The Nile inundation period (Spence, 2008. pp. 170), into what we know today but around 1375 BC a pharaoh, Akhenaten, sought to destroy the reigning consensus of polytheism and change ancient Egypt into a monotheistic culture (Ray, 1990. pp. 14).
Akhenaten lead a new order when he ruled, devoted to one god – Aten and with this unheard of devotion, he was able to shape himself into a god on earth. Previously, pharaohs were always considered linked to the gods but Akhenaten wanted to shape his assembly in to devotees for his bidding so he proclaimed he was apart of a god (Ray, 1990. pp. 28). Akhenaten spoke about Aten’s creation of all cultures thus signifying the creation of an objective god and Akhenaten had to quickly change Egypt’s ‘old’ devotion and sought to destroy the physical message of the god Amun to pave his religious belief that he and his wife were two parts to the one god, Aten (Ray, 1990. pp. 28). Akhenaten took the place of many gods, such as provider of the dead instead of Osiris, and seemed to prosper in his new religion with offerings placed before him daily …show more content…
So, while he was impressive in radically changing Egypt’s alliance in his short rule of seventeen years (Montserrat, 2000. pp. 26), it is more impressive that his mark was essentially immediately destroyed after his
A central factor in ancient Egyptian religion is that the gods melded into daily life. There were links for humans to gods and this is admired in temple rituals, festivals and apotropaic rituals. The Egyptian worldview is molded from the belief that magic, kings and physical and non-physical components of humans were attributed to gods. All repeated earthly rituals, such as the setting of the sun, were an embodiment of a god. Egyptians believed maintaining life was due to the “predictable and repetitive manner” of Maat (Teeter, 2007. pp. 310). Any unexpected event was the work of isfet or chaos. The Egyptian worldview of continually …show more content…
Make reference to the evidence on which your conclusions are based.
While discussing ancient Egyptian culture, one may point to their polytheism as being their most recognisable cultural influence. Their celebration of many gods shaped their entire existence, such as their adoration to the god Hapi who provided The Nile inundation period (Spence, 2008. pp. 170), into what we know today but around 1375 BC a pharaoh, Akhenaten, sought to destroy the reigning consensus of polytheism and change ancient Egypt into a monotheistic culture (Ray, 1990. pp. 14).
Akhenaten lead a new order when he ruled, devoted to one god – Aten and with this unheard of devotion, he was able to shape himself into a god on earth. Previously, pharaohs were always considered linked to the gods but Akhenaten wanted to shape his assembly in to devotees for his bidding so he proclaimed he was apart of a god (Ray, 1990. pp. 28). Akhenaten spoke about Aten’s creation of all cultures thus signifying the creation of an objective god and Akhenaten had to quickly change Egypt’s ‘old’ devotion and sought to destroy the physical message of the god Amun to pave his religious belief that he and his wife were two parts to the one god, Aten (Ray, 1990. pp. 28). Akhenaten took the place of many gods, such as provider of the dead instead of Osiris, and seemed to prosper in his new religion with offerings placed before him daily …show more content…
So, while he was impressive in radically changing Egypt’s alliance in his short rule of seventeen years (Montserrat, 2000. pp. 26), it is more impressive that his mark was essentially immediately destroyed after his