Egyptians and Religion

Lesson #12

Check Yourself…. What are the two most

important things that Egyptians believed about the pharaoh?

What are nobles? Who was the vizier? What % of Egyptians were at

the bottom of the hierarchy? What are natural walls and

why are they important?

Egyptians = PolytheismWorshipping gods was

a DAILY part of Egyptian life.

Temples were built all over Egypt for the

purpose of honoring their gods.

Egyptian gods were thought to represent

things like the sun, sky and earth.

Many Egyptian gods were a mixture of human and animal

forms.

AnubisThe jackal-headed god

associated with mummification and the

afterlife.

Protected the dead in their journey to the

afterlife.

OsirisGod of the afterlife and the

underworld.

He was classically depicted as a green-skinned man with a pharaoh's beard, partially

mummy-wrapped at the legs, wearing a distinctive crown

with two large ostrich feathers at either side, and

holding a symbolic crook and flail.

IsisThe mother

goddess.

One of the most

powerful of all the gods

RAThe Sun God

All forms of life were believed to have

been created by Ra, who called each of them into existence by speaking their

secret names.

HorusGod of war, sky, and

protection.

Horus was often the ancient Egyptians'

national god. He was usually depicted as a falcon-headed man.

SekhmetThe

lioness goddess of

war.

BastetGoddess of cats, Lower Egypt and the moon.

SebekCrocodile-

headed god Of

fertility

The Afterlife Egyptians thought that the afterlife was an ideal world where all

people were young and healthy.

The KA was the life force of a human and when a person died, the KA became a spirit.

In the afterlife, the KA remained linked to the body and could not leave the burial place.

It is this belief that led the Egyptians to believe in

mummification!