preview

Ancient Egyptian Religion

Decent Essays

The Ancient Egyptian society’s beliefs based their religion on polytheism which is defined as multiple ‘gods’ which were in charge of an area of life. There were up to 2,000 ‘gods and goddesses’ which controlled every aspect of the Egyptians lives. As a result the beliefs and religion belonging to the society affected the Egyptians to an ample extent. This can be observed through the values of : everyday life - , the judicial system - which was founded on religion and monitored by the religious leaders, the afterlife - to be believed that your body needed to be prepared for the afterlife and your honourable works on earth was judged by Osiris and the approach to the status of animals - for example cats were believed to be an earthly form of …show more content…

If the citizen wanted to enter a temple and cleanse themselves, it was required that their clothes were woven from clean, fine linen thread and cut into a modest style. There was also an emphasis on the priests being able to be distinguished from the rest of the population. They could not wear leather sandals or wood clothing as it was seen as unholy, whilst serving the ‘god of Amun’ they wore leopard robes and lastly they would bath several times a day to maintain their holiness. Along with clothing, jewellery was also a very religious affair. Regardless of their wealth status all women wore jewellery. Amulets hung around people’s necks, wrists, finger and ankles and were believed to enhance the owner with magical powers and protection. Heart Scarabs were also extremely populous and were placed over the decreased body’s heart to protect it from separating in the underworld. Spell 30B from the book of dead confirms this in the extract and was usually carved into the heartscrabs, “my heart of my existence! Do not stand against me… do not oppose me in the counsel, do not act against me under the …show more content…

The ties between religion and especially games were close. A popular game included Snake (Mehen) game which consisted of a coiled game board where the player began at the tail and moved to the head. The snake represented the Egyptian ‘god’ Mehen who guarded the ‘god’ Ra through his travels. The development and the concept of the game was based on this ‘god’ and the qualities of Mehen. It is assumed that the game was created as a way to reaffirm the secret knowledge of the relationship between Mehen and the people through direct involvement. Thirdly, worshiping had a significant effect on the way the ancient egyptians conducted their lives. The religion was based around a complex system of polytheistic beliefs and rituals which centred on the people’s interactions with a multitude of deities who were believed to be present in, and in control of, the forces of the elements. Commonly performed rituals included a common foundation ritual which meant while the building was in construction the builder practised burying ‘foundation deposits’ placed at the corners of the structure of under important places in the foundation. These offerings were often found under: temples, palaces, tombs and forts. The reasoning of the ritual ideally granted the protection and safety of the building

Get Access