mdw
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response 17 of 124:
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May 21 15:43 UTC 1995 |
This is in case you aren't familiar with the egyptian gods.
Tmu, or Atmu, is the closer of the day or night. Nefer-Atmu, the son of
Ptah and Sekhmit or Bast, represents the power of the heat of the rising
son.
Her-Pa-Khart, "horus the child", represents the morning sun.
Horus, the moring sun, son of Isis and Osiris, is "the avenger of his
father".
Ra, the sun-god, was also the creator of gods and men.
Menthu-Ra is the old war-god of Hermonthis.
Menu, or Min, formerly read Khem and Amsu, represnts the "generation" or
productive power in nature.
Khnemu, is the "moulder"; usually represented making man out of clay on
a potter's wheel.
Ptah, the "opener", the father of the gods (who came forth from his
eye), and of men (who came forth from his mouth).
Iemhetep (the imouthis of the greeks), was the first-born son of Ptah
and Nut.
Thoth, or Tchehuti, the "measurer", was the scribe of the gods, the
measurer of time, and inventor of writing and numbers. Since writing
was one of the main foundation stones of egyptian society, this god was
obviously an important one to the egyptians.
Set, or Sut, or Setesh, was one of the sons of Geb and Nut, and the
brother of Osiris, and husband of Nephthys. Originally popular between
the V & XIXth dynasty's, by about the XXVth dynasty "something
happened", and he became the personification of all evil.
Osiris, the great god and king of the underworld, the judge of the dead,
was the son of geb and nut, and husband of Isis.
Isis was a daughter of Geb and Nut, and married her brother Osiris.
Nephythys was another daughter of Geb and Nut, and married her brother
Set.
Anubis was, according to some legends, the son of Nephthys and Osiris,
but elsewhere is said to be the son of Ra. He presided over the
embalming of the mummy, led the mummy into the presence of Osiris, and
watched over the ceremony of the weighing of the heart.
Shu and his sister Tefnut were emanations of Temu or Khepera. Shu
typified light, heat and air, and Tefnut moisture.
Hapi, or originally Hepr, is the god of the Nile.
Khensu was, under the New Kingdom, associated with Amen-Ra and Mut in
the Theban triad, and was god of the moon.
Amen-Ra was originally the local God of Thebes, but subsequently became
the natioanl god of Egypt.
Apis, or Hapi, "the second life of Ptah", and the incarnation of Osiris,
was the name given to the sacred bull of Memphis.
The Mnevis bull was worshipped at Heliopolis, and is thought by some to
represent the same symbolism.
Mesta, Hapi, Tuamutef and Qebhsenuf, are the four children of Horus.
Sati, Anquit, and Khnemu formed the triad of Elephantine. Sati seems to
resemble Nephthys in some of her attributes.
Sebek represented the destroying power of the sun.
Anher, "the leader of the celestial regions" which Shu supports.
Bes seems to have had a sort of double character. He's represented as a
grotesque person with bandy legs, and he wears a crown of feathers and a
leapard skin. As a warrior, or the god of war, he is armed with a sword
and shield, and sometimes a bow; he was also the god of music and the
dance, and as such was often represented as half-man, half-animal,
playing a harp, or striking cymbals together and dancing. It is thought
he repesented the destructive powers of nature.
Sekhmit was the wife of Ptah, and the mother of Nefer Atmu and
I-em-hetep; she was the second person of the triad of Memphis. She
represented the violent heat of the sun and its destroying power, and in
this capacity destroyed the souls of the wicked in the underworld.
Bast represented the heat of the sun in its softened form as the
producer of vegetation. Properly speaking, the head of a cat is her
distinguishing characteristic. She was chiefly worshipped at Bubastis.
Menhit represented the pwower of light or heat, or both.
Mut, the world-mother, was the wife of Amen, and the second member of
the Theban triad; she is also called the "lad of Asher".
Net, or Neith, the "Weaver" or "Shooter", also a mother-goddess, was a
counterpart of the goddess Mut, and was also identified with Hathor.
Maat, the "duaghter of Ra and mistress of the gods", symbolized Law.
Hathor, or "het-hert", is identified with Nut, the sky, or place in
which she brought forth and suckled Horus; she was the wife of Atmu, a
form of Ra.
Nu was the god of the sky, and the husband of Nut.
Nut was the sky, the wife of Geb, and mother of Osiris, Isis, Set,
Nephthys, Anubis, Shu, and Tefnut.
Geb was the husband of Nut, the sky, and father of Osiris, Isis, and the
other gods of that cycle.
Serqit, daughter of Ra, wife of Horus, and identified with Sesheta and
Isis, symbolized the scorching heat of the sun.
Maahes is sometimes represented as a man, lion-headed, wearing a disk
and uraeus.
Seker, or Socharis, a form of the night-sun, oftne represented as a man,
hawk-headed.
Ta-urt, or Thoueris, was the wife of Set. She's usually represented
with the head and body of a hippopotamus, the hind quarters of a lion,
and the tail of a crocodile.
Sefekh-Aabu, or Sesheta, is a form of the goddess Hathor that was
worshipped in Hermopolis, and also adored in Memphis.
Neheb-ka, is a god mentioned in the book of the dead. He's represnted
with the head of a serpent.
The egyptians aren't much noted for change; indeed, as one of the first
great bureaucracies based on writing, they were very conservative
indeed. Nevertheless, as they started off as the conglomeration of many
different local river settlements, different gods were worshipped in
different places, with different tales being told of them. And, as time
went on, different gods would come in & out of fashion, or similar gods
from different places would be confused with each other.
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