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By Root 2506 0

at Sekhem. The vulture was connected to Neith at Sais. The black boar was the symbol of Seth at Avaris. At Hermopolis, Thoth had the form of the ibis and the ape. Amun of the Libyan desert, like Khnum the wind god, was sometimes depicted with the horns of a ram. So also was Arsaphes, sometimes called “son of Isis,” worshiped at Fayyum, where Ichneumon was equally sacred. The crocodile divinity was Sobek, in whose city, Crocodilopolis for the Greeks and now called Kom Ombo, was a temple with a lake where tame crocodiles were kept and mummified after death. The wolf-headed deity was Wepwawet, like Anubis, a lieutenant of Osiris. His name, which literally means “the wolf of North Nubia (Wawet),” displays his geographic origins and his appearance in one myth is a way of tying far-flung localities to a national, master myth. The great sky goddess was Hathor, the celestial cow of Dendera. Horus, offspring of Isis, was portrayed as a falcon and associated with the sun, worshiped at Edfu. To Osiris the special bulls known as Apis and Mnevis were consecrated at Memphis. Bastet was a cat who was worshiped both nationally and locally. Just as the local deities were connected to national myths, so the narrative of that myth connected the local rites to those of the nation.

According to Diodorus, the deification of these animals was introduced (at the bidding of Isis) throughout the land of Egypt because of their special help in the discovery of wheat and all the labors of tilling the ground. But we can also see them being swept up into a “master narrative” to unify an originally disunified country. Each of these animal sanctuaries accrued its own rituals and purity regulations, which were constant and quite stringent. The Egyptian pantheon was thought strange to foreigners even in antiquity, and not by Hebrews alone, with their uniquely monotheistic sensibilities. The Greeks made fun of the Egyptians for deifying their pets and, seemingly, anything that grew in their gardens.

On each of these local icons, the name of Ra would be grafted, with a conventional vowel change, in an act of priestly imperialism in honor of the sun god. Thus the sun was Atum-Re, the creator god, at Heliopolis (’Iwnu). He was Re-Harakhte, Re-Horus of the Horizon. He became Montu-Re a falcon god, Sobek-Re, a crocodile god, and Khnum-Re, a ram god. He became Amon-Re, king of the gods at imperial Thebes.7 The earliest texts, the Pyramid Texts, are associated with the solar Ennead (group of nine) of Heliopolis. Many of the early kings constructed solar temples in association with their tombs, an association that continues into the pyramid-building period.8 At Heliopolis, the sun god took the name Atum “the All.” Thus, the sun could even be Atum-re, explicitly combining two different names for the sun god. In this guise, he was often represented as pharaoh in human form, wearing the double crown of Egypt.

Although gods have been depicted as the authors of our lives as far back as the time of the Egyptians, depicting them with the forms of political power that are indigenous to the people worshiping them suggests that the causation of who caused whom to be runs in both directions at once. Consequently, Atum engenders Shu, the dry air and light, and Tefnut, the power of moisture. This creation can be depicted as an act of magical power (heka) or by an act of masturbation. A third generation of gods comes from Shu and Tefnut, now more tangible in the form of the earth, Geb, and the sky, Nut. Geb and Nut engender two further pairs of gods before they are separated by Shu. The latest pair are Osiris and his brother Seth, with their respective sisters/spouses, Isis and Nephthys. The gods married their sisters and so did the pharaohs. These nine, the Heliopolitan Ennead (or the Nine of Heliopolis), are predominate in the religious literature of Egypt. But there are also other groups of gods to consider, including prominently, the Ogdoad (the group of eight) of the city of Khnum (later called Hermopolis) in Middle Egypt. These gods were Nun and Nunet (primeval waters),