Amaunet: One of the eight primal deities or divine forces known as the Ogdoad.
Amon: One of the eight divine forces known as the Ogdoad. Amon was worshipped as a fertility
god at Thebes in Upper Egypt and became a notional deity in the second millenium BC. His name was fused with that of
the supreme solar deity, Ra, to create Amon-Ra, one of the four great creator deities (the others being known as Atum, Khnum
& Ptah). Amon- RA was the hidden power who created the Gods. According to one account the snake form of Amon-Ra was the
earliest being to exist in primeval waters.
Anat: A female warrior deity of Syrian (Canaanite) origin: she is derived from the goddess
Anath. In Egyptian mythology Anat is the daughter of the solar deity Ra. She is usually depicted carrying a spear , shield
and axe. Anat was also a cow goddess.
Anubis: The jackal headed God of embalming, also known as Anpu. He is sometimes said to
be the son of Osiris, who was the first king (pharaoh) on earth and his sister Nepthys. After Osiris was killed by his
brother Seth, Anubis embalmed the body and wrapped it in linen bandages, making Osiris the first mummy. Anubis later defended
the corpse against the attacks of Seth. After Osiris became the ruler of the underworld, Anubis became one of the most important
officials and guided the deceased through the underworld into the presence of Osiris and oversaw their judgment.
Apep: A great serpent or dragon of the underworld, also known as Apophis. Apep, lord of
darkness, was the arch-enemy of the sun-god and attacked his barque every night as it traveled through the underworld. The
barque was successfully defended by the hosts of the dead, led by Seth, the strongest f the Gods.
Astarte: A warrior goddess of Middle Eastern origin (her Mesopotamian counterpart was Inanna/
Ishtar), said by the Egyptians to be the daughter of the sun-god or of the creator Ptah. Astarte was a wife of the God Seth.
Astennu: Also known as Thoth.
Atum: One of the four principle creator deities (the others being Amon, Khnum and Ptah). Atum,
whose cult center was at Heliopolis, first emerged from the primeval chaos in the form of a serpent, but was usually represented
in human form. Like other creator deities, the god represented a totality which contained both male and female. He caused
the first division into male and female when he put his semen in his mouth and then sneezed or spat it out, creating the first
divine couple, Shu and Tefenet. As Atum-Ra, he represented the evening sun.
Bastet: The cat-headed goddess of love, sex and fertility. Like the ferocious war goddess sekhmet,
Bastet was originally a lioness deity, but from c. 900 B.C. she began to be represented as a cat, perhaps because of her gentler
nature. She was sometimes depicted with kittens, which symbolized her role as a fertility deity. Mummified cats were often
buried near her shrines.
Beb: Bebti, Baba, or Babu: first born son of Osiris, god of generation.
Bes: A protective deity. Bes, usually portrayed as a hideous but jovial dwarf, was revered as
a god of pleasure and entertainment and as a protector of the family, especially of children and women in childbirth.
Ennead, The: The collective name given to the great deities otherwise known as the Nine
Gods of Heliopolis, who feature in the fullest ancient Egyptian account of the creation of the world. The forst of the Ennead
(derived from the Greek ennea, meaning nine) was the God Atum or Ra-Atum, who came into existence on the mound that rose from
the Nun, the dark primordial waters. He planned all of creation and then put his semen in his mouth, spitting or sneezing
it out to produce the next two members of the Ennead, Shu, the god of air, and Tefenet, the goddess of wetness and water. This
was the first division into male and female. Shu and Tefenet went to explore the Nun, and Atum fearing them lost, sent his
eye (a powerful divine force thought to be his daughter) to find them. When the eye returned with his children, the god
wept tears of joy which became the first humans. Shu and Tefenet had intercourse and produced the next two deities of the
Ennead, the earth god, Geb and the sky goddess Nut. Geb and Nut also had intercourse but embraced so tightly that their children
could not be born until they were seperated by their father, Shu. The air god supported Nut above the earth with the assistance
of eight beings known as Heh gods, thereby making room for living creatures and giving them air to breathe. Nut eventually
gave birth to two sets of twins; Osiris and Isis, and Seth and Nephthys. Osiris, who was the oldest child, became the first
ruler of Egypt.
Hapi: The great god of the Nile.
Hathor: A powerful and complex goddess with numerous attributes. Hathor was the protector of
women, whom she assisted in conception and childbirth. As the guardian of children, she suckled the young god Horus in the
form of a cow, and later restored his sight after Seth tore out his eyes. She was also the protector of lovers. Hathor was
associated with death and rebirth. She greeted the souls of the dead in the underworld and offered them refreshments of food
and drink.
Heh and Hehet: A pair of primordial deities embodying infinity. They formed part of a group of
eight divinities known as the Ogdoad.
Horus: The falcon-headed god, the son of Isis and Osiris. Seth caused the death of his brother
Osiris and seized his throne. Isis retrieved her husband's body and hovered over it in the form of a sparrowhawk, fanning
enough life back into him for her to conceive a son, Horus. She knew Seth would harm her child, so she fled the Nile delta
and gave birth to Horus at Chemmis near Buto. With the assistance of other deities, such as the goddesses Hathor and Selqet,
Isis raised Horus until he was old enough to challenge Seth and claim his royal inheritance.
The sun-god invited Horus and Seth to put their cases before the Ennead. Seth
declared that he should be king because only he was strong enough to defend the sun during its nightly voyage through the
underworld. Some deities accepted this argument, but Isis persuaded them to change their minds.
Seth refused to proceed with Isis there, so he adjourned the tribunal to an
island towhich Isis was refused access. However, the goddess bribed Nemty, a ferryman of the gods, to take her across.
Then she tricked Seth into agreeing it was wrong for a son to have his inheritance stolen. Seth complained about her trickery
and the gods punished Nemty by cutting off his toes.
Further confrontations between Horus and Seth proved inconclusive. In the
end, the gods wrote to Osiris, who threatened to send demons to the realms of the gods if Horus was not made king of
Egypt at once. The sun-god found in favor of Horus.
Horus was seen as a sky god whose left eye was the moon and whose right eye
was the sun. The eye of Horus or Wedjat (whole one) Eye was frquently depicted in Egyptian art.
Imhotep: An architect and minister-priest of the pharaoh Djoser (27th century bc). Imhotep, a
historical figure, was revered as a demi-god of wisdom, medicine and magic. His parents were apparently the creator deity
Ptah, the god of crafts and intellect, and a human mother.
Isis: A great goddess, the wife and sister of Osiris, the sister of Seth and Nephthys,
and the mother of Horus. Isis, one of the nine deities known as he Ennead, is featured in myth principally as the devoted
ife of Osiris, the first king on earth, and mother of Horus. As the divine exemplar of the dedicated wife and mother, Isis
was the center of an important cult which spread over, and out of, the borders of Egypt.
The goddess' adversary was her brother Seth, who brought about the death of
Osiris and stole his throne. Isis retrieved her husband's corpse and protected it from Seth, using magic powers to halt or
reverse the decay. In one account, Isis hovered over the body as a sparrowhawk and fanned enough life into Osiris with her
wings to enable her to conceive a son, the god Horus. Isis protected Horus from Seth and assisted him in regaining his birthright,
the Egyptian kingship, fro his uncle.
Kek and Keket: A pair of primal deities embodying darkness. They formed part of the group of
eight divinities known as the Ogdoad.
Khepry: A divine scarab beetle which was the dawn of manifestation of the sun god. Khepry is
typically represented pushing the sun up into the sky, an image derived from the scarab rolling a ball of dung. To the Egyptians,
the scarab beetle was a symbol of rebirth, regeneration and transformation.
Khnum: One of the four principal creator deities of the Egyptians. Khnum was typically represented
as a potter who molded deities, humans and animals from clay on his potting wheel , and then breathed life into them. He is
usually depicted with the head of a ram, his sacred animal and a symbol of the male creative power. Khnum was believed to
control the rising of the waters of the Nile, an annual phenomenon crucial to the fertility of the land and life itself.
Maat: The goddess of truth and justice. Maat, the daughter of the sun god and wife of Thoth,
embodied divine order and harmony. She was depicted standing or squatting, with her symbol, an ostrich feather, in her headdress.
In the underworld, the heart (the conscience) of a dead person was weighed against the feather of Maat; or Truth. If the heart
was burdened by sin so that it was heavier than the feather, the deceased was devoured by a monster. If the scales balanced,
the deceased becme a spirit among the gods. A complete description of this process can befound in The Book of the Dead.
Meresger: A snake goddess of the mountain peak overlooking the royaltombs of Thebes (modern Luxor).
She was generally benevolent and had the power to cure disease, but she could also inflict sickness on sinners.
Naunet: A primal deity embodying the primeval waters. Naunet and her male counterpart Nun formed
part of the Ogdoad, eight divinities which personified the forces of chaos.
Neb-er-tcher: A name which originally meant "the god of the universe," but which was later given
to Osiris, and meant the god after the completed reconstruction of his body, which his brother Seth (Set) had hacked to pieces.
Nefer-Tmu: The son of either Sekhet or Bast, he personified some form of the sun's heat. Probably
the rising sun (dawn).
Neith: The great mother goddess. According to one account, she emerged from the Nun, the primordial
waters, and created deities and humans. When she spat into the Nun, her spittle became Apep, the serpent of chaos. She was
also the mother of Sobek, the crocodile God.
During the struggle of Horus and Seth over Egypt's kingship, the gods and
goddesses wrote Neith seeking her advice. She replied that to compensate for iving up the throne to Horus, Seth should receive
Anat and Astarte, two goddesses of foreign origin, as wives. This judgment probably implies that Neith considered Seth unworthy
of marriage to native goddesses.
Neith was a formidable figure who was also associated with hunting and warfare.
Her sign or emblem was a shield displaying two crossed arrows. The center of her cult was at Sais (modern Sa el- Hagar) in
the Nile delta.
Nekhbet: The vulture goddess of the southern ciy of Nekheb (modern el- Kab) and the patron goddess
of Upper Egypt. With Wadjet, the patron goddess of Lower Egypt, Nekhbet was the protector of the Egyptian Pharaoh and was
often depicted as a vulture hovering with her wings above the royal image. She was also the patron goddess of childbirth,
and was identified by the Greeks with the goddess Eileithyia.
Nepthys: A goddess, the daughter of Geb and Nut, sister of Isis and Seth. Nephthys, less prominant
in Egyptian myth than her siblings, married Seth but produced no children, so she committed adultery with Osiris and consequently
bore the god of embalming, Anubis. She deserted Seth after he had brought about the death of Osiris and then she lamented
with Isis over her brother's corpse. It was the custom at Egyptian funerals for two women to impersonate Nephthys and Isis
and lament over the body of the deceased.
Nu: the primeval watery mass from which all the gods were evolved, and upon which floats the
bark of "millions of years" containing the sun. This god's chief titles are "Father of the gods," and "begetter of the great
company of the gods." He is depicted in the form of a seated deity having a upon his head disk and plumes.
Nut: The female principle of Nu; she is depicted with the head of a snake surmounted by a disk,
or with the head of a cat.
Osiris: He was originally a form of the sun god (setting) and as such was also the god of the
"motionless" dead. He was the judge of the dead and personified the way that one wanted to be after death. He was killed and
dismembered by his brother, who assumed his crown. Later he was resurrected and became the god of the dead or the god of the
"underworld."
Ptah: He was associated with the god Khnemu in carrying out the Creation of the mandates of Thoth,
the divine intelligence; his name means "the opener," and he was identified as the equivalent of the Latin "Vulcan." He is
called the "exceedingly great god, the beginning of being," the father of fathers and power of powers.
Ra: The visible emblem of God, the god of this earth. Usually Ra is depicted in human form, sometimes
with the head of a hawk, and sometimes without.
Sekhet: The wife of Ptah, and mother of Nefer-Tmu and Imhotep. She was the personification of
the burning heat of the sun, and as such was the destroyer of both Ra and Osiris' enemies. When Ra determined for some reason
to desire punishment upon humans, he sent Sekhet to perform the particular work of vengeance.
Serk or Selk: Isis.
Shai: The personification of destiny. One of the hands of Thoth.
Shu: The firstborn son of Ra and Hathor and twin brother of Tefnut. He typified the light,
he lifted up the sky, Nut, from the earth, Seb, and placed it upon the steps which were in Khemennu. He is usually depicted
in the form of a man, who wears upon his heada feather or feathers,
and holds in his hand a scepter.
Ta-urt: The wife of Set or Typhon. She is also known as Apt or Sheput. She is commonly called
"the mistress of the gods," and "bearer of the gods."
Tefnut: The daughter of Ra. She is represented moisture and some other times the power of
sunlight. She is usually depicted in human form, usually with the head of a lioness surmounted by a disk or uraeus, or both.
In the pyramid texts, she takes away the thirst of the deceased and her brother takes away their hunger.
Thoth or Tehuti: He represented the divine intelligence which at creation uttered the words that
were carried out by Ptah and Khnemu. He was self-produced, and was the great god of the earth, sea, air and sky. He
united in himself many attributes of other gods. He was the scribe of the gods and as such, the inventor of all the arts and
sciences known to the Egyptians. He was known as the "master of papyrus," "lord of writing," and "the mighty speaker."
Seb: The son of Shu, husband of Nut, and father of Osiris, Isis, Seth and Nephthys. He was originally
the god of the earth and was called both the "father of the gods" and erpa or the tribal or hereditary head of the gods. He
is depicted sometimes with a crown on his head and sometimes a goose. The goose was sacred to him. In the pyramid texts he
was a god of the dead.
Un-nefer: One of Osiris' names in his capacity of god and judge of the dead in the underworld.
Uatchit: Hathor.
