Ancient Egyptian
Religion

The Idea of the Soul
• -3 parts—Ba, Ka, Akh
• -one part couldn’t live w/o
other, one died—all died
• -mummification was to keep
them together
• -Ba—personality, character
of the person, human headed
bird,
• could leave the tomb, visit
living in any form

• -Ka—double of the body in the
heart, had to stay in the tomb near
the body
• -Ka was why body had to be
preserved and objects and food
left in the tomb
• -Akh—immortality of the person,
represented as a ghost, shadow,
take any shape
• traveled to the underworld to take
its place in afterlife

Cats
• -Egypt became first to use cats as
pets, first used to ward off snakes,
and rodents along the Nile
• cats painted in many tomb
stories—represented a protector of
children and the home
• two cat gods—one a protector, the
other represented war and
pestilence (disease)

• when cats died owners
mourned deeply, shaved
eyebrows, cats were
mummified and left with
bowls of milk, dead
mice and rats
• law said if you killed a
cat—punishment was
death
• Persia used this against
Egyptian—cats on
battlefield

Gods and Goddesses
• -polytheistic with gods related and many
stories
• Ra—sun god, hawk and sun disk, died
every night and boat through underworld

• Osiris—god of
the dead, and
resurrection,
killed by
brother Seth,
mummified
man, white
with feathers

• Seth—god of
Chaos, killed
Osiris cut up his
body, defeated
by Horus, animal
head but not
clear the type

• -Isis—wife of Osiris, mother of Horus—
goddess of protection, fertility, tears were
when the Nile flooded

• Horus—son of Isis
and Osiris, god of
the sky, defeated
Seth, lost an eye,
god who protects
Egypt, Pharaoh
seen as the living
Horus, eye of
Horus symbol
important, falcon

• -Thoth—symbol—Ibis (bird), god of
writing and knowledge
• Hathor—goddess of love and joy,
wife of Horus, seen as mother of the
Pharaoh, sun disk and cow horns

• -Anubis-god of mummification
and embalming, jackal, weighing
of the heart, took the dead to
Osiris

Symbols
• -ankh—symbol of life and love, like the Christian
cross
• -scarab—beetle, often created as jewelry in mummy
wrappings, protector of dead

• Eye of Horus—symbol of sun god,
protection, part of ying and yang