Egyptian gods: from oblivion to study

The historical period of Egypt began at the turn of the third and fourth millennia before the birth of Christ. The ancient cultural tradition, undergoing the influence of invaders and internal perturbations, existed until the adoption of Christianity in the fourth century of a new era. For almost three and a half thousand years, the list and functions of the Egyptian gods have undergone significant changes. The Egyptian gods acquired features and names characteristic of the neighbors - Assyrians, Hittites, Hyksos, Hellenes.

After the unification of Egypt under the rule of a single ruler, many gods of individual regions and tribes of the country entered the common pantheon, but most of them were revered only in the environment where the origins of their cult were. Some gods gradually acquired a common Egyptian significance. The goddess Bastet, who has a cat's head, no doubt grew out of the cult of honoring cats as guardians of grain stocks from mice. Agriculture played a huge role in Egypt, unlike, for example, from Hellas, which rose mainly due to trade and military seizures. Anthropomorphic Egyptian gods were often endowed with an animal's head, on the basis of the veneration of which a particular cult arose. For example, God Toth had the head of an ibis, the goddess Sokhmet (Sekhmet) - the head of a lion, Anubis - the head of a dog.

As these or other regions of the country rose, the dynasty changed or the capital moved to a new place, the Egyptian gods of the "first echelon" also changed. An interesting feature of the ancient Egyptian religion was the presence of a large number of cosmogonic myths (that is, versions of the origin of the world), and in each locality the main role in this difficult matter was assigned to the local deity.

Egyptian gods in such large numbers, becoming the basis for local separatism, no doubt, were not needed by a single country. In addition, numerous cults required the expenditure of a large number of material assets, which could be spent much more profitably on the internal development of the country, on the maintenance of the army, and so on. And having great wealth and influence priestly clans directly threatened the sole authority of the pharaoh.

Considering all the circumstances, Pharaoh Amenhotep IV, taking the name of Akhenaten, introduces the cult of the secondary regional deity of Aton (the deified solar disc) as a general Egyptian religion. But the inertia of the tradition was too strong, and Akhenaten dies before reaching the age of forty. According to the most convincing version, he was poisoned. True, the families did not touch persecution, and his wife (the famous Nefertiti) remained alive and many years after the death of her husband.

After the Persian, and later the Hellenic conquest of the country, the Egyptian gods and goddesses gradually begin to lose their former influence, decline. There is a merger with the gods of the invaders. For example, Alexander the Great was revered in Egypt as the son of Zeus-Amon, a syncretic Egyptian Hellenistic deity.

When the Egyptian gods, whose names had both local and mixed origins, began to give way to a new religion - Christianity, the oblivion of the ancient Egyptian writing gradually began. In the reign of Emperor Constantine the last bearer of the Egyptian religious tradition died, after which for many centuries the names of the ancient Egyptian gods were known only by the writings of Greek and Roman historians. But both of them got acquainted with Egyptian culture at the time when it was already going to sunset, and it is unlikely that the priests dedicated strangers (often aggressive ones) to the secrets of their religion.

Attempts to decipher ancient hieroglyphs were undertaken repeatedly by both Arab scholars and Europeans, but to no avail. And only at the beginning of the nineteenth century the brilliant linguist Francois Champollion was able to find the key to deciphering the Egyptian texts. From this moment the modern era of studying the history and culture of Ancient Egypt began.