http://gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/egypt/index.

htm
Ra - Sun God, King of the Gods
a falcon crowned with a sun disk or a man with a falcon's
head

Ra was the God of the Sun. He sailed across the heavens
in a boat called the 'Barque of Millions of Years'. At the
end of each day Ra was thought to die and sailed on his
night voyage through the Underworld, leaving the Moon
to light the world above. The boat would sail through the
twelve doors, representing the twelve hours of night-time.
The next dawn, he was born again.


It was not always smooth sailing.
During the day Ra had to fight his
chief enemy, a snake called Apep. He
God of Name Appearance
Sun Ra head of falcon and sun disk
Music Hathor horns of cow and sun disk
Destruction Sekhmet head of lion
Sky Nut blue with golden stars
Earth Geb colour of plants and Nile mud
Dead Osiris dressed in white with crook and flail
Desert Seth animal head with long curved snout
Pharoah Horus head of hawk and crown of Egypt
Magic Isis throne on head or holding baby
Wisdom Thoth head of ibis
Embalming Anubis head of jackal
Justice Ma'at feather in her hair
Creation Amun crowned with feathers
Cats Bastet head of cat
Symbol
White crown
Red crown
Eye of Horus
Feather of Ma'at
Ankh
Sceptre of Seth
Sun disk
Boat of Ra
Crook and flail
Scarab

Monsters
Ammit the destroyer
Apep the snake
was helped by the other gods, such as Seth and Bastet.

The sun disk on Ra's head often has a cobra round it. A cobra appears on the forehead
of Pharaohs, like Tutankhamun.

Ra was the greatest of the gods and he kept his power in his secret
name, which only he knew. He had started to grow old, and
sometimes he dribbled. Isis collected some of his saliva and made it
into a snake. She hid the snake where Ra would walk. When Ra trod
on it, it bit him, and Ra screamed in pain. All the gods gathered
round, but none could heal him. Isis said "If you tell me your secret
name, this will give me enough magic power to heal you." Ra didn't
want to do this, but eventually the pain was so bad that he had to. Isis healed him, and
ever since then she has the magic powers that Ra had.
Hathor - the Goddess of love,
music, dance
cow horns and sundisk on head

Sekhmet - the Goddess of
the sun
woman with lion's head
head
Hathor was the goddess of joy, motherhood, and
love. She looked after all women. She was the
goddess of music and dancing, as well. Dead
women were identified with Hathor, as men were
identified with Osiris. She has a sun disk on her
head and cow horns. Sometimes she had cow's
ears or was a whole cow.

But she had another side as well, as Sekhmet, the
Eye of Ra, the destructive Sun Goddess. The
Egyptians knew that the Sun brought life, but they
also knew that the desert Sun could kill you.

Ra, the Sun God, was angry with mankind, because they laughed at
him. He said that he'd send down his anger as Sekhmet, the Eye of
Ra. She went down to Earth, killing men, and drinking their blood. She started to
frighten Ra, who only wanted to punish Mankind, not destroy them all. So he dyed
some beer red, to look like blood. When Sekhmet saw the beer, she was thristy for
blood, so she drank it all, got drunk and went to sleep. When she woke up, Ra
persuaded her to stop killing Mankind.

Nut - the Sky Goddess
blue with golden stars

Geb - the Earth God
colour of plants and fertile Nile mud

The sky is Nut's body, arching from horizon to
horizon. Geb is the Earth, lying beneath her.
During the day, Nut and Geb are separated, but
each evening Nut comes down to meet Geb and
this causes darkness. If storms came during the
day, it was believed that Nut
had come closer to the earth.

Nut was married to the King of the Gods, Ra, but she was in love
with Geb. When Ra found out, he was angry and said that Nut
could not give birth to any children during the 360 days of the year. Nut was unhappy
and asked the God of Wisdom, Thoth, to help. At this time, the Moon was as bright as
the Sun. Thoth got some light from the Moon, so now the Moon gets bigger and
smaller each month. With this light, Thoth made five new days, so now the year is
365 days long. Nut gave birth to her five children, on these five days. When Osiris,
the oldest, was born, a loud voice said "The lord of all the earth is born." Seth, his
brother, was born hating Osiris. If you want to know what Seth did to Osiris, go to
Osiris' page.


Osiris - God of the Dead
dressed in white with crook and flail and white crown

Osiris is shown as a man with a beard wearing white mummy
wrappings. His crown is the white crown of Upper Egypt
surrounded by red feathers. His skin is green to represent
vegetation. He holds the symbols of supreme power, the flail
and crook. The crook is used by shepherds to catch their sheep. The flail is used in
threshing, to separate the grains from the outer husks. Osiris was the God of the Dead.
You would expect that such a god would be gloomy or even evil, but the Egyptians
thought about death a lot. They mummified their dead and buried them with their
belongings so they could enjoy themselves in the afterlife.

This story begins on Nut and Geb's page.
Osiris ruled over the Egyptians and taught
them farming. His brother Seth had always
hated him, and wanted to kill him. Seth made
a beautiful box, like a coffin, made to the
exact measurements of Osiris. Then Seth
invited Osiris and other people to a great
feast. When everyone had finished eating,
Seth displayed the box, and said that he'd give it to anyone who fitted inside.
Everyone tried, but only Osiris fitted. While he was still inside, Seth and his friends
quickly slammed on the lid and threw the box in the Nile river. But what happened
next? See Seth's page.

Seth - God of the desert, storm and violence
animal head with long curved pointed snout

Seth (or Set) is shown with an animal's head with a long curved pointed snout,
slanting eyes, and square-tipped ears. Sometimes he has a forked tail. No-one seems
to know what the animal is. Aardvark, antelope, ass, camel, fennec, giraffe,
greyhound, jackal, jerboa, long-snouted mouse, okapi, oryx and pig have all been
suggested! Seth was the God of the desert, storm and violence, which are all enemies
of the fertile, properous, narrow valley of the Nile.

Seth carries a sceptre, which has his head on top and his tail at the other end.
Several other gods seem to carry this sceptre as well. Can you find them?

Seth was not always bad.
He helped Ra fight the
snake Apep.

This story begins on Nut and Geb's page. Seth had killed Osiris by tricking him into a
coffin, which he threw into the Nile. When Osiris' wife Isis heard about this, she
started searching desperately for her husband's body, to bury it properly. She asked
everyone she met and finally some children told her where it was. Isis mourned for
her dead husband. Then she hid the body, while she went back to look after her son
Horus, still a baby. Seth was terrified that Isis might be able to bring Osiris back from
the dead, since she was a great magician. So Seth found where she had hidden the
body and cut it into pieces, which he scattered up and down the Nile. Now Isis had to
find all the scattered pieces of Osiris. Whenever she found a piece, she buried it there
and built a shrine. This means that there are lots of places in Egypt where Osiris was
buried! Osiris himself became the King of the Dead, and all Egyptians hoped they
would join him after death. But what happened to Seth? See Horus's page.

Horus - Son of Osiris
a hawk, or a man with a hawk's head crowned with the crown of all Egypt

Horus is shown as a hawk, or a man with a hawk's head and the crown of all Egypt.
This makes him look similar to Ra, but Ra is crowned with the sun disk. Horus' crown
is made of two parts. The white part is the crown of Upper Egypt (in the south) and
the red part is the crown of Lower Egypt (including the Nile delta). Together they
show that Horus ruled all Egypt. During their reign, Pharoahs identified themselves
with Horus. After they died, they became Osiris.

This story begins on Nut and Geb's page. When Horus was a
baby, his father Osiris was killed by Seth. Horus and his mother
Isis hid in the papyrus reeds in the delta of the Nile until Horus
grew up. The he went to war with Seth to get his father's crown and kingdom. The
battles raged for a long time. Once Seth managed to blind Horus by taking out his eye
and tearing it to bits, but Thoth, the God of Wisdom, managed to heal the eye. So how
did the war end? See Isis's page.

The Eye of Horus, healed by Thoth, was an amulet, or magic
charm. The Ancient Egyptians also used it to describe fractions.
The Egyptians sometimes had had two eye symbols, with the left
eye being the Eye of Horus, symbolising the moon, and the right eye being
symbolising the Eye of Ra, or the sun.
Isis - Queen of Goddess
with a throne or sun disk and horns on her head

Isis was the great mother-goddess. Her son was
Horus, the enemy of Seth. Sometimes she has
the baby Horus on her lap. Sometimes she has
a throne on her head, as she is Queen of the
goddesses. Sometimes she has a sun disk and
horns, like Hathor.

Isis was also a great healer and magician. She
got her magic powers by tricking Ra (see Ra's webpage).

This story begins on Nut and Geb's page. The war between Horus
and his enemy Seth had lasted a long time. Isis decided to help
her son Horus. She met Seth, and asked for his help. She
described someone killing a man and taking all he had away from the man's son. Seth
said that killer should pay for his crimes. Isis said that Seth himself was the killer, and
he had condemned himself. The other gods agreed, and Seth was driven out into the
Sahara Desert. This is the end of the story.

Thoth - God of Wisdom, Time, Writing and the Moon
head of an ibis

Husband of Ma'at

Thoth invented hieroglyphs,
the picture writing of Ancient
Egypt. He was the measurer of
the earth and the counter of the
stars, the keeper and recorder
of all knowledge. The ibis is a
bird rather like a stork, with
long legs and a long beak which it uses for prodding in the mud to find small fish. It
was a symbol of wisdom and learning because it has a beak shaped like a pen which it
dips in the mud, as if it was ink.

The Book of Thoth had two spells in it. If you read the first spell aloud, you would be
able to understand every beast and bird, and summon the fishes in the sea. If you read
the second spell, you could bring the dead to life. Prince Setna, the son of a Pharaoh,
knew the book was hidden in a royal tomb in the City of the Dead. With his brother
Anhurerau, he broke into the tomb of Neferkeptah. When they found the burial
chamber, they saw the mummy of Neferkaptah, and his wife and young son. The wife
spoke to them, and warned them against taking the book of Thoth. She said that her
husband had stolen the Book from Thoth, and had read the spells, but Thoth was
angry and had drowned her and her son in the Nile, and Neferkeptah had then killed
himself. But Setna ignored her and moved towards the Book. The mummy of
Neferkaptah sat up and said "Play me at four games of draughts. If you win, you can
take the Book." Setna was terrified, but agreed. He played the first game, and lost. He
started to sink into the ground, up to his ankles. Then he lost the next game, and sunk
up to his hips. As he was losing the third game, he shouted to his brother, "Run and
fetch my magic amulets. Only they can save me!" He
then sank into the ground up to his chin. His brother ran
out of the tomb. Setna played the fourth game as slowly
as he could, trying desperately not to lose, but the
mummy was too good at draughts. Just as he had nearly
lost for the final time, his brother Anhurerau returned
with the amulets, and put them on Setna's head. The
spell was broken, and Setna grabbed the Book of Thoth,
and ran as hard as he could out of the tomb.

As Setna tried to read the Book, he saw a beautiful woman walking
past. He fell in love with her, and tried to persuade her to marry him.
She demanded that he kill his existing wife and children. Completely
besotted with her, he agreed. When he had done this, she vanished,
and he was appalled at what he had done. But he discovered that it
was all a dream. He realised that he was being punished for stealing
the Book of Thoth, and next time it might not be a dream, so he returned the Book to
the tomb of Neferkeptah and resealed the burial chamber. Ever since then, no-one has
seen the Book of Thoth.

The magic amulet may have been a scarab. The scarab or dung beetle makes a ball of
dung by rolling it along the ground, and then lays its eggs in it. The Ancient Egyptians
imagined a scarab rolling the sun across the sky.
Anubis - God of Embalming
head of jackal

Anubis invented embalming to embalm Osiris, the first mummy. He was the guide of
the dead. The Egyptians embalmed their dead, especially their pharaohs, to preserve
them, since they thought that this helped them live for ever.

The Ancient
Egyptians
believed that
when you died,
you travelled to
the Hall of the
Dead. There
Anubis weighed
your heart
against the
feather of Ma'at.
Ma'at, the goddess of justice sits on top of the scales to make sure that the weighing is
carried out properly. You can see Anubis steadying the scales to make the weighing
fair. If your heart was lighter than the feather, you lived for ever. We still talk of "a
heart as light as a feather" to mean care-free, and "heavy-hearted" to mean sad. If your
heart was heavier than the feather then it was eaten by the demon Ammit, the
Destroyer. Ammit had the head of a crocodile, the shoulders of a lion and the rump of
a hippopotamus. These were all frightening animals for the Egyptians. Thoth, god of
wisom and writing, stands by to record what happens.
Ma'at - Goddess of Justice
ostrich feather in her hair
Wife of Thoth


Ma'at was the goddess of
truth, justice and harmony.
She was the wife of Thoth, the
god of wisdom, since you need
wisdom to find truth and
justice. Both Ma'at and Thoth
helped at the Weighing of the
Heart.


The feather of Ma'at was an ostrich plume. She wore it on her head. The chief judge in
charge of the Egyptian law courts was known as the "priest of Ma'at". He began court
hearings by wearing the feather of Ma'at. The judge gave the feather to the person
who won his case in the law courts.

The pharaoh had to promise that he would follow Ma'at. This means that he would be
a just pharaoh, and keep order in Egypt.
Amun - God of Creation
crowned with ostrich feathers

Amun was an important god, but there
are no stories about him. He created all
things. At the same time, he remained
apart from creation, totally different from
it, and fully independent from it. In fact,
he was invisible, so you couldn't have a
picture of him! However, if you called
him Amun-Re, this allowed people to see
him. Then he had a hat with ostrich
feathers on, and like all gods with human
heads, a beard. Re is another way of
spelling
Ra, the
sun god.


Tutankhamun's name contains the name
of Amun. It also contains the Ankh,
which means Life. His name means
"Long life to Amun."
The ankh was a very important amulet or
magic charm. See how many ankhs you
can find on this website!



Amun is sometimes spelled Ammon. The fossil ammonites are called after him,
because his sacred animal is a ram, and ammonites are shaped like ram's horns.
Bastet - Protectress of Cats
cat or head of a cat
Daugter of Ra

Bastet was sometimes called bast. She was the goddess of cats. She is a
cat, or has the head of a cat, but originally she had the head of a lion.

Every day the sun god Ra would
travel in his ship across the sky.
Every night the snake Apep tried
to stop the sun god's ship on his
journey through the underworld.
Ra was usually won these battles.
However, on stormy days, or
during an eclipse, the Egyptians
believed that Apep had been
victorious and swallowed the sun. Bastet defended her father Ra against
the snake.
Bastet was the proctress of cats. The Ancient Egyptians had a great respect for cats
since they protected the grain from mice and rats. Rats can also cause disease. Killing
a cat was punishable by death. When a cat died, the family mourned it, shaving their
eyebrows to mark their sadness. Cats were sometimes mummified, like people, and
their mummies have been found.

For more gods, check out http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/gods/explore/main.html.
For more description, check out http://www.experience-ancient-egypt.com/egyptian-gods.html.