Heren is the website I found about Egyptain God and Mythology:
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/egypt/religion/mythology.htm
Ancient Egyptians tried to understand their place in the universe and their mythology centers itself on nature, the earth, sky, moon, sun, stars, and the Nile River. Heliopolis, the City of the Sun, is located in the ruins of Yunu in northeast Cairo. And the cosmic creation of Egyptian myth began here. Ancient Egyptian mythology states all began with Nu. Nu is the description of what the planet was before land appeared. It was a vast area of swirling watery chaos and as the floods receded the land appeared. The first god to appear out of this watery mess was Atum. This myth was probably created because of the large source of water from the Nile River.
Atum emerged from Nu as the sun god at the beginning of time and is the creator of the world. The ancient Egyptians found the bisexual act acceptable, as they found all types of sexual orientations acceptable. Atum gave birth to two children by spitting out his son-Shu and vomiting up his daughter-Tefnut. Shu represented the air and the principles of life and Tefnut represented rain and principles of order. Shu and Tefnut later gave birth to Geb, the god of the earth in which the throne of the Pharaoh would be decided. Nut was also born from Tefnut and Shu as the Goddess of the sky, the separator between earth and Nu. Nut was also born from Tefnut and Shu as the Goddess of the sky, the separator between earth and Nu. Then Geb and Nut gave birth to Osiris, Isis, Seth, and Nephthys.
In ancient Egyptian mythology there is an established kinship of the gods and goddesses. Atum is known also as Khepri, the great scarab beetle, Ra-Harakhte, the winged-solar disk, Ra, the midday sun, Aten, the solar-disk, or Horus on the Horizon. Atum, is the one and only creator in the universe. The sun god Atum travels along Nut during the day and then is swallowed by Nut at night. At dawn it is seen as Nut giving birth to Atum as the sky opens up to the light.
One of the most famous Egyptian myths is the myth of Osiris. Osiris has been credited with many different titles, god of fertility, king of the dead, god of agriculture, god of the underworld, controller of the Nile floods, the rising and setting of the sun. All of these titles have one thing in common: life, death, and rebirth because the myth of Osiris is attributed to his life, murder, and eternal life after death. The myth of Osiris begins when he sets out to spread law and order across the land and to teach people how to farm. Because Osiris was a powerful king and popular with the people, his jealous brother lured him into a coffin and sealed his fate with molten lead. Seth then sent him down the Nile River in the coffin. Later the coffin washed ashore in Lebanon and a tree encased it. A king of Lebanon was impressed by the size of the tree and cut it down and put it in his palace.
Isis was the wife and sister to Osiris who gave birth to Horus and was the protector of the dead. When she received the news of Osiris's death, she knew the dead could not rest without a proper burial. Isis searched and found Osiris' body and brought it back to Egypt. Seth found this unacceptable and cut Osiris into many pieces and scattered them throughout Egypt. Isis set out again and had all the pieces she found made into wax duplicates. All the wax duplicates were placed in the temple to be worshipped. Isis preserved his body with linen bandages, used her magic and breathed life back into Osiris. Osiris then rose as a God-King and he chose to rule the underworld. This is where the roots of mummification and rebirth into the afterworld began.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Egyptian Mummies
Here is the website that I found about the Egyptian Mummies:
http://www.worsleyschool.net/socialarts/mummy/page.html
Mummies are bodies that have been preserved after death.Although many long-ago cultures prepared their dead as mummies, the most well-known examples are the mummies prepared by the ancient Egyptians. The Egyptians believed that it was necessary to preserve a body in order to allow the soul to survive.
The earliest ancient Egyptian mummies were preserved by heat and dryness, the heat and dryness of the sand dehydrated the bodies quickly. Later, the Egyptians began putting the dead bodies into coffins to protect them from the desert. But the mommies dacayed in the coffins. Over many centuries, the Egyptians embalmed the dead bodies and wrapped them in strips of linen.
Egyptian embalming methods involved the removal of the brain and organs from the body. And then the body was immersed in carbonate of soda, and the cavities were filled with a mixture of herbs, salt, and other substances. Finally, the body was wound with cloths saturated with similar materials.
The mummification process took seventy days. Special priests did the embalming, and it took the detailed knowledge of human anatomy. The brain was removed by carefully inserting special hooked instruments up through the nostrils, in order to pull out bits of brain tissue. It was a delicate operation, it was really easy to disfigure the face when they did this.
The embalmers then removed the organs through a cut made on the side of the abdomen. They left only the heart in place, believing it to be the center of a person's being and intelligence. Next, moisture was removed from the remaining tissue by packing the insides with a type of salt. After this was removed, the mummy was made even more life-like by filling sunken areas of the body with linen and other materials. And then they added the fake eyes, and painted the bodies usually. And for adornment, they added the jewelry. And the wrapping of the mummy. Every part of the body was wrapped individually. For instance, the hands, head, arms, feet, legs were all wrapped separately from the rest of the body. Each mummy needed hundreds of yards of linen, along with warm resin to seal the layers of fabric.
The Egyptians were really good at embalming. The feet of mummies, when unwrapped after as much as 3000 years, are often still soft and elastic. The historians estimate that by AD 700, when the practice had died out, the Egyptians had embalmed approximately 730 million bodies. archaeologists believe that millions are still preserved in undiscovered tombs and burial places. Many are probably in their original coffins, which were often, if the deceased was rich, decorated to resemble the person who had died.
http://www.worsleyschool.net/socialarts/mummy/page.html
Mummies are bodies that have been preserved after death.Although many long-ago cultures prepared their dead as mummies, the most well-known examples are the mummies prepared by the ancient Egyptians. The Egyptians believed that it was necessary to preserve a body in order to allow the soul to survive.
The earliest ancient Egyptian mummies were preserved by heat and dryness, the heat and dryness of the sand dehydrated the bodies quickly. Later, the Egyptians began putting the dead bodies into coffins to protect them from the desert. But the mommies dacayed in the coffins. Over many centuries, the Egyptians embalmed the dead bodies and wrapped them in strips of linen.
Egyptian embalming methods involved the removal of the brain and organs from the body. And then the body was immersed in carbonate of soda, and the cavities were filled with a mixture of herbs, salt, and other substances. Finally, the body was wound with cloths saturated with similar materials.
The mummification process took seventy days. Special priests did the embalming, and it took the detailed knowledge of human anatomy. The brain was removed by carefully inserting special hooked instruments up through the nostrils, in order to pull out bits of brain tissue. It was a delicate operation, it was really easy to disfigure the face when they did this.
The embalmers then removed the organs through a cut made on the side of the abdomen. They left only the heart in place, believing it to be the center of a person's being and intelligence. Next, moisture was removed from the remaining tissue by packing the insides with a type of salt. After this was removed, the mummy was made even more life-like by filling sunken areas of the body with linen and other materials. And then they added the fake eyes, and painted the bodies usually. And for adornment, they added the jewelry. And the wrapping of the mummy. Every part of the body was wrapped individually. For instance, the hands, head, arms, feet, legs were all wrapped separately from the rest of the body. Each mummy needed hundreds of yards of linen, along with warm resin to seal the layers of fabric.
The Egyptians were really good at embalming. The feet of mummies, when unwrapped after as much as 3000 years, are often still soft and elastic. The historians estimate that by AD 700, when the practice had died out, the Egyptians had embalmed approximately 730 million bodies. archaeologists believe that millions are still preserved in undiscovered tombs and burial places. Many are probably in their original coffins, which were often, if the deceased was rich, decorated to resemble the person who had died.
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