Deity Pantheons: EGYPT

[The Muse]

After seeing the movie trailer for The Gods of Egypt, it occurred to me that thread containing the various pantheons of deities from different civilizations could be a useful world building tool, both as inspiration and reference material. Since the move trailer is what inspired me, I'm starting with the gods of Egypt.

1.Ammit: A demon with the head of a crocodile, the torso of a leopard, and the hindquarters of a hippopotamus

2.Amun: A man with the head of a ram, King of the gods Combined with sun god Ra to become more powerful.

3.Anput: Goddess of the seventeenth Nome of Upper Egypt Mother of Kebechet

4.Anubis: God of dead, embalming, funerals, and mourning ceremonies
Jackal-headed god Son of Set and Memphis, Helps Osiris

5.Anuket: Goddess of the river Nile

6.Apophis: God of snakes and war and Chaos He lives in the Duat. Also known as Apep. God of chaos sometimes seen as Apophis the chaos snake

7.Aten: The disk of the sun Originally an aspect of Ra

8.Babi: God of baboons

9.Bast/Bastet: Cat goddess Known to protect pregnant women and children. She is also involved in celebrations. The protector of Ra, his third eye.

10.Bes: dwarf god God of Pregnant woman, newborn babies, and family also known to protect from snake and scorpion bites

11.Geb: God of the earth Husband to Nut and father of set, Osiris, Horus, Memphys, Isis

12.Gengen-Wer: Goose god

13. Hapi: God of the Nile

14.Hathor: Goddess of love "alter ego" of Sehkmet

15.Heket: Goddess of frogs

16.Horus: God of war, sky, and falcons He is the son of Osiris and Isis

17.Isis: Goddess of magic, marriage, healing, and perfection She is the wife and sister of Osiris and the mother of Horus.

18.Kebechet: Goddess of purification Also known as the wandering goddess, or the lost child

19.Khepri: God of scarab beetles Ra's aspect in the morning

20.Khnum: Ram-headed god Ra's aspect in the evening

21.Khonsu: God of the moon

22.Ma'at: Goddess of justice,truth and of order Also the daughter of Ra Command for Order

23.Mafdet: God of justice Executioner of criminals, protector of the King's chambers

24.Menhit: Minor lion goddess Wife of Onuris

25.Nephthys: Funerary goddess Consort of Seth, mother of Anubis

26.Nekhbet: vulture god Sister of Wadjet

27.Nut: Goddess of sky and stars Wife of Geb

28.Osiris: God of the underworld and the afterlife Husband and brother of Isis, Brother and mortal enemy to Seth, Father to Horus

29.Ptah: God of creation

30.Ra: God of the Sun Ra was king of the gods until Osiris took over his throne. He is also known as Amun-Ra and Akmun-Rah

31.Sekhmet: Goddess of lions, fire and vengeance Alter form of Hathor

32.Serqet: Goddess of scorpions

33.Seshat: Goddess of writing and measurement

34.Seth: God of chaos/change, deserts, storms, foreigners Mortal enemy and brother to Osiris, Husband to Nephthys. He killed his brother Osiris because of jealousy. No one can really describe what he is. He is a human hybrid, half human mixed with an unknown creature. It is sometimes called the set animal

35. Shu: God of wind and air Consort of Tefnut, father of Geb and Nut Greatgrandfather to Anubis and Horus

36.Sobek: God of crocodiles and alligators Rows Ra's Sunboat throuht the Duat

37.Tawaret: hippopotamus goddess goddess of childbirth and fertility

38.Tefnut: lion goddess of water and fertility Consort of Shu, mother of Geb and Nut

39. Thoth: scribe god, god of wisdom Also known as Djehuti

40. Wadjet: Goddess of protection Sister of Nekhbet

41.Wadj-wer: Personifies the Mediterranean Sea and other lakes.

Attachments:

[Omen]

These are freaking AWESOME!!!

-Omen

[John Reid]

From a story telling point of view the Gods of Egypt as well as the other ancient polytheistic religions, Roman/Greek etc can and have been approached from various points of view.

In science fiction it has been proposed several times that the Greek gods of Mount Olympus were in fact aliens who landed there and had other worldly powers. Example (Star Trek episode "Who mourns for Adonis?" where the crew is captured by Apollo)

In other fantasy stories they viewed the gods as existing, they just existed in another dimension. Such as Marvel's version of Thor and Asgard. This idea allowed them to bring together other gods such as the Greek's Hercules and having them clash.

The gods have also been depicted from a mystical point of view. Sorcerers see the gods as aspects of the human psyche. For instance when a sorcerer calls upon the god Mars or Aries he feels he is tapping into all of the anger in the world. All of the love would be a Venus or Aphrodite spell, all the wisdom Jupiter or Zeus, etc. Example on Dark Shadows the werewolf curse was tied to Cerberus. And the character Laura Collins was the servant of Ra, from which she gained her fiery powers. On the same show the witch Angelque often called upon Diabolos a demon from Hell. So on the same show we saw gods of Greece, Egypt and demons from Christianity all co-existing.

Then other fantasy tales make no apologies and just depict the gods as real and intervening in humanities history. Example "Clash of the Titans".

Other fantasy characters tap into various gods and mythologies simultaneously. Example Captain Marvel originally from Fawcett Comics, but now owned by DC. The magic word Shazam stood for Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury from whom he derived his powers. Solomon who granted his wisdom comes from the Hebrew Torah. Hercules, Atlas, Zeus and Achilles all came from Greek Mythology and Mercury is the Roman equivalent of the Greek Hermes.

I'm sure there are many other examples in literature of using the gods as part of the story. Horror seems to be the most common area where writers tap into this idea.

"The Mummy" 1931
"The Gorgon" 1964

All of the Harry Potter films and books are rife with mythological characters from multiple ancient religions. Centaurs, dragons, phoenix, basilisk, etc.

Well I'm sure most of you can think of many other films which have tapped into the mythologies of the various ancient cultures.

Just my 2 cents
John Reid

[Omen]

Intriguing that you would go so deep into this... as with most of us superhero-geek-creators, we use the mythological gods as our template for characters.

I love this stuff!!

[John Reid]

Now here is one aspect of depicting the gods of Egypt that has not been addressed. I refer you to this article...

stepfeed.com/entertainment/film/hollywood-whitewashing-ancient-egypt-gods-egypt-film/#.V4bAVJBTHZ4

Since silent films every single depiction of ancient Egyptians depict them as white people. Egypt for the geographically challenged is a part of Africa.

The Pharaohs and upper classes may have had lighter skin but that was because they never had to go out in the sun. Interbreeding caused the upper classes to be lighter skinned and the common man darker. This indeed was the beginning of racial bigotry toward the darker skinned people. The idea that a lighter skinned person was somehow superior began in Egypt.

But movies traditionally portray all ancient Egyptians as white unless they were slaves or servants and then it was ok for them to be black.

This is especially true in depictions of the story of Moses. Moses did not look like Charlton Heston and the Pharoah did not look like Yule Brenner. The problem of course was that Moses was adopted and thought he was Egyptian, therefore unless he was as dumb as Steve Martin in "The Jerk" he must have been the same color as the Egyptians who adopted him.

So that opens a whole new can of worms. If indeed Moses was dark skinned and was a Jew does that not mean that Jesus had to be dark skinned as well?

Well getting back to the Egyptian gods, once again every depiction that I have seen of them movie wise shows them as white people. African gods white people? Not likely.

White people came from up north and are a product of natural selection. The earth you see is round. Africa is on the equator, therefore receives direct rays of the sun including deadly ultraviolet rays. Nature wisely created melanin in human skin to protect from that, but once people wandered up north, they received indirect rays of the sun and those with darker skins received less vitamin D and therefore were not as healthy as lighter skinned people who thrived up north.

So really there is no such thing as black people and white people, only brown people and beige people which is two shades of the same color.

So why is it white movie directors even today cannot show us Egyptian gods or Egyptians for that matter as they really look. Today they are an olive skinned people, but what did they look like when the pyramids were new?

Your thoughts?

[Omen]

I - I - I think I love you, John... sniff-sniff...

This is such a WELL-KNOWN thing in the 'minority' community. It has launched bitter arguments about the Bible, mythology, and flat-out HISTORY.

There TRULY is one race... the HUMAN race, but 'politics' and social power-needs made it critical to create division based upon the differences of color.

Even though, we are speaking about Africa and the stories coming out of her lands, the very term ‘Middle-East’, which began with a somewhat technical definition established for land division after the Ottoman Empire, became an echoing political term ripe for stratification and identity as a group separate from ‘THEM’.

‘THEM’ was affectionately embraced as darker-skinned by some, savages by others, and poor by even more.

This has been fully swallowed up by today's propaganda, thanks to movies, magazines, and even the news.

Yep-to-the-yeppity-yep-yep… we see Jesus, Moses, Atum-Ra, Cleopatra, Ben-Hur, and DC’s Black Adam as white. It makes it easier to accept Billy Batson as best chosen person to be Shazam, as well as the most beloved alien to ever touch our planet disguised as a ‘mild-mannered’ newspaper reporter, to be seen as a worldwide icon while treated as a god.

Sadly to say, I even find myself following the same established rules when I create characters. I struggle to be aware, but it is difficult to allow what has NOT been accepted to be the path that I take.

We can accept Kryptonians far easier than we can accept Martian manhunters, even though Martians our closest neighbor.

Silver Surfer? He’s cool.
Black Racer? Who in the hell is that?

Namor, the Sub-Mariner? AWESOME!!
Black Panther? Comments written about him, include: “His story is too detached from realty to accept.” Or the classic, “Over-hyped character with no real powers.”

The Isis television show (1975-1976), the Mummy, Horus-Lord of Light (1963), Hawkman & Hawkgirl, The Watcher, and Galactus have all gone through the same ‘washing machine’ as much of our force-fed history. It sucks and I didn’t really understand it until I became an adult.

I also feel that it has created the opportunity for a new era to begin and WE are the ones blessed with the chance to create change by introducing stories for the next generation in which those who might see themselves as different will now be offered a platform that shows how that is not always bad. We can all be OTTN (Other than the Norm) and yet, still be a family!

[John Reid]

Oh I understand it fully. First it's hard to maintain the white supremacy teachings in the face of DNA evidence. Once science suggested that the oldest human bones came from Africa ,which made Africans the first human beings, skeptics fought against it tooth and nail. For a long time they tried to suggest that maybe we just hadn't found the oldest human bones yet. That perhaps we got our start in China or somewhere else. But then DNA came along and revealed that there is only 2% difference between human and Chimpanzee DNA, and where do we find chimpanzee's? In Africa of course. They're still there!

Now you brought up the white comic book characters that should have been black. That probably has more to do with sales. Comics originally were marketed toward young white suburban boys. Thus nearly all of DC's characters were white and Marvel was the first to try at least to bring some racial diversity to their heroes.

But speaking strictly for myself, I think both comics companies, and Hollywood for that matter sell us short. I was a white suburban boy and I would have bought Hawkman comics for instance had they made him black. Indeed he probably would have been much more interesting.

The first black side kick was Ebony White the street kid who was the side-kick of The Spirit and that was back in the 40's. Now he was drawn as a racial sterotype character, that is true enough, but the character himself was brave, smart and resourceful and most of all moral. So when Hollywood finally did a movie version of The Spirit, Ebony White was conspicuous by his absence, which I felt really hurt the film. He could easily have been updated and brought into the story. We still have street kids now as we did in the 40's.

Getting back to Moses and Jesus, contrary to all of the masterpieces by the Italian renaissance painters, they were historically dark skinned, olive skinned at best, not the white anglo saxon version that they famous paintings depicted. The only real description of Jesus in the New Testament is in the Book of Revelation which describes the second coming which clearly says his "feet were like bronze and his hair white like wool. Wooly hair and bronze colored feet? Kind of runs contrary to the white majority's depictions in painting and of course the movies. Me thinks there will be a lot of red faces during the real second coming for sure.

Well you mentioned Black Adam who was Egyptian, I did read that they cast the Rock to play him in the film. So perhaps if that is successful we might see a color change in the comic version at last.

Yes indeed Kal-El landed in Kansas and luckily for him he was white. It sure would have made the adoption by the Kents a problem had he been any other color. Ask the Martian Manhunter, it's not easy being green."

[The Muse]

I think I need to look up some more of these and add to the pantheon collection...

*Reaches for Bullfinches Mythology..."