The majority of evidence
from ancient
Egypt comes from funerary monuments and burials of royalty, of the
elite, and, for the Late period, of animals; relatively little is known of the
mortuary practices of the mass of the population. Reasons for this dominance of
the tomb include both the desert location of burials and the use of mortuary
structures for display among the living. Alongside the fear of the dead, there
was a moral community between
the living and the dead, so that the dead were an essential part of society,
especially in the 3rd and 2nd millennia BCE.
The basic purpose of mortuary preparation
was to ensure a safe and successful passage into the hereafter. Belief in
an afterlife and
a passage to it is evident in predynastic burials, which are oriented to the
west, the domain of the dead, and which include pottery grave goods as well as
personal possessions of the deceased. The most striking development of later
mortuary practice was mummification,
which was related to a belief that the body must continue intact for the
deceased to live in the next world. Mummification evolved gradually from the
Old Kingdom to the early 1st millennium BCE, after which it declined. It
was too elaborate and costly ever to be available to the majority.This decline of mortuary practice was part
of the more general shift in the focus of religious life toward the temples and
toward more communal forms. It has been suggested tentatively that belief in
the afterlife became less strong in the 1st millennium BCE. Whether or not
this is true, it is clear that in various periods some people voiced skepticism about
the existence of a blessed afterlife and the necessity for mortuary provision,
but the provision nevertheless continued to the end.
It was thought that the next world might be
located in the area around the tomb (and consequently
near the living); on the “perfect ways of the West,” as it is expressed in Old
Kingdom invocations; among the stars or in the celestial regions with the sun god; or in the
underworld, the domain of Osiris. One prominent notion was that of the “Elysian
Fields,” where the deceased could enjoy an ideal agricultural existence in a
marshy land of plenty. The journey to the next world was fraught with
obstacles. It could be imagined as a passage by ferry past a succession of
portals, or through an “Island of Fire.” One crucial test was the judgment after
death, a subject often depicted from the New Kingdom onward. The date of origin
of this belief is uncertain, but it was probably no later than the late Old
Kingdom. The related text, Chapter 125 of the Book
of the Dead, responded magically to the dangers of the judgment, which
assessed the deceased’s conformity with maat.
Those who failed the judgment would “die a second time” and would be cast
outside the ordered cosmos. In the demotic story of Setna (3rd century BCE),
this notion of moral retribution acquired
overtones similar to those of the Christian judgment after death.
Influence On Other ReligionsEgyptian culture, of
which religion was
an integral part,
was influential in Nubia as
early as predynastic times and in Syria in the 3rd millennium BCE. During
the New
Kingdom, Egypt was very receptive to cults from the Middle East, while
Egyptian medical and magical expertise was highly regarded among the Hittites, Assyrians, and
Babylonians. The chief periods of Egyptian influence were, however, the 1st
millennium BCE and the Roman period.
Egypt was an important center of the Jewish diaspora starting
in the 6th century BCE, and Egyptian literature influenced the Hebrew Bible. With
Greek rule there was a significant cultural interchange between Egyptians and
Greeks. Notable among Egyptian cults that spread abroad were those of Isis,
which reached much of the Roman world as a mystery religion,
and of Serapis, a
god whose name probably derives from Osiris-Apis,
who was worshipped widely in a non-Egyptian iconography and cultural milieu. With Isis
went Osiris and Horus the child, but Isis was the dominant figure. Many
Egyptian monuments were imported to Rome to provide a setting for the principal
Isis temple in the 1st century CE.The
cult of Isis was probably influential on another level. The myth of Osiris shows
some analogies with
the Gospel story and, in the figure of Isis, with
the role of the Virgin Mary
.
The iconography of the Virgin and Child has evident affinities with
that of Isis and the infant Horus. Thus, one aspect of
Egyptian religion may have contributed to the background of early Christianity, probably
through the cultural center of Alexandria. Egypt
also was an influential setting for other religious and philosophical
developments of late antiquity such as Gnosticism, Manichaeism, Hermetism
(see Hermetic
writings), and Neoplatonism,
some of which show traces of traditional Egyptian beliefs. Some of these
religions became important in the intellectual culture
of the Renaissance.
Finally, Christian monasticism seems
to have originated in Egypt and could look back to a range of native practices,
among which were seclusion in temple precincts and the celibacy of certain
priestesses. Within Egypt, there are many survivals from earlier times in
popular Christianity and Islam.
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