Ra

God of the Sun

One of the most important of the Gods, Ra is believed to be the creator of the Universe and all life; he rules over the Sky, The Earth, and the Underworld.

Ra would travel each day on his golden sun ship Mandjet and at night he would travel through Duat (the underworld) aboard his evening ship Meseket where he would battle the evil giant serpent Apopis and other monsters. If he was victorious Ra would emerge again aboard Mandjet and cause another day to begin.

Ra is depicted in human form as a man with a sun disc above his head with the disc often having a coiled serpent around it. He is also seen as a man with the head of a falcon or if he is travelling through the underworld he can be seen as a man with the head of a ram.

The sun is the giver of life, controlling the ripening of crops which were worked by man. Because of the life-giving qualities of the sun the Egyptians worshiped the sun as a god. The creator of the universe and the giver of life, the sun or Ra represented life, warmth and growth. Since the people regarded Ra as a principal god, creator of the universe and the source of life, he had a strong influence on them, which led to him being one of the most worshiped of all the Egyptian gods and even considered King of the Gods.

At an early period in Egyptian history his influence spread throughout the whole country, bringing multiple representations in form and in name. The most common form combinations are with Atum (his human form), Khepri (the scarab beetle) and Horus (the falcon). The form in which he usually appears is that of a man with a falcon's head, which is due to his combination with Horus, another sky-god. On top of his head sits a solar disc with a cobra, which in many myths represents the eye of Ra.

Nut

Goddess of the Sky

Nut (Ancient Egyptian: Nwt), also known by various other transcriptions, is the goddess of the sky, stars, cosmos, mothers, astronomy, and the universe in the ancient Egyptian religion. She was seen as a star-covered nude woman arching over the Earth, or as a cow. She was depicted wearing the water-pot sign that identifies her.

Originally known as the goddess of the night time sky Nut is one of the oldest of the gods; daughter of Shu and Tefnut and is the mother of Set, Osiris, Isis, and Nephthys.

Nut has a deep blue body which is covered in stars; she is often depicted as bending over the earth and protecting it along with protecting Ra the Sun God while he travels through the sky, which led to Nut later becoming known as “She who protects”.

Nut has also been known as the protector of the dead and was often painted inside a sarcophagus or tomb to protect the deceased.

Horus

God of the Sky

Horus or Her, Heru, Hor, Har in Ancient Egyptian, is one of the most significant ancient Egyptian deities who served many functions, most notably god of kingship and the sky. He was worshipped from at least the late prehistoric Egypt until the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Roman Egypt. Different forms of Horus are recorded in history and these are treated as distinct gods by Egyptologists. These various forms may possibly be different manifestations of the same multi-layered deity in which certain attributes or syncretic relationships are emphasized, not necessarily in opposition but complementary to one another, consistent with how the Ancient Egyptians viewed the multiple facets of reality.

He was most often depicted as a falcon, most likely a lanner falcon or peregrine falcon, or as a man with a falcon The earliest recorded form of Horus is the tutelary deity of Nekhen in Upper Egypt, who is the first known national god, specifically related to the ruling pharaoh who in time came to be regarded as a manifestation of Horus in life and Osiris in death.

The most commonly encountered family relationship describes Horus as the son of Isis and Osiris, and he plays a key role in the Osiris myth as Osiris's heir and the rival to Set, the murderer and brother of Osiris. In another tradition Hathor is regarded as his mother and sometimes as his wife.

Anubis

God of the Afterlife

Anubis is the Greek name of the god of death, mummification, embalming, the afterlife, cemeteries, tombs, and the Underworld, in ancient Egyptian religion, usually depicted as a canine or a man with a canine head. Archeologists have identified Anubis's sacred animal as an Egyptian canid, the African golden wolf. The African wolf was formerly called the "African golden jackal", until a 2015 genetic analysis updated the taxonomy and the common name for the species. As a result, Anubis is often referred to as having a "jackal" head, but this "jackal" is now more properly called a "wolf".

Like many ancient Egyptian deities, Anubis assumed different roles in various contexts. Depicted as a protector of graves as early as the First Dynasty (c. 3100 – c. 2890 BC), Anubis was also an embalmer. By the Middle Kingdom (c. 2055–1650 BC) he was replaced by Osiris in his role as lord of the underworld. One of his prominent roles was as a god who ushered souls into the afterlife. He attended the weighing scale during the "Weighing of the Heart", in which it was determined whether a soul would be allowed to enter the realm of the dead. Despite being one of the most ancient and "one of the most frequently depicted and mentioned gods" in the Egyptian pantheon, Anubis played almost no role in Egyptian myths.

Anubis was depicted in black, a color that symbolized regeneration, life, the soil of the Nile River, and the discoloration of the corpse after embalming. Anubis is associated with his brother Wepwawet, another Egyptian god portrayed with a dog's head or in canine form, but with grey or white fur. Historians assume that the two figures were eventually combined. Anubis' female counterpart is Anput. His daughter is the serpent goddess Kebechet.

Set

God of Chaos

Set is a god of deserts, storms, disorder, violence, and foreigners in ancient Egyptian religion. In Ancient Greek, the god's name is given as Sēth (Σήθ). Set had a positive role where he accompanies Ra on his barque to repel Apep, the serpent of Chaos. Set had a vital role as a reconciled combatant. He was lord of the red (desert) land, where he was the balance to Horus' role as lord of the black (soil) land.

In the Osiris myth, the most important Egyptian myth, Set is portrayed as the usurper who killed and mutilated his own brother, Osiris. Osiris's wife, Isis, reassembled his corpse and resurrected her dead husband long enough to conceive his son and heir, Horus. Horus sought revenge upon Set and the myths describe their conflicts.

In ancient Egyptian astronomy, Set was commonly associated with the planet Mercury.

Since he is related to the west of Nile which is the desert, he is sometimes associated with a lesser deity Ha, god of the desert which is a deity of a man with a desert determinative on the head.

Isis

Goddess of Magic

Isis was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2181 BCE) as one of the main characters of the Osiris myth, in which she resurrects her slain husband, the divine king Osiris, and produces and protects his heir, Horus. She was believed to help the dead enter the afterlife as she had helped Osiris, and she was considered the divine mother of the pharaoh, who was likened to Horus. Her maternal aid was invoked in healing spells to benefit ordinary people.

Originally, she played a limited role in royal rituals and temple rites, although she was more prominent in funerary practices and magical texts. She was usually portrayed in art as a human woman wearing a throne-like hieroglyph on her head. During the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 BCE), as she took on traits that originally belonged to Hathor, the preeminent goddess of earlier times, Isis was portrayed wearing Hathor's headdress: a sun disk between the horns of a cow.

In the first millennium BCE, Osiris and Isis became the most widely worshipped Egyptian deities, and Isis absorbed traits from many other goddesses. Rulers in Egypt and its neighbor to the south, Nubia, built temples dedicated primarily to Isis, and her temple at Philae was a religious center for Egyptians and Nubians alike. Her reputed magical power was greater than that of all other gods, and she was said to protect the kingdom from its enemies, govern the skies and the natural world, and have power over fate itself.

Osiris

God of the Underworld

Osiris is the god of fertility, agriculture, the afterlife, the dead, resurrection, life, and vegetation in ancient Egyptian religion. He was classically depicted as a green-skinned deity with a pharaoh's beard, partially mummy-wrapped at the legs, wearing a distinctive atef crown, and holding a symbolic crook and flail.

He was one of the first to be associated with the mummy wrap. When his brother, Set, cut him up into pieces after killing him, Isis, his wife, found all the pieces and wrapped his body up, enabling him to return to life. Osiris was at times considered the eldest son of the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut, as well as being brother and husband of Isis, with Horus being considered his posthumously begotten son. He was also associated with the epithet Khenti-Amentiu, meaning "Foremost of the Westerners", a reference to his kingship in the land of the dead. Through syncretism with Iah, he is also a god of the Moon.

Osiris can be considered the brother of Isis, Set, Nephthys, and Horus the Elder, and father of Horus the Younger. The first evidence of the worship of Osiris was found in the middle of the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt (25th century BC), although it is likely that he was worshiped much earlier; the Khenti-Amentiu epithet dates to at least the First Dynasty, and was also used as a pharaonic title. Most information available on the Osiris myth is derived from allusions contained in the Pyramid Texts at the end of the Fifth Dynasty, later New Kingdom source documents such as the Shabaka Stone and the "The Contendings of Horus and Seth", and much later, in narrative style from the writings of Greek authors including Plutarch and Diodorus Siculus.

Osiris was the judge of the dead and the underworld, and the agency that granted all life, including sprouting vegetation and the fertile flooding of the Nile River. He was described as "He Who is Permanently Benign and Youthful" and the "Lord of Silence". The kings of Egypt were associated with Osiris in death – as Osiris rose from the dead so they would be in union with him, and inherit eternal life through a process of imitative magic.

Geb

God of the Earth

Geb was the Egyptian god of the earth and a mythological member of the Ennead of Heliopolis. he could also be considered a father of snakes. It was believed in ancient Egypt that Geb's laughter created earthquakes and that he allowed crops to grow.

Geb was frequently feared as father of snakes (one of the names for snake was "son of the earth"). In a Coffin Texts spell Geb was described as father of the mythological snake Nehebkau of primeval times. In more mythology, Geb also often occurs as a primeval divine king of Egypt from whom his son Osiris and his grandson Horus inherited the land after many contendings with the disruptive god Set, brother and killer of Osiris. Geb could also be regarded as personified fertile earth and barren desert, the latter containing the dead or setting them free from their tombs, metaphorically described as "Geb opening his jaws", or imprisoning those there not worthy to go to the fertile North-Eastern heavenly Field of Reeds. In the latter case, one of his otherworldly attributes was an ominous jackal-headed stave (called wsr.t Mighty One') rising from the ground onto which enemies could be bound.

In the Heliopolitan Ennead (a group of nine gods created in the beginning by the one god Atum or Ra), Geb is the husband of Nut, the sky or visible daytime and nightly firmament, the son of the earlier primordial elements Tefnut (moisture) and Shu ('emptiness'), and the father to the four lesser gods of the system – Osiris, Seth, Isis and Nephthys. In this context, Geb was believed to have originally been engaged with Nut and had to be separated from her by Shu, god of the air. Consequently, in mythological depictions, Geb was shown as a man reclining, sometimes with his phallus still pointed towards Nut. Geb and Nut together formed the permanent boundary between the primeval waters and the newly created world.

Nephthys

Goddess of the Air

Nephthys was a goddess in ancient Egyptian religion. A member of the Great Ennead of Heliopolis in Egyptian mythology, she was a daughter of Nut and Geb. Nephthys was typically paired with her sister Isis in funerary rites[1] because of their role as protectors of the mummy and the god Osiris and as the sister-wife of Set.

She was associated with mourning, the night/darkness, service (specifically temples), childbirth, the dead, protection, magic, health, embalming, and beer.

At the time of the Fifth Dynasty Pyramid Texts, Nephthys appears as a goddess of the Heliopolitan Ennead. She is the sister of Isis and companion of the war-like deity, Set. As sister of Isis and especially Osiris, Nephthys is a protective goddess who symbolizes the death experience, just as Isis represented the birth experience. Nephthys was known in some ancient Egyptian temple theologies and cosmologies as the "Helpful Goddess" or the "Excellent Goddess". These late ancient Egyptian temple texts describe a goddess who represented divine assistance and protective guardianship.

Nephthys is regarded as the mother of the funerary deity Anubis (Inpu) in some myths. Alternatively Anubis appears as the son of Bastet or Isis.

As the primary "nursing mother" of the incarnate pharaonic god, Horus, Nephthys also was considered to be the nurse of the reigning pharaoh himself. Though other goddesses could assume this role, Nephthys was most usually portrayed in this function. In contrast, Nephthys is sometimes featured as a rather ferocious and dangerous divinity, capable of incinerating the enemies of the pharaoh with her fiery breath.

Shu

God of the Air

Shu was one of the primordial Egyptian gods, spouse and brother to goddess Tefnut, and one of the nine deities of the Ennead of the Heliopolis cosmogony. He was the god of peace, lions, air, and wind.

As the air, Shu was considered to be a cooling, and thus calming, influence, and pacifier. Due to the association with dry air, calm, and thus Ma'at (truth, justice, order, and balance), Shu was depicted as the dry air/atmosphere between the earth and sky, separating the two realms after the event of the First Occasion. Shu was also portrayed in art as wearing an ostrich feather. Shu was seen with between one and four feathers. The ostrich feather was symbolic of lightness and emptiness. Fog and clouds were also Shu's elements and they were often called his bones. Because of his position between the sky and earth, he was also known as the wind.

In a much later myth, representing a terrible weather disaster at the end of the Old Kingdom, it was said that Tefnut and Shu once argued, and Tefnut left Egypt for Nubia (which was always more temperate). It was said that Shu quickly decided that he missed her, but she changed into a cat that destroyed any man or god that approached. Thoth, disguised, eventually succeeded in convincing her to return.

Bastet

Goddess of Protection

Bastet was a goddess of ancient Egyptian religion, worshiped as early as the Second Dynasty (2890 BCE). Bastet was worshiped in Bubastis in Lower Egypt, originally as a lioness goddess, a role shared by other deities such as Sekhmet. Eventually Bastet and Sekhmet were characterized as two aspects of the same goddess, with Sekhmet representing the powerful warrior and protector aspect and Bastet, who increasingly was depicted as a cat, representing a gentler aspect.

She was also depicted as the daughter of Ra and Isis, and the consort of Ptah, with whom she had a son Maahes.

As protector of Lower Egypt, she was seen as defender of the king, and consequently of the sun god, Ra. Along with other deities such as Hathor, Sekhmet, and Isis, Bastet was associated with the Eye of Ra. She has been depicted as fighting the evil snake named Apep, an enemy of Ra. In addition to her solar connections, sometimes she was called "eye of the moon".

Bastet was also a goddess of pregnancy and childbirth, possibly because of the fertility of the domestic cat.

Images of Bastet were often created from alabaster. The goddess was sometimes depicted holding a ceremonial sistrum in one hand and an aegis in the other—the aegis usually resembling a collar or gorget, embellished with a lioness head.

Bastet was also depicted as the goddess of protection against contagious diseases and evil spirits.

Serket

Goddess of Scorpions

Serket is the goddess of fertility, nature, animals, medicine, magic, and healing venomous stings and bites in Egyptian mythology, originally the deification of the scorpion. Her family life is unknown, but she is sometimes credited as the daughter of Neith and Khnum, making her a sister to Sobek and Apep.

Scorpion stings lead to paralysis and Serket's name describes this, as it means "(she who) tightens the throat"; however, Serket's name also can be read as meaning "(she who) causes the throat to breathe", and so, as well as being seen as stinging the unrighteous, Serket was seen as one who could cure scorpion stings and the effects of other venoms such as snakebites.

In the art of ancient Egypt, Serket was shown as a scorpion (a symbol found on the earliest artifacts of the culture, such as from Naqada III) or as a woman with a scorpion on her head. Although Serket does not appear to have had any temples, she had a sizable number of priests in many communities.

One of the most dangerous species of scorpion, the Deathstalker (Leiurus quinquestriatus) resides in North Africa, and its sting may kill, so Serket was considered a highly important goddess, and sometimes she was considered by pharaohs to be their patron. Her close association with the early rulers implies that she was their protector, notably Scorpion I and Scorpion II.

As the protector against venom and snakebite, Serket often was said to protect the deities from Apep, the great snake-demon of evil, sometimes being depicted as the guard when Apep was captured.