50 Fun Facts About Egyptian Mythology

Ra, one of the most important gods by the Fifth Dynasty, was primarily the god of what?

Ra was the sun god, thought to sail across the sky each day in a solar barque and through the underworld each night.

Which god of funerary rites and embalming is usually shown as a man with a canine head?

Anubis, the jackal-headed god of embalming, was painted black to symbolise regeneration and the Nile's fertile soil, not death.

Which bird's head does Horus, god of kingship and the sky, most often wear?

Horus is shown as a falcon or a falcon-headed man; the living pharaoh was regarded as his earthly manifestation.

Which god of writing, wisdom and the Moon is depicted with the head of an ibis or a baboon?

The Greeks equated him with Hermes, and his title 'thrice great' became Hermes Trismegistus.

Which goddess resurrects her slain brother and husband Osiris and protects their heir Horus?

Isis, usually crowned with a throne hieroglyph, revived Osiris long enough to conceive Horus and hid the boy in the Delta marshes.

Set, the murderer of Osiris, was god of deserts, storms and what else?

Set was god of deserts, storms, disorder and violence, yet not purely evil: he rode in Ra's boat each night to spear the serpent of chaos.

Which part of Osiris's dismembered body did Isis fail to recover?

She wrapped what she found, making him one of the first figures linked to the mummy wrap.

In the Osiris myth, the chest containing Osiris's body floats out to sea and washes up at which city?

The chest washed ashore at Byblos, where a tree grew around it; the king had the tree cut into a palace pillar with the chest still inside.

According to the myth, how long does the dispute between Horus and Set over the throne drag on?

The Contendings of Horus and Set says the trial dragged on for eighty years, largely because the presiding sun god favoured Set.

What is the Ennead?

It runs from Atum through Shu and Tefnut, Geb and Nut, down to Osiris, Isis, Set and Nephthys.

Which primordial god created himself and then fathered Shu and Tefnut, the first divine couple?

Atum, whose name relates to a verb meaning 'to complete', created himself from the primeval waters and was linked with the evening sun.

Nut, the sky goddess, is usually depicted how?

Nut is usually shown as a star-covered woman arching over the earth, swallowing the sun each evening and giving birth to it each dawn.

The Egyptians believed the laughter of which god caused earthquakes?

Geb, the earth god and father of Osiris, was said to shake the ground with his laughter; snakes were regarded as his children.

Shu, the god of air, was said to do what after the First Occasion?

Shu separated the earth from the sky, standing as the dry air between his children Geb (earth) and Nut (sky).

Tefnut's name may be an onomatopoeia for which act by Atum in the creation myth?

In late texts her name was even written with a mouth spitting.

The Ogdoad were eight primordial deities worshipped at which city?

The Ogdoad were the eight primordial gods of Hermopolis; late texts give the four males frogs' heads and the four females serpents' heads.

Ptah, the creator god of Memphis, brought the world into being by what means?

The Shabaka Stone says he gave life to all the gods 'through this heart and this tongue'.

Which god fashioned human bodies from clay on a potter's wheel and placed them in their mothers' wombs?

Khnum, worshipped at Elephantine by the First Cataract, shaped each person on his potter's wheel and was credited with controlling the Nile flood.

Which giant serpent, the enemy of Ra, embodied chaos and darkness?

Apep, called Apophis by the Greeks, was the serpent of chaos that attacked Ra's barque nightly; texts give him a flint head and a 16-yard length.

Ra travelled by night through the underworld in which form?

Ra travelled the underworld at night as a ram-headed god aboard the Mesektet barque, after crossing the sky by day in the Mandjet.

Into how many regions does the Amduat divide Ra's nightly journey through the underworld?

The Amduat divides the underworld into twelve regions, one for each hour of the night; Ra's rays woke the dead as he passed and they slept again after.

What was the Egyptian name for the underworld realm the dead passed through?

The Duat was the underworld through which the dead and the night sun travelled; it is described in the Coffin Texts, the Book of Gates and the Book of the Dead.

What did the ancient Egyptians actually call the text we know as the Book of the Dead?

The Egyptians called it the Spells (or Book) of Coming Forth by Day; the German Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius coined 'Todtenbuch' in 1842.

In the Weighing of the Heart, the dead person's heart was weighed against what?

The scene comes from Spell 125 of the Book of the Dead.

Ammit, who devoured hearts that failed the judgement, combined the parts of which three animals?

Ammit had a crocodile's head, a lion's forequarters and a hippopotamus's hindquarters, the three largest man-eaters the Egyptians knew.

Maat's ideological opposite, meaning injustice, chaos and violence, was called what?

Isfet, meaning injustice, chaos and violence, was the opposite of Maat; the pharaoh's duty was to uphold Maat and repel Isfet.

Which organ did the baboon-headed Hapy, one of the four sons of Horus, guard?

Baboon-headed Hapy guarded the lungs; Imsety (human) had the liver, Duamutef (jackal) the stomach and Qebehsenuef (falcon) the intestines.

How did Ra's daughter Sekhmet come to abandon her massacre of humanity?

She got so drunk she gave up the slaughter and went peacefully back to Ra.

In what form was the goddess Bastet originally worshipped?

Bastet was first a fierce lioness goddess; only in the first millennium BC was she shown as a domestic cat, while Sekhmet kept the warlike lioness aspect.

Which goddess of writing and measurement was shown with a seven-pointed emblem above her head?

Seshat, goddess of writing and measurement, wore a seven-pointed emblem on her head and took part in the 'stretching the cord' rite for laying out temples.

Hathor, goddess of music, love and motherhood, was usually shown as or with the horns of which animal?

Hathor was shown as a cow or as a woman with cow horns cradling a sun disk; her name means 'House of Horus', and Isis later adopted her headdress.

Sobek, associated with pharaonic power and the dangers of the Nile, has the head of which animal?

A Pyramid Text spell praises King Unis as the living incarnation of the crocodile god.

Taweret, protector of childbirth, is depicted as an upright female version of which animal?

Taweret is a pregnant hippopotamus standing upright, often with lion limbs and a crocodile tail; her name means 'the great one', a placatory address.

Bes, the dwarf-like household god, was chiefly a protector of whom?

Bes guarded mothers and children, warding off evil at childbirth; his grotesque image appears on beds, mirrors and the walls of temple birth-houses.

Khepri, the god of the morning sun, has the face of which creature?

Khepri has a scarab beetle for a face: the Egyptians likened the beetle rolling its dung ball to the sun being pushed across the sky.

The Egyptian Bennu bird may have inspired which creature of Greek legend?

The Bennu, a heron-like bird of Heliopolis titled 'He Who Came Into Being by Himself', is thought to be the model for the Greek phoenix.

Serket was the goddess of protection against the sting of which creature, shown on her head?

Serket wears a scorpion on her head; her full name, Serket-hetyt, 'she who causes the throat to breathe', refers to relief from its venom.

Wadjet, the cobra goddess, stood for which region of the united Two Lands?

Wadjet, the cobra, was the tutelary goddess of Lower Egypt and forms the uraeus on the royal crown; Nekhbet the vulture was her Upper Egyptian counterpart.

Neith, an early goddess of war and motherhood, had her main cult centre at which Delta city?

Neith's main temple stood at Sais in the western Delta; her emblem was crossed arrows on a shield, and the crocodile god Sobek was called her son.

Which god of the lotus and perfumes was the son of Ptah and Sekhmet?

Nefertem, the god of the blue lotus and perfume, completed the Memphite triad as the son of Ptah and Sekhmet.

Under which combined name was Amun worshipped as king of the gods from the New Kingdom?

Amun-Ra, the Theban god merged with the sun god, was hailed as king of the gods from the New Kingdom; his oracle at Siwa Oasis was consulted by Alexander the Great.

Which pharaoh made the sun disc the sole focus of state worship?

Akhenaten moved the capital to Amarna and made the Aten supreme; after his death Tutankhamun reopened the old temples and restored Amun.

How is the Aten depicted in Amarna-period art?

The word 'aten' originally just meant 'disc', anything flat and round.

Nephthys, sister-wife of Set, was paired with Isis in funerary rites in what role?

Nephthys and Isis, the 'two kites', mourned and guarded the dead as protectresses of the mummy; her name means 'Lady of the House'.

Heka, whose name is simply the Egyptian word for 'magic', was said to have existed since when?

Isis was sometimes titled Weret Hekau, 'Great Lady of Magic'.

Greek writers such as Plutarch identified Set with which monster of their own mythology?

Plutarch and other Greek writers equated Set with Typhon, the monstrous enemy of Zeus, when retelling the Osiris myth.

Imhotep, later deified as a god of medicine, was chancellor and possible pyramid architect to which king?

Imhotep served King Djoser of the Third Dynasty and is credited with designing his Step Pyramid at Saqqara; his healing cult grew only centuries later.

Min, whose cult centred on Coptos and Akhmim, is shown holding what in his upheld right hand?

Min is shown ithyphallic with his right arm raised holding a flail; Flinders Petrie dug up colossal early statues of him at Coptos (Qift) in the 1890s.

The jackal-headed embalmer god is associated with which other canine god, shown with grey or white fur?

Wepwawet, 'opener of the ways', is the grey or white canine god of Asyut, distinguished from the black-coated Anubis.

Osiris is classically shown wearing which distinctive headdress while holding a crook and flail?

Osiris wears the atef, a tall white crown flanked by ostrich plumes, over a mummy-wrapped body with a pharaoh's false beard.