Reviving a Religion That Lasted Three Thousand Years

Kemeticism, the modern revival of ancient Egyptian polytheistic religious practice, draws on the extensive historical Egyptian prayer corpus discussed as its own entry elsewhere in this atlas, including hymns such as the Great Hymn to Osiris and the Leiden Hymns to Amun, but faces a particular reconstruction challenge specific to ancient Egyptian religion's own enormous internal diversity across more than two thousand years of continuous practice and significant theological change, meaning contemporary Kemetic practitioners and organizations must make deliberate choices about which specific historical period, deity emphasis or theological approach, from the many genuinely different phases ancient Egyptian religion passed through, their modern practice will draw on most heavily. Different contemporary Kemetic organizations have made different choices in this regard, some emphasizing New Kingdom era practice, others drawing more on earlier or later material, a diversity of approach that mirrors, on a modern organizational scale, the genuine historical diversity within ancient Egyptian religion itself that the corpus entry elsewhere in this atlas describes.

Some Kemetic organizations have also incorporated syncretic elements, drawing on later Greco-Egyptian material such as the Hermetic and Neoplatonist traditions discussed elsewhere in this atlas, a further point of divergence between different contemporary Kemetic communities beyond disagreement over which pharaonic period to emphasize.