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Ancient Egyptians

Also Known As Egyptians Name without the leading Ancient the atlas carries.
Peoples

The ancient Egyptians built one of the longest-lived civilizations in history along the Nile, unified around 3100 BCE and enduring for three millennia. Their religion maintained ma'at, the cosmic order, through the daily temple cult of gods such as Ra, Amun, Osiris and Isis, and prepared the dead for the journey through the Duat toward the Field of Reeds. Hieroglyphic writing, the pyramids and temples of Giza, Karnak and Abydos, and funerary literature from the Pyramid Texts to the Book of the Dead are its enduring monuments.

Facts
Origins
Origin Region
The Nile valley and delta, from the First Cataract to the Mediterranean, unified into one kingdom around 3100 BCE and continuously inhabited for the whole of ancient history 1
Language Family
Ancient Egyptian, an Afro-Asiatic language attested across Old, Middle and Late stages, surviving latest as Coptic, the liturgical language of Egyptian Christianity 2
Writing System
Hieroglyphic writing with its cursive forms hieratic and demotic, attested from about 3200 BCE to 394 CE; Coptic later wrote the language in Greek letters 2
Practice
Practice Status
Discontinued as a state religion 1
Ancient Egyptian religion ended with the Christianization of Egypt, its last temple closing in the sixth century CE; it survives as archaeology, text and museum collection rather than as a living cult
Traditions
Principal Religious Traditions
A temple religion maintaining ma'at, cosmic order, through the daily cult of gods such as Ra, Amun, Osiris and Isis, joined to an elaborate funerary religion preparing the dead for the Duat and the Field of Reeds 3
Learn More
Ma'at, the Gods and the Dead

Egyptian religion was the daily work of keeping the world in order. Ma'at, at once truth, justice and cosmic balance, had to be maintained against chaos, and that maintenance was the pharaoh's office: in every temple, in the king's name, priests woke, washed, clothed and fed the god's image so that the sun would rise and the Nile would flood. Creation was told several ways, from the sun god rising on the first mound at Heliopolis to Ptah of Memphis speaking the world into being, and the traditions coexisted without contradiction, each temple honoring its own account.

The pantheon Richard Wilkinson catalogues is vast: Ra the sun, with whom Amun of Thebes fused as the imperial god Amun-Ra; Osiris, murdered by his brother and restored by his sister-wife Isis to reign over the dead; their son Horus, whose living embodiment was the king; Thoth of writing and reckoning; Hathor of love and music; jackal-headed Anubis, embalmer and guide. The Osiris myth carried the tradition's deepest promise, that death can be passed through.

That promise organized an elaborate funerary religion. The dead traveled the Duat by night among gates and dangers, guided by texts that evolved from the royal Pyramid Texts through the Coffin Texts to the Book of the Dead placed with commoners; at journey's end the heart was weighed against the feather of ma'at in the Hall of Two Truths, and the justified entered Aaru, the Field of Reeds, a perfected Egypt of plenty. Mummification, tomb art and offering cults all served that crossing.

Three Thousand Years on the Nile

Egypt was unified around 3100 BCE, and the Old Kingdom raised the pyramids of Giza as resurrection machines for its kings, the largest buildings on earth for nearly four thousand years. After a first age of breakdown, the Middle Kingdom classicized the language and literature, and the New Kingdom built an empire from Nubia to Syria, pouring its wealth into Karnak, the greatest temple complex ever constructed, and into the royal tombs of the Valley of the Kings. Akhenaten's attempt to replace the gods with the single solar disk Aten lasted one reign before Tutankhamun's court restored the old cults, an episode preserved in the record precisely because it failed.

Abydos, burial place of the first kings and cult home of Osiris, drew pilgrims for the whole of Egyptian history, and the Oxford History edited by Ian Shaw traces that history through Libyan, Nubian, Persian, Greek and Roman rulers, each of whom found it easier to become pharaoh than to replace what pharaoh meant. Under the Ptolemies the cult of Isis spread across the Mediterranean world, and her temple at Philae remained active into the sixth century CE.

Christianity ended the temples but not the language: Coptic, the last stage of Egyptian written in Greek letters, remains the liturgical tongue of Egypt's church. The script itself slept from the last hieroglyphic inscription of 394 CE until Champollion's decipherment in 1822 opened three thousand years of texts, from Miriam Lichtheim's translated literature to the spells of the Book of the Dead, to modern readers.

Connections

Associated With

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The fifth of the five terms (bounds) the sign of Leo is divided into in the Egyptian table of planetary terms transmitted by Vettius Valens (Anthologies, 2nd century CE) and recorded by Claudius..."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The first of the five terms (bounds) the sign of Leo is divided into in the Egyptian table of planetary terms transmitted by Vettius Valens (Anthologies, 2nd century CE) and recorded by Claudius..."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The fourth of the five terms (bounds) the sign of Leo is divided into in the Egyptian table of planetary terms transmitted by Vettius Valens (Anthologies, 2nd century CE) and recorded by Claudius..."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The second of the five terms (bounds) the sign of Leo is divided into in the Egyptian table of planetary terms transmitted by Vettius Valens (Anthologies, 2nd century CE) and recorded by Claudius..."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The third of the five terms (bounds) the sign of Leo is divided into in the Egyptian table of planetary terms transmitted by Vettius Valens (Anthologies, 2nd century CE) and recorded by Claudius..."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The fifth of the five terms (bounds) the sign of Libra is divided into in the Egyptian table of planetary terms transmitted by Vettius Valens (Anthologies, 2nd century CE) and recorded by Claudius..."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The first of the five terms (bounds) the sign of Libra is divided into in the Egyptian table of planetary terms transmitted by Vettius Valens (Anthologies, 2nd century CE) and recorded by Claudius..."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The fourth of the five terms (bounds) the sign of Libra is divided into in the Egyptian table of planetary terms transmitted by Vettius Valens (Anthologies, 2nd century CE) and recorded by Claudius..."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The second of the five terms (bounds) the sign of Libra is divided into in the Egyptian table of planetary terms transmitted by Vettius Valens (Anthologies, 2nd century CE) and recorded by Claudius..."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The third of the five terms (bounds) the sign of Libra is divided into in the Egyptian table of planetary terms transmitted by Vettius Valens (Anthologies, 2nd century CE) and recorded by Claudius..."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "A peer reviewed article by musicologist Ralph P."

Source Locke, "Aida and Nine Readings of Empire," Nineteenth-Century Music Review, 2006Ralph P. Locke

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "Wikipedia's article on Ma'at, the ancient Egyptian concept of truth, order and justice, consulted 2026-08-13."

Source Ma'at (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "Jan Assmann is a leading Egyptologist specializing in ancient Egyptian religion, and this C."

Source Ma'at: Gerechtigkeit und Unsterblichkeit im Alten AegyptenJan Assmann

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "Maniere de se recreer avec le jeu de cartes nommees tarots, by Etteilla, the pen name of Jean-Baptiste Alliette, published in Paris in 1783, is the primary text itself, one of the founding documents..."

Source Maniere de se recreer avec le jeu de cartes nommees tarotsEtteilla (Jean-Baptiste Alliette)

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The Merneptah Stele is a primary ancient Egyptian victory inscription of about 1207 BCE; the atlas records no publisher and no exact publication year because it is an inscribed monument rather than..."

Source Merneptah steleAnonymous (royal scribes of Merneptah)

This source names Egyptians directly: "the Coptic text of the Gospel of the Egyptians, published as volume four of the Nag Hammadi Studies series under the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, presenting a Coptic transcription, an..."

Source Nag Hammadi Codices III,2 and IV,2: The Gospel of the Egyptians (The Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit), Edited with Translation and CommentaryAlexander Bohlig and Frederik Wisse, in cooperation with Pahor Labib

The narrow cultivated strip beside the river carried almost the whole population of ancient Egypt.

Source The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient EgyptRichard H. Wilkinson

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The fifth of the five terms (bounds) the sign of Pisces is divided into in the Egyptian table of planetary terms transmitted by Vettius Valens (Anthologies, 2nd century CE) and recorded by Claudius..."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The first of the five terms (bounds) the sign of Pisces is divided into in the Egyptian table of planetary terms transmitted by Vettius Valens (Anthologies, 2nd century CE) and recorded by Claudius..."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The fourth of the five terms (bounds) the sign of Pisces is divided into in the Egyptian table of planetary terms transmitted by Vettius Valens (Anthologies, 2nd century CE) and recorded by Claudius..."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The second of the five terms (bounds) the sign of Pisces is divided into in the Egyptian table of planetary terms transmitted by Vettius Valens (Anthologies, 2nd century CE) and recorded by Claudius..."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The third of the five terms (bounds) the sign of Pisces is divided into in the Egyptian table of planetary terms transmitted by Vettius Valens (Anthologies, 2nd century CE) and recorded by Claudius..."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "A Wikipedia article on Ra, the ancient Egyptian sun god, illustrated with a faience inlay of the falcon-headed god squatting beneath a sun disk, captioned "Inlay depicting the squatting god Re" and..."

Source Ra (Wikipedia)
Ren, Parts of the Soul

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The ren, or name, is counted among the components of the ancient Egyptian person, considered essential to continued existence after death: a being whose name was spoken or written was believed to..."

Source The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient EgyptDonald B. Redford (ed.)

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The fifth of the five terms (bounds) the sign of Sagittarius is divided into in the Egyptian table of planetary terms transmitted by Vettius Valens (Anthologies, 2nd century CE) and recorded by..."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The first of the five terms (bounds) the sign of Sagittarius is divided into in the Egyptian table of planetary terms transmitted by Vettius Valens (Anthologies, 2nd century CE) and recorded by..."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The fourth of the five terms (bounds) the sign of Sagittarius is divided into in the Egyptian table of planetary terms transmitted by Vettius Valens (Anthologies, 2nd century CE) and recorded by..."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The second of the five terms (bounds) the sign of Sagittarius is divided into in the Egyptian table of planetary terms transmitted by Vettius Valens (Anthologies, 2nd century CE) and recorded by..."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The third of the five terms (bounds) the sign of Sagittarius is divided into in the Egyptian table of planetary terms transmitted by Vettius Valens (Anthologies, 2nd century CE) and recorded by..."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The fifth of the five terms (bounds) the sign of Scorpio is divided into in the Egyptian table of planetary terms transmitted by Vettius Valens (Anthologies, 2nd century CE) and recorded by Claudius..."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The first of the five terms (bounds) the sign of Scorpio is divided into in the Egyptian table of planetary terms transmitted by Vettius Valens (Anthologies, 2nd century CE) and recorded by Claudius..."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The fourth of the five terms (bounds) the sign of Scorpio is divided into in the Egyptian table of planetary terms transmitted by Vettius Valens (Anthologies, 2nd century CE) and recorded by..."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The second of the five terms (bounds) the sign of Scorpio is divided into in the Egyptian table of planetary terms transmitted by Vettius Valens (Anthologies, 2nd century CE) and recorded by..."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The third of the five terms (bounds) the sign of Scorpio is divided into in the Egyptian table of planetary terms transmitted by Vettius Valens (Anthologies, 2nd century CE) and recorded by Claudius..."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The sheut, or shadow, is counted among the ancient Egyptian components of the person, understood as an inseparable and ever-present companion of the body rather than as a mere optical effect."

Source The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient EgyptDonald B. Redford (ed.)

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The fifth of the five terms (bounds) the sign of Taurus is divided into in the Egyptian table of planetary terms transmitted by Vettius Valens (Anthologies, 2nd century CE) and recorded by Claudius..."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The first of the five terms (bounds) the sign of Taurus is divided into in the Egyptian table of planetary terms transmitted by Vettius Valens (Anthologies, 2nd century CE) and recorded by Claudius..."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The fourth of the five terms (bounds) the sign of Taurus is divided into in the Egyptian table of planetary terms transmitted by Vettius Valens (Anthologies, 2nd century CE) and recorded by Claudius..."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The second of the five terms (bounds) the sign of Taurus is divided into in the Egyptian table of planetary terms transmitted by Vettius Valens (Anthologies, 2nd century CE) and recorded by Claudius..."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The third of the five terms (bounds) the sign of Taurus is divided into in the Egyptian table of planetary terms transmitted by Vettius Valens (Anthologies, 2nd century CE) and recorded by Claudius..."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "Raymond Faulkner's translation of the Egyptian Book of the Dead is the standard scholarly rendering of this primary funerary text, prepared by a specialist Egyptologist working directly from the..."

Source The Ancient Egyptian Book of the DeadRaymond O. Faulkner (translator); Carol Andrews (editor)

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "Raymond O. Faulkner was an Egyptologist specializing in ancient Egyptian language, and this book, published by Oxford University Press, is his scholarly English translation of the Pyramid Texts, the..."

Source The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid TextsRaymond O. Faulkner

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "The Book of Coming Forth by Night is Michael A."

Source The Book of Coming Forth by NightMichael A. Aquino

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "Two records held together, both the British Museum's own: the Curators' Corner episode "We Used Ancient Egyptian Magic to Heal Our Colleagues" (Season 10, Episode 9), published on the Museum's own..."

Source The British Museum's Own Curators' Corner and Heka Exhibition Records

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "Richard H. Wilkinson's reference works entry by entry from the iconographic, cult and textual record of ancient Egyptian religion, covering each deity's attributes, cult centers and historical..."

Source The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient EgyptRichard H. Wilkinson

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "E.A. Wallis Budge's 1895 translation of the Papyrus of Ani, the funerary papyrus of the scribe Ani, acquired by the British Museum in 1888 where Budge served as Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian..."

Source The Egyptian Book of the DeadE.A. Wallis Budge (trans.)

This source names Egyptians directly: "The Gospel of the Egyptians is the modern scholarly name for a text whose own Coptic colophon calls it The Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit, a Sethian liturgical and cosmogonic work surviving..."

Source Nag Hammadi Codices III,2 and IV,2: The Gospel of the Egyptians (The Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit), Edited with Translation and CommentaryAlexander Bohlig and Frederik Wisse, in cooperation with Pahor Labib

In the Hall of Two Truths the heart is weighed against the feather of ma'at.

Source The Ancient Egyptian Book of the DeadRaymond O. Faulkner (translator); Carol Andrews (editor)

The myth of Osiris, murdered by Set and restored by Isis, carries Egypt's promise that death can be passed through.

Source The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient EgyptRichard H. Wilkinson

This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "This is an alphabetically organized reference covering ancient Egyptian religion, deities and cult centers, edited by a specialist in Egyptology and drawing on contributions covering the..."

Source The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient EgyptDonald B. Redford (ed.)

Showing 51 to 100 of 113 in Associated With, page 2 of 3.

Originated In

Egypt, Regions

Egypt, the gift of the Nile, is the civilization's whole world and stage.

Source The Oxford History of Ancient EgyptIan Shaw (ed.)
Egypt, Countries

Modern Egypt holds the monuments, and Coptic Christianity still prays in the language's last stage.

Source The Oxford History of Ancient EgyptIan Shaw (ed.)

Originates in Language

Middle Egyptian is the classical stage of the language, the standard of religious texts for two millennia.

Source Ancient Egyptian Literature, Volume II: The New KingdomMiriam Lichtheim

Worship Of

Amun, Deities

Amun of Thebes, fused with the sun as Amun-Ra, became the imperial god of New Kingdom Egypt.

Source The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient EgyptRichard H. Wilkinson
Anubis, Deities

Anubis, the jackal, presides over embalming and guides the dead to judgment.

Source The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient EgyptRichard H. Wilkinson
Bes, Deities

Bes was worshipped across Egypt for millennia as a household god of ordinary domestic life rather than of the temples.

Source The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient EgyptRichard H. Wilkinson
Hathor, Deities

Hathor, lady of love, music and the sycamore, welcomed the dead into the west.

Source The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient EgyptRichard H. Wilkinson
Horus, Deities

Horus, the falcon, was embodied in the living king; pharaoh bore a Horus name.

Source The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient EgyptRichard H. Wilkinson
Isis, Deities

Isis, who restored Osiris and protected Horus, became the most widely worshipped Egyptian goddess, her cult spreading across the Roman world.

Source The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient EgyptRichard H. Wilkinson
Osiris, Deities

Osiris, murdered and restored, reigns over the dead; every justified soul hoped to become an Osiris.

Source The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient EgyptRichard H. Wilkinson
Ra, Deities

Ra, the sun god, crossed the sky by day and the Duat by night; kings called themselves sons of Ra.

Source The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient EgyptRichard H. Wilkinson
Taweret, Deities

Taweret, the hippopotamus goddess who protects women in childbirth, was worshipped across Ancient Egypt for millennia alongside her household companion Bes.

Source The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient EgyptRichard H. Wilkinson
Thoth, Deities

Thoth, ibis-headed god of writing and reckoning, records the verdict at the weighing of the heart.

Source The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient EgyptRichard H. Wilkinson
In the Other Atlases

In Branch

Also in Language Atlas: the branch this subject belongs to.

Also in Language Atlas: the branch this subject belongs to.

Sources
1. The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt
Ian Shaw (ed.), Oxford University Press, 2000View the Source
2. Ancient Egyptian Literature, Volume II: The New Kingdom
Miriam Lichtheim, University of California Press, 1976View the Source
3. The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt
Richard H. Wilkinson, Thames & Hudson, 2003View the Source
The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead
Raymond O. Faulkner (translator); Carol Andrews (editor), British Museum Press, 1985View the Source
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