This page groups deities by whether their existence in belief is considered fully mythological, debated, or grounded in a historical cult that can be traced. Wikipedia defines historicity as "the historical actuality of persons and events, meaning the quality of being part of history instead of being a historical myth, legend, or fiction." Browsing this way helps a visitor separate gods with a documented historical cult from ones known only through later literary retelling.
Facts
Attestation
Era of AttestationDivine names appear on First Dynasty monuments from about 3100 BCE, and the first substantial theological corpus is the Pyramid Texts of about 2350 BCE. The last hieroglyphic inscription was cut at Philae in 394 CE and the temple was closed in the sixth century. 2 Veneration TodayThe temple cult ended in late antiquity; no continuous worship survives. 2 Overview
What Defines This GroupingThe gods of ancient Egyptian religion across more than three millennia of one continuous tradition. Egyptian deities merge, split and change rank with the fortunes of their cities, so the grouping is a set of forms rather than a fixed roll, and each entry marks the period a form belongs to. 2 Learn More
The gods of ancient Egypt
This group holds the deities of ancient Egyptian religion, worshipped along the Nile for more than three thousand years. Egyptian gods are marked by their fluid, composite forms (human bodies with animal heads, gods who merge and split, local deities who rise to national importance), and by a theology bound tightly to kingship, the sun and the afterlife.
The browser will find the sun-god Ra in his many forms, the Osiris myth cycle (Osiris, Isis, Horus, Set, Nephthys) that structured beliefs about death and rulership, the creator Atum and the ordering goddess Maat, and figures such as Thoth, Anubis, Hathor, Ptah and Amun who dominated particular eras and cities.
Sun, Kingship and the Dead
Egyptian religion changed across its long history (the brief monotheism of Akhenaten's Aten, the rise of Amun-Ra at Thebes, the late syncretism that carried Isis across the Roman world), and the entries flag which period a form belongs to.
Much of what survives concerns the passage of the dead and the divine role of the pharaoh, recorded in temple reliefs and funerary texts such as the Book of the Dead. The atlas describes each god's domains, cult centres and iconography as the sources present them.
Historically attested
Filter Results1 entry
Sources
1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Tree
2. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt
Donald B. Redford (ed.), Oxford University Press, 2001s.v. Gods and GoddessesView the Source Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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