Pharaoh is the vernacular term often used for the monarchs of ancient Egypt, who ruled from the First Dynasty until the annexation of Egypt by the Roman Republic in 30 BCE. However, regardless of gender, "king" was the term used most frequently by the ancient Egyptians for their monarchs through the middle of the Eighteenth Dynasty during the New Kingdom. The earliest confirmed instances of "pharaoh" used contemporaneously for a ruler were a letter to Akhenaten or an inscription possibly referring to Thutmose III.
Horus, also known as Heru, Har, Her, or Hor in Ancient Egyptian, is one of the most significant ancient Egyptian deities who served many functions, most notably as the god of kingship, healing, protection, the sun, 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 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 head.
In Egyptian history, the Upper and Lower Egypt period was the final stage of prehistoric Egypt and directly preceded the unification of the realm. The conception of Egypt as the Two Lands was an example of the dualism in ancient Egyptian culture and frequently appeared in texts and imagery, including in the titles of Egyptian pharaohs.
Mut was a mother goddess worshipped in ancient Egypt. Her name means mother in the ancient Egyptian language. Mut had many different aspects and attributes that changed and evolved greatly over the thousands of years of ancient Egyptian culture.
Hathor was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion who played a wide variety of roles. As a sky deity, she was the mother or consort of the sky god Horus and the sun god Ra, both of whom were connected with kingship, and thus she was the symbolic mother of their earthly representatives, the pharaohs. She was one of several goddesses who acted as the Eye of Ra, Ra's feminine counterpart, and in this form, she had a vengeful aspect that protected him from his enemies. Her beneficent side represented music, dance, joy, love, sexuality, and maternal care, and she acted as the consort of several male deities and the mother of their sons. These two aspects of the goddess exemplified the Egyptian conception of femininity. Hathor crossed boundaries between worlds, helping deceased souls in the transition to the afterlife.
Wadjet, known to the Greek world as Uto or Buto among other renderings including Wedjat, Uadjet, and Udjo, was originally the ancient Egyptian local goddess of the city of Dep or Buto in Lower Egypt, which was an important site in prehistoric Egypt. Wadjet's worship originally started in the Predynastic period, but evolved over time from a local goddess to a patron goddess.
Buto, Bouto, Butus or Butosus was a city that the Ancient Egyptians called Per-Wadjet. It was located 95 km east of Alexandria in the Nile Delta of Egypt. What in classical times the Greeks called Buto, stood about midway between the Taly (Bolbitine) and Thermuthiac (Sebennytic) branches of the Nile, a few kilometers north of the east-west Butic River and on the southern shore of the Butic Lake.
Nekhbet is an early predynastic local goddess in Egyptian mythology, who was the patron of the city of Nekheb. Ultimately, she became the patron of Upper Egypt and one of the two patron deities for all of Ancient Egypt when it was unified.
In Ancient Egyptian religion, Taweret is the protective goddess of childbirth and fertility. The name "Taweret" means "she who is great" or simply "great one", a common pacificatory address to dangerous deities. The deity is typically depicted as a bipedal female hippopotamus with feline attributes, pendulous female human breasts, the limbs and paws of a lion, and the back and tail of a Nile crocodile. She commonly bears the epithets "Lady of Heaven", "Mistress of the Horizon", "She Who Removes Water", "Mistress of Pure Water", and "Lady of the Birth House".
The Uraeus or Ouraeus is the stylized, upright form of an Egyptian cobra, used as a symbol of sovereignty, royalty, deity and divine authority in ancient Egypt.
The Eye of Ra or Eye of Re, usually depicted as sun disk or right wedjat-eye, is an entity in ancient Egyptian mythology that functions as an extension of the sun god Ra's power, equated with the disk of the sun, but it often behaves as an independent goddess, a feminine counterpart to Ra and a violent force that subdues his enemies. This goddess, also known with the theonym Wedjat, can be equated with several particular deities, including Hathor, Sekhmet, Bastet, Raet-Tawy, Menhit, Tefnut, and Mut. The eye goddess acts as mother, sibling, consort, and daughter of the sun god. She is his partner in the creative cycle in which he begets the renewed form of himself that is born at dawn. The eye's violent aspect defends Ra against the agents of disorder that threaten his rule. This dangerous aspect of the eye goddess is often represented by a lioness or by the uraeus, or cobra, a symbol of protection and royal authority. The disastrous fury and rampages of the eye goddess and the efforts of the gods to appease her are a prominent motif in Egyptian mythology.
The pschent was the double crown worn by rulers in ancient Egypt. The ancient Egyptians generally referred to it as Pa-sekhemty (pꜣ-sḫm.ty), the Two Powerful Ones, from which the Greek term is derived. It combined the White Hedjet Crown of Upper Egypt and the Red Deshret Crown of Lower Egypt.
Hedjet is the White Crown of pharaonic Upper Egypt. After the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, it was combined with the Deshret, the Red Crown of Lower Egypt, to form the Pschent, the double crown of Egypt. The symbol sometimes used for the White Crown was the vulture goddess Nekhbet shown next to the head of the cobra goddess Wadjet, the uraeus on the Pschent.
Meritamen was a daughter and later Great Royal Wife of Pharaoh Ramesses the Great.
The Egyptian civilization used a number of different Crowns throughout its existence. Some were used to show authority, while others were used for religious ceremonies. Each Crown was worn by different Pharaohs or deities, and each Crown had its own significance and symbolic meaning. In early Egypt, one significant and important characteristic of the many Crowns, was the color white. The color symbolized kingship or nisut in the early periods and Upper Egypt. The color blue was also an important color from the 18th Dynasty on. The Crowns include the Atef, the Deshret, the Hedjet, the Khepresh, the Pschent, and the Hemhem.
The khepresh (ḫprš) was an ancient Egyptian royal headdress. It is also known as the blue crown or war crown. New Kingdom pharaohs are often depicted wearing it in battle, but it was also frequently worn in ceremonies. While it was once called the war crown by many, modern historians refrain from characterizing it thus.
In Ancient Egyptian texts, the "Two Ladies" was a religious epithet for the goddesses Wadjet and Nekhbet, two deities who were patrons of the ancient Egyptians and worshiped by all after the unification of its two parts, Lower Egypt, and Upper Egypt. When the two parts of Egypt were joined together, there was no merger of these deities as often occurred with similar deities from various regions and cities. Both goddesses were retained because of the importance of their roles and they became known as the Two Ladies, who were the protectors of unified Egypt.
The Nebty name was one of the "great five names" used by Egyptian pharaohs. It was also one of the oldest royal titles. The modern term "Two-Ladies-name" is a simple derivation from the translation of the Egyptian word nebty.
The reign of Amanitore was considered one of the most prosperous times of the Meroitic period. She ruled alongside Natakamani, who was either her husband or her son. The success of the two rulers is evident through their work towards the building, restoration, and expansion of many temples throughout Nubia. The temples that can be accredited to the work of the two include: the Temple of Apedemak, the Amun temple B500 at Napata, the Amun temple at Meroe, the Amun Temples of Naqa and Amara, the Isis temple at Wad ben Naqa, and the Meroitic palace B1500 at Napata.
The Regalia of the Pharaoh or Pharaoh's attributes are the symbolic objects of royalty in ancient Egypt. In use between 3150 and 30 BC, these attributes were specific to pharaohs, but also to certain gods such as Atum, Ra, Osiris and Horus. In Egyptian mythology, these powerful gods were considered the original holders of royal power and the first rulers of the Nile Valley.
