Nehebkau was the primordial snake god in ancient Egyptian mythology. Although originally considered an evil spirit, he later functions as a funerary god associated with the afterlife. As one of the forty-two assessors of Ma’at, Nehebkau was believed to judge the deceased after death and provide their souls with ka – the part of the soul that distinguished the living from the dead.
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.
The ancient Egyptians believed that a soul was made up of many parts. In addition to these components of the soul, there was the human body.
The Book of the Dead is the name given to an ancient Egyptian funerary text generally written on papyrus and used from the beginning of the New Kingdom to around 50 BC. "Book" is the closest term to describe the loose collection of texts consisting of a number of magic spells intended to assist a dead person's journey through the Duat, or underworld, and into the afterlife and written by many priests over a period of about 1,000 years. In 1842, the Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius introduced for these texts the German name Todtenbuch, translated to English as 'Book of the Dead'. The original Egyptian name for the text, transliterated rw nw prt m hrw, is translated as Spells of Coming Forth by Day.
The djed, also djt is one of the more ancient and commonly found symbols in ancient Egyptian religion. It is a pillar-like symbol in Egyptian hieroglyphs representing stability. It is associated with the creator god Ptah and Osiris, the Egyptian god of the afterlife, the underworld, and the dead. It is commonly understood to represent his spine.
The ancient Egyptians had an elaborate set of funerary practices that they believed were necessary to ensure their immortality after death. These rituals included mummifying the body, casting magic spells, and burials with specific grave goods thought to be needed in the afterlife.
Ancient Egyptian art refers to art produced in ancient Egypt between the 6th millennium BC and the 4th century AD, spanning from Prehistoric Egypt until the Christianization of Roman Egypt. It includes paintings, sculptures, drawings on papyrus, faience, jewelry, ivories, architecture, and other art media. It was a conservative tradition whose style changed very little over time. Much of the surviving examples comes from tombs and monuments, giving insight into the ancient Egyptian afterlife beliefs.
A hypocephalus is a small disk-shaped object generally made of stuccoed linen, but also of papyrus, bronze, gold, wood, or clay, which ancient Egyptians from the Late Period onwards placed under the heads of their dead. The circle was believed to magically protect the deceased and cause the head and body to be enveloped in light and warmth, making the deceased divine. It replaced the earlier cow-amulet.
The ancient Egyptian Papyrus stem hieroglyph is one of the oldest language hieroglyphs from Ancient Egypt. The papyrus stalk, was incorporated into designs of columns on buildings, also facades, and is also in the iconographic art portrayed in ancient Egyptian decorated scenes.
The Joseph Smith Hypocephalus was a papyrus fragment, part of a larger collection of papyri known as the Joseph Smith Papyri. The papyri are Egyptian funerary papyrus fragments from ancient Thebes dated between 300 and 100 BC which, along with four mummies, were once owned by Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. The name of the owner Sheshonq is written in the hieroglyphic text on the hypocephalus. Smith purchased the mummies and papyrus documents from a traveling exhibitor in Kirtland, Ohio in 1835. Smith said that the hypocephalus contained records of the ancient patriarch Abraham. In 1842, Smith published the first part of the Book of Abraham, which he said was an inspired translation from the papyri. The consensus among both Mormon and non-Mormon scholars is that the characters on the surviving papyrus fragments do not match Smith's translation.
Atlanersa was a Kushite ruler of the Napatan kingdom of Nubia, reigning for about a decade in the mid-7th century BC. He was the successor of Tantamani, the last ruler of the 25th Dynasty of Egypt, and possibly a son of Taharqa or less likely of Tantamani, while his mother was a queen whose name is only partially preserved. Atlanersa's reign immediately followed the collapse of Nubian control over Egypt, which witnessed the Assyrian conquest of Egypt and then the beginning of the Late Period under Psamtik I. The same period also saw the progressive cultural integration of Egyptian beliefs by the Kushite civilization.
The heart scarab is an oval scarab artifact dating from ancient Egypt. Mostly an amulet, it was also used as jewelry, a memorializing artifact, or a grave good. The heart scarab was used by referring to Chapter 30 from the Book of the Dead and the weighing of the heart, being balanced by Maat, goddess of truth, justice, order, wisdom, and cosmic balance. The function of the heart scarab was to bind the heart to silence while it was being weighed in the underworld to ensure that the heart did not bear false witness against the deceased. As in many current religions, the individual had to show 'worthiness' to achieve the afterlife. The heart was extremely important to ancient Egyptians as the seat of intelligence and the storehouse of memory. It was the only organ left in place during mummification. Heart scarab amulets were meant as substitutes for the heart should the deceased be deprived of the organ in the afterlife. For example, when a person died, a heart scarab was often placed on their heart and bound underneath the bandages of the mummy. This was to ensure that it could not be physically removed from their person.
In ancient Egyptian religion, the crown of justification(mꜣḥ n mꜣꜥ ḫrw) was a wreath or fillet worn by the deceased to represent victory over death in the afterlife. Its symbolism is based on Chapter 19 of the Book of the Dead, in which the wearer is said to be "justified" by a triumph over death just as the god Osiris eventually rose above his enemies. A ritual text was recited as the dead person was crowned.
In Ancient Egyptian religion, Medjed is a minor deity mentioned in certain copies of the Book of the Dead. While not much is known about the deity, his ghost-like depiction in the Greenfield papyrus has earned him popularity in modern Japanese culture, and he has appeared as a character in video games and anime.
The Art Institute of Chicago contains a Book of the Dead scroll, an Ancient Egyptian papyrus depicting funerary spells. This scroll of funerary spells serves as a protection from "Second Death". In ancient Egyptian spiritual practice, the term "Second Death" refers to the phenomenon of the body permanently separating from the soul. The Book of the Dead scroll is made of papyrus, a material made of reed plants cultivated on marshy plantations, which is then cut into strips and left to dry in horizontal and vertical rows. The scroll also contains pigments used to inscribe the funerary spells.
Ancient Egyptian afterlife beliefs were centered around a variety of complex rituals that were influenced by many aspects of Egyptian culture. Religion was a major contributor, since it was an important social practice that bound all Egyptians together. For instance, many of the Egyptian gods played roles in guiding the souls of the dead through the afterlife. With the evolution of writing, religious ideals were recorded and quickly spread throughout the Egyptian community. The solidification and commencement of these doctrines were formed in the creation of afterlife texts which illustrated and explained what the dead would need to know in order to complete the journey safely.
The Cavern deities of the underworld were ancient Egyptian minor deities charged with punishing the damned souls by beheading and devouring them.
The Assessors of Maat were 42 minor ancient Egyptian deities of the Maat charged with judging the souls of the dead in the afterlife by joining the judgment of Osiris in the Weighing of the Heart.
The coffin of Nedjemankh is a gilded ancient Egyptian coffin from the late Ptolemaic Period. It once encased the mummy of Nedjemankh, a priest of the ram-god Heryshaf. The coffin was purchased by the New York City Metropolitan Museum of Art in July 2017 to be the centerpiece of an exhibition entitled "Nedjemankh and His Gilded Coffin." The Metropolitan Museum of Art repatriated Nedjemankh and his coffin to Egypt in 2019, before the scheduled closure of the exhibition.
The archaeology of ancient Egypt is the study of the archaeology of Egypt, stretching from prehistory through three millennia of documented history. Egyptian archaeology is one of the branches of Egyptology.
