Luck, Lightheartedness, Small Happinesses, Opportunity, Being Untroubled, Comedy
Did you know Bes is a patron of children? It was said that if a baby smiled and laughed for no reason or without prompting, it was Bes making faces at them. Though He may not have the same popularity today as He did in antiquity, He’s not one to overlook.
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Scarabs are engraved stones representing the Scarab beetle (Scarabaeus sacer), which rolls each of its eggs in a ball of mud and may be seen on sandy slopes in the hot sunshine of Egypt; rounding the pellet by pushing it backwards uphill with its hind legs, and allowing it to roll down again. The ancient Egyptian compared this living germ to the sun, which brings matter into life, and the Scarab became the symbol of creation, and sacred to their Sun-god, Khepera. It was their custom as far back as 4,600 years B.C. to bury these engraved Scarabs with their dead, and frequently one was placed in the heart itself. It was an emblem of re-creation, and symbolized this evolution of the soul through eternity.
Egyptian: The material to be worked upon to achieve perfection through creative activity; the rough ashlar is unregenerate man, the perfect ashlar is the spiritual and perfected man.
[Source: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Traditional Symbols by J.C. Cooper]
A solar bird with much the same symbolism as the eagle; it is an attribute of all sun gods and represents the heavens; power; royalty; nobility.
Like the eagle, it was regarded as being able to fly up to the sun and gaze on it without flinching.
Gods with a hawk, or hawk-headed, are sun gods.
Aztec: A messenger of the gods.
Egyptian: The royal bird; the Spirit; the soul; inspiration; the Bird of Khensu; Ra, the sun. Other gods with hawks, or hawk-headed, are Ptah, Horus, Mentu, Rehu, Sokar, Kebhsenuf. The hawk-headed crocodile is Sebek-Ra; the sphinx is sometimes hawk-headed. The hawk is also an emblem of Amenti, Great Mother and goddess of the West and the underworld.
Graeco-Roman: The ‘swift messenger of Apollo’; attribute of Circe.
Hindu: Gayatri, the hawk, brought soma from heaven. The hawk is also a vehicle of Indra.
Iranian: An attribute of Ahura Maxza, or Ormuzd, as light.
Mithraic: An attribute of Mithra as sun god.
[Source: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Traditional Symbols by J.C. Cooper]
Portrait of Osiris, Lord of eternity, King of the gods. Part of the Book of the Dead of the scribe Nebqed (papyrus). Reign of Amenhotep III. New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, ca. 1391-1353 BC. Now in the Louvre.
did anyone else find it super sad when khonshu said he remembers every night like bird man brought me to tears he sounded so sad and having to remember every night for thousands of years no wonder he’s grouchy that’s depressing af
in conclusion i want to give khonshu a hug he really seems like he needs it❤️
The Mysteries of Osiris was the most important religious event of the year in ancient Egypt. It was celebrated in all major cities, including Thonis-HeracleionandCanopus, where even the Greeks who lived in those cities took part.
It reenacted the murder and revival of Osiris, Egyptian god of the underworld. Osiris was one of the most important and popular gods in ancient Egypt. All pharaohs were believed to descend from him, as living incarnations of Osiris’ son, Horus. Osiris presided over the tribunal of the underworld, offering the promise of life after death for the deceased who were ‘justified’ in the eyes of the gods. He was also associated with fertility and the annual regeneration of nature.
Osiris, his sister-wife Isis, and their son Horus formed a sacred family, worshipped across Egypt and beyond. They became increasingly popular during the first millennium BC. Annually, in every temple-city in Egypt, the god was celebrated in this most important religious festival.
The Mysteries of Osiris took place between the 12th and 30th of the month of Khoiak(mid-October to mid-November), when the Nile retreated, depositing fertile soil ready to be sown. Every year, two figures of Osiris were prepared by priests in the secrecy of the temple. One was made of soil and barley grains, and the other was made of expensive ingredients including ground semi-precious stones. These sacred figures were carried in procession to their final resting place at the end of the ritual celebrations.
For a long time, the Mysteries were known only from depictions in temples and ancient texts. However, recent astonishing underwater finds allow us to see ritual equipment and offerings associated with the Mysteries for the first time.
Discovered behind the shrine of Amun-Gereb in his temple at Thonis-Heracleion, this vat was used during the Mysteries of Osiris. On the first day of the Mysteries, the mummy-shaped figure of Osiris – made with a gold mould of two halves using soil, barley grains and water from the Nile – was deposited in a garden tank where it was carefully watered for eight days in a row, until it germinated.
This image shows a priest watering the germinating Osiris figure, in a depiction from the Temple of Philae.
Hey, y’all, gonna be drawing more Egyptian Gods for warmups as the weeks go by. Tell me your favorites! I’ve already posted Yinepu, and Set is still in the queue. ;)
being egyptian and reading the kane chronicles is so wild because it says that the egyptian gods migrate to wherever the center of western civilization is, implying that ancient egypt was a western civilization or that egypt’s a was, and not an is.like why is this non-white civilization which manifests today in a real life country supposedly a western civilization but the actual people whose heritage is tied to that civilization are excluded from it? why is a white british woman (a WHITE BRITISH WOMAN!) the living incarnation of isis - the mother of egypt? there’s no cultural nuance. there’s no consideration. the image of the egyptian mother, through isis or otherwise, is something so fucking important in egyptian culture, and to have it represented by a british woman - a descendant of those who bastardized and stole our heritage- is just insane to me. perhaps an interesting analysis of post colonial egypt in a meta sense, but that’s for egyptian artists to dissect, not riordan. and that’s only one thing. egypt - the actual egypt from which everything in the series originates) in that series is so mocked. i remember at some point sadie and walt are walking through egypt and mock the fact that since the arabic language has no “p”, they pronounce pepsiasbebsi.no respect.the very foundation of this series is based in racism, in colonial thinking, and, ultimately, white supremacy. why is zia, the only actual egyptian in the main cast, so irrelevant? so quiet and without agency? in a meta way, she’s like egypt itself. i just wanted to bring this to light since a lot of rr crit focuses on the racism and homophobia present in pjo and hoo and mcga and toa- perfectly valid criticisms that are well deserved - but barely anyone talks about the inherent colonialist and racist foundations of the entirety of the kane chronicles, which is why i wanted to bring it to light. enjoy the series if you want, i’m not saying you’re not allowed, but as long as we’re criticizing riordan, let’s criticize everything.
Exactly.
As a Greek I second OPs point and the post has my full support! It also made me wonder why Riordan (and the West) has done the exact same thing to other cultures, and also to the Greek culture specifically and nobody batted an eye. (The problematic things Americans notice aren’t the things Greeks noticed btw, bc the Americans noticed American things). And while I don’t feel well adding this to a post about Egypt, none of my posts about the missappropriation of the Greek culture and stories gains that type of traction. So, “make your own post” doesn’t apply here because people always ignore those posts. And because we and other ethnic people were ignored, he continued to do it, also harming the Egyptian culture in the process.
The rediculous thing is that he didn’t even bother going “that deep” (I know, it wasn’t even that deep with Egypt) as he did for Egypt and he still gave nonexistent and shitty representation. If people here must see a Greek addition to understand some of your popular American writers bullshit their way into writing cultures, so be it.
Riordan is one of the creators who usually learns from mistakes and tries to do better. Imagine what the others are doing…
As an Egyptian I agree with op fully (and also agree with the added bit about Greek heritage)
Being able to tell the difference between the many Gods and Goddesses of ancient Egypt can be difficult. Many of their traits overlap and, with the progress of time, many of them have changed from the Old Kingdom up to the Grecian occupation. So let’s look at some of the more common Gods and how to identify them.
Osiris
Osiris is quite identifiable. He is a God with green skin (though this trait is shared with several others) and he bears the white crown of Upper Egypt. He is also represented as a mummified man, meaning he is clad in white linen wrappings. He wears a collar, a royal beard, and holds a crook and flail. His name in hieroglyphs is easy to remember as it is only the Eye of Ra, the throne of Egypt, and then the determinative that this is a royal name.
Thoth
Thoth is also a very identifiable God because he is one of the only Gods with an ibis head. However, he is also sometimes portrayed as a full baboon, but rarely as a human with a baboon head. He often carries an ankh with him. Above him, he can sometimes wear the Atef crown—the double crown of lower and upper Egypt—but commonly bears a lunar disk type crown that rests on a crescent moon. His name in hieroglyphs can be quite long but there is, fortunately, a short version which is very easy to identify, as it is made up of an ibis, a loaf of bread, and two slash marks. Like Osiris and all other gods, there is a determinative that shows this is a God’s name.
