The Religion of the ancient Egyptians is a very difficult topic to learn about. Even modern religion is hard to completely understand, even though we have modern teachers and books. But there are no teachers left from ancient to tell us exactly how their religion worked, and while we do have some books left from ancient times, they are not very easy to read or understand. When we study ancient Egyptian religion, we normally learn about some very specific subjects. These include the "gods", the stories about the "gods", and about other religious topics known as mythology, and the cult centers (temples) where they were "worshipped".

The Gods of Ancient Egypt

There is really a problem with the word "Gods" when we talk about many ancient religions. Today, most people who think about "God" belong to one of three major religions, consisting of Christianity, Islam or Judaism. All of them believe in only one, all powerful God. Yet, in each of these religions, there are also other supernatural beings. We do not refer to them as gods. They have specific names, such as angels, demons, etc. However, when we refer to supernatural beings of ancient religions, we usually call all of them gods, even though almost none of them can be thought of as all powerful, such as our modern God. In fact, what we call gods in the ancient Egyptian religion could usually die, be hurt, had mothers, fathers and children and many could even make very bad mistakes. Some of these supernatural beings could be mostly good, or mostly evil, but sometimes the evil ones could be good, and sometimes the good ones could be evil. It was also very rare that one ancient Egyptian "God" was more powerful than all the others, though there were exceptions. However, much of the time, some of the most important "gods" were said to gather in a council to make decisions. It also seems like the ancient Egyptian "Gods" were more involved with humans, and even depended on them. People, and particularly the King, did things for the "Gods", but in return, the "Gods" were expected to help humans.

Mythology and Stories

The religious stories from ancient Egypt, known as Mythology, are usually about specific gods or specific groups of gods.

Cult Centers (Temples)

A cult center in ancient Egypt is usually referred to as a temple. However, these buildings served a very different purpose than our modern churches, temples and mosques. Ancient temples were considered a house belonging to one or more gods. In these temples, the "gods" were taken care of by priests, rather than worshipped. Only priests were allowed into many parts of the temples, but they only served the "Gods", rather than helping common people.