Polytheism and Afterlife Beliefs in Ancient Egypt

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Mythology and beliefs are a very large part of Ancient Egypt’s culture. Polytheism religion has its own way of running compared to what most people are used to today. This allows room for diversions and other religions branching out from this religion and taking only some aspects and applying it to their own beliefs. The culture with death and the after-life was a huge concern to the ancient Egyptian people.
Polytheistic religion is defined by “the doctrine of or belief in more than one god or in many gods” (Merriam Webster Dictionary). There were over 2,000 names of gods in Ancient Egypt (Hart 67). Some images of Ancient Egyptian gods and goddesses show them with a human body and the head of a bird or an animal. Animals were chosen to represent the powers of the god. This would also give artisans of that time the freedom to have depictions of gods and goddesses in their artwork along with the pharaohs. The pharaohs are the ones mostly known to have artwork based upon them with a god in the background, to represent some type of strength or power.
During his reign he was believed to be the successor to the pharaoh scorpion and Ka. Instead of having symbols that recognized him name he used symbols of unification. Narmer was the king that unified Lower and Upper Egypt into one, there is roof of his reign over both in an early document in Abydos tombs. They has a list of kings there and he was the first on both seals. To celebrate the idea of unification there is Narmer’s Palette which shows the insignia of both parts of Egypt. This palette was used to grind eye makeup and has his name on either side. The palette also had the symbolism of Horus being related to the king. It was believed that the pharaoh w...

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...at would be used by the person that died. The Book of the Dead was designed to help and guide them so that they could pass the spiritual tests and enter the afterlife. Many of the chapters of the book are written on papyrus paper, but some are also found on coffins, scarabs, tomb walls and even other funeral objects. They include illustrations and pictures that sometimes show the individual person as they make their journey to their afterlife. Pharaohs and wealthy families would have personal inscriptions, but the average middle class family could not usually afford the cost (Hoffman September 16th).
Mythology had a huge impact on all of ancient Egyptian culture. It was part of the core things that Egypt revolved around. Even though throughout time periods there were different main gods of that time, everyone followed what the pharaohs and religion was at that time.

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