Ancient Egypt

Egyptian religion, like that of Mesopotamia, was polytheistic and each region had its own patron deity. Some of these local or regional gods gained notoriety throughout Egypt. For instance, the god Ptah gained power when the city of Memphis became the capital of Egypt. Later, the god Re of Heliopolis eclipsed that of Ptah. Finally, the god Amon rose to supremacy in Thebes in connection with the political authority of the Thebian pharaoh. As a rule, whenever a new capital was founded, a new supreme god was chosen.

Egyptian gods were often represented as animals – as falcons, vultures, a cobra, dog, cat or crocodile. For the Egyptians, because animals were non-human, they must have possessed religious significance. Other gods, such as Ptah and Amon, were given human representation, but the most important god Re, was not represented at all. The gods created the cosmos – they created order out of chaos. The Sumerians had a similar belief. But the life of the Sumerian was filled with anxiety and pessimism because the gods themselves were unstable and the idea of an afterlife was unknown.

Egyptian religion inspired confidence and optimism in the external order and stability of the world. The gods guided the rhythms of life and death. And what really distinguished Egyptian religion from that of Mesopotamia, was that any man or woman could share in the benefits of an afterlife. As one historian has put it: "death meant a continuation of one's life on earth, a continuation that, with the appropriate precautions of proper burial, prayer, and ritual, would include only the best parts of life on earth – nothing to fear, but on the other hand, nothing to want to hurry out of this world for."

Religion was the unifying agent in ancient Egypt. Pharaoh indicated his concern for his people by worshipping the local deities in public ceremonies. The gods protected the living and guaranteed them an afterlife. The Egyptians believed they were living in a fixed, static or unchanging universe in which life and death were part of a continuous, rhythmic cycle. Certain patterns came to be expected – grain had to be harvested, irrigation canals had to be built and pyramids had to be built. Just as the sun rose in the east and set in the west, so all human life and death passed through regular and predictable patterns.

The firstpyramids, built around 2900 B.C., were little more than mudbrick structures built over the burial pits of nobles. These structures protected the body from exposure and also provided a secure place for the personal belongings of the dead noble. By 2600 B.C., mudbrick structures were replaced by the familiar stone pyramid. The pyramids were completely inaccessible structures – once pharaoh was buried, hallways and passages were sealed and obliterated. In this way, the pyramids would stand eternal, unchanged, and fixed, as they stand today. The pyramid symbolizes much of what we know about ancient Egypt. They reflect the extreme centralization of the Egyptian government as well as rule by pharaoh.

The great pyramids of Giza, built more than 4500 years ago, expressed pharaoh's immortality and divinity. The earliest built of the Giza pyramids is that of Khufu, better known as Cheops, the Greek name given to it by the Greek historian Herodotus,when he visited the pyramids around 480 B.C. Cheops covers 13 acres and contains two million stone blocks, each weighing 5000 pounds. Its height originally stood at 481 feet. One of the most compelling features of the pyramids, in addition to the architectural feat of just building them, was their mortuary art. Inside the pyramids was the royal burial chamber. The walls of the chamber are covered with hieroglyphics, which detail the life of pharaoh. We find art detailing people fishing and hunting. We also see people seated at banquets. Representations of food and wine were included as well. Jars of wine, grain, fruits and other foods were included, as well as boats, bows, arrows and other objects from the real world. Slaves were often entombed as well. Why? Very simple. Pharaoh would need these things in the afterlife, since death was not final, but an extension of this worldly life. The emphasis on mortuary art was not death but life. Like the seasons, man lives and dies. Death was nothing final but the beginning of yet another cycle. In the next life there would be birds, people, oceans, rivers, desert, food and wine.

From what we have said so far it should be obvious that religion gave the river civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt their distinctive character. But this religion was not a religion of comfort or morality. Instead, these polytheistic religions weremythoepic. Whereas our world view may be scientific or rational, these river civilizations adopted a world view based on myth. The construction of myths was the first manner in which western civilization attempted to explain life and the universe. Myths explained the creation of the universe as well as the role men and women would play in that universe. Nature, for these earliest river civilizations, was not an inanimate "it." Instead, nature, the world of nature, had a life, will and vitality all its own.

The myth-makers of the Ancient Near East and of Egypt did not seek to rationally or logically explain nature. Instead of natural laws or systematic explanations, these people resorted to divine powers and myths. Although these civilizations certainly exercised their minds to build ziggurats and pyramids, irrigation canals and pottery wheels, cuneiforms and hieroglyphics, they did not advance to the creation of science. They did not deduce abstractions, nor did they make hypotheses or establish general laws of the nature world. These efforts – science and philosophy – were the product of another culture, located in another time and place: the Greeks.