Who was the ancient Egyptian god of death
Categories: Historical news
Who was the ancientEgyptian god of death?
AncientEgyptians are knownfor many things, such as mummification, the Great Pyramid, a sophisticatedwriting system, and belief in the afterlife. Given that death and devotion tomany gods were so prominently featured in this culture, who was the ancientEgyptian god of death?
It would bea mistake to call Osiris the god of death, Andrea Kucharek, who directs aproject at the University of Heidelberg in Germany that looks at Osirian ritualtexts, told Live Science in an email. "He does not bring death or causedeath, but is the sovereign of the dead," said Kucharek. "Indeed,he is also the god of life, ensuring the fertility of plants, animals andhumans."
OtherEgyptian gods were associated with the dead, such as Anubis, Horus, Hathor andIsis. However, it would also be wrong to call any of them the gods of death.The jackal-headed Anubis is a particularly important deity associated with thedead.
Egyptologist and University of Warsaw researcherEmily Teeter told Live Science in an email, "He's the god of embalming."In Egyptian mythology, Anubis was "the first mummification of Osirishimself," Laura Ranieri Roy, founder and director of Ancient EgyptAlive, told Live Science in an email.
"Theancient [Egyptians] had no death cult, and as a result, they did not worshipthe god of death," Egyptologist Martin Boumas, director of the Macquarie University HistoryMuseum in Australia, told Live Science in an email.
The closestsupernatural being the "god of death" possessed by ancientEgyptians may have been a rare recorded Egyptian god called "death, thegreat god", John Baines, Professor Emeritus of Egyptology at theUniversity of Oxford, told Live Science. Told. E-mail. "There is anancient Egyptian god called 'Death, the great god,' but this god is extremelyrare and has a malicious presence, not beneficent."
One of thevery few examples in which this esoteric deity is recorded appears on apapyrus, dating to the 21st dynasty, some 3,000 years ago. It is written onpapyrus that this deity was called "Death, the great god who creates godsand men", Dunand and Zivi-Koch wrote in their book.
It ispossible that the person who wrote this papyrus tried to make it "Death,the great god," but it never took hold, Dunand and Zivi-Koch note. Asa result, while the Egyptians had gods dedicated to the dead and mummification,the idea of a deity dedicated to death never took on a life of its own.