50 Fun Facts About Egyptian Mythology

Ra, one of the most important gods by the Fifth Dynasty, was primarily the god of what?

He was thought to sail across the sky each day in a solar barque and through the underworld each night.

Which god of funerary rites and embalming is usually shown as a man with a canine head?

His black colouring symbolised regeneration and the fertile soil of the Nile, not death.

Which bird's head does Horus, god of kingship and the sky, most often wear?

The living pharaoh was regarded as a manifestation of Horus.

Which god of writing, wisdom and the Moon is depicted with the head of an ibis or a baboon?

The Greeks equated him with Hermes, and his title 'thrice great' became Hermes Trismegistus.

Which goddess resurrects her slain brother and husband Osiris and protects their heir Horus?

She was usually shown wearing a throne-shaped hieroglyph on her head, and later borrowed Hathor's cow-horn sun disk.

Set, the murderer of Osiris, was god of deserts, storms and what else?

He was not purely evil: he stood in Ra's boat each night to fight off the chaos serpent Apep.

Which part of Osiris's dismembered body did Isis fail to recover?

She wrapped what she found, making him one of the first figures linked to the mummy wrap.

In the Osiris myth, the chest containing Osiris's body floats out to sea and washes up at which city?

A tree grows around it, and the local king has the tree cut down and turned into a palace pillar with the chest still inside.

According to the myth, how long does the dispute between Horus and Set over the throne drag on?

The delay is largely because the judge, the creator god, favours Set.

What is the Ennead?

It runs from Atum through Shu and Tefnut, Geb and Nut, down to Osiris, Isis, Set and Nephthys.

Which primordial god created himself and then fathered Shu and Tefnut, the first divine couple?

His name comes from a verb meaning 'to complete', and he was linked with the evening sun.

Nut, the sky goddess, is usually depicted how?

She was sometimes shown as a cow instead; her brother-husband is the earth god Geb.

The Egyptians believed the laughter of which god caused earthquakes?

He was the earth god, feared as the father of snakes, and never received a temple of his own.

Shu, the god of air, was said to do what after the First Occasion?

He was the dry air standing between his children Geb and Nut.

Tefnut's name may be an onomatopoeia for which act by Atum in the creation myth?

In late texts her name was even written with a mouth spitting.

The Ogdoad were eight primordial deities worshipped at which city?

Late texts give the males frogs' heads and the females serpents' heads.

Ptah, the creator god of Memphis, brought the world into being by what means?

The Shabaka Stone says he gave life to all the gods 'through this heart and this tongue'.

Which god fashioned human bodies from clay on a potter's wheel and placed them in their mothers' wombs?

He was originally the god of the Nile cataract who regulated the annual flood.

Which giant serpent, the enemy of Ra, embodied chaos and darkness?

Some descriptions gave him a head of flint and a length of 16 yards; the Greeks called him Apophis.

Ra travelled by night through the underworld in which form?

By day he was falcon-headed on the Mandjet barque, switching to the Mesektet for the night voyage.

In the Amduat, how many underworld regions are there, one per hour of Ra's night journey?

His rays revived the dead in each region as he passed, and they slept again once he had gone.

What was the Egyptian name for the underworld realm the dead passed through?

It appears in the Book of Gates, the Book of Caverns, the Coffin Texts and the Book of the Dead.

What did the ancient Egyptians actually call the text we know as the Book of the Dead?

The German Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius coined 'Todtenbuch' in 1842.

In the Weighing of the Heart, the dead person's heart was weighed against what?

The scene comes from Spell 125 of the Book of the Dead.

Ammit, who devoured hearts that failed the judgement, combined the parts of which three animals?

They were the three largest man-eating animals the Egyptians knew, so no one could escape her.

Maat's ideological opposite, meaning injustice, chaos and violence, was called what?

Her masculine counterpart was Thoth, who is sometimes called her husband.

The four sons of Horus guarded the canopic jars. Which organ did the baboon-headed Hapy protect?

Imsety (human) had the liver, Duamutef (jackal) the stomach and Qebehsenuef (falcon) the intestines.

How did Ra's daughter Sekhmet come to abandon her massacre of humanity?

She got so drunk she gave up the slaughter and went peacefully back to Ra.

The cat goddess of Bubastis was originally worshipped in what form?

She and Sekhmet came to be seen as the gentle and warlike aspects of one goddess.

Herodotus said Egypt's most popular festival was held at Bubastis in honour of which goddess?

The temple there was surrounded by water on three sides, forming a sacred lake called an isheru.

Hathor, goddess of music, love and motherhood, was usually shown as or with the horns of which animal?

Her name means 'House of Horus', and Isis later took over her sun-disk-between-horns headdress.

Sobek, associated with pharaonic power and the dangers of the Nile, has the head of which animal?

A Pyramid Text spell praises King Unis as the living incarnation of the crocodile god.

Taweret, protector of childbirth, is depicted as an upright female version of which animal?

Her name means 'she who is great', a placatory way of addressing a dangerous deity.

Bes, the dwarf-like household god, was chiefly a protector of whom?

His worship spread as far as Ibiza, and Bes-like figurines turn up in predynastic deposits.

Khepri, the god of the morning sun, has the face of which creature?

Beetles rolling dung balls looked to the Egyptians like the sun being pushed across the sky.

The Bennu bird, an Egyptian deity of the sun and rebirth, may have inspired which Greek creature?

One of his titles was 'He Who Came Into Being by Himself'.

Serket was the goddess of protection against the sting of which creature, shown on her head?

Her full name, Serket hetyt, means 'she who causes the throat to breathe'.

Wadjet, the cobra goddess, stood for which region of the united Two Lands?

Nekhbet, the vulture of Nekheb, was her counterpart for Upper Egypt.

Neith, an early goddess of war and motherhood, had her main cult centre at which Delta city?

Her emblem was a pair of crossed bows, and she was said to be mother of both Ra and Sobek.

Who is usually credited with healing the eye of Horus after Set damaged it?

Horus then offered the restored eye to his dead father Osiris, which is why it stood for all offerings.

After Thebes rebelled against the Hyksos, its patron god fused with the sun god under what combined name?

His only oracle throughout Egyptian history was at Siwa Oasis in the western desert.

Which pharaoh made the sun disc Aten the sole focus of state worship?

The experiment died with him; Tutankhamun reopened the temples and restored Amun.

How is the Aten depicted in Amarna-period art?

The word 'aten' originally just meant 'disc', anything flat and round.

Nephthys, sister-wife of Set, was paired with Isis in funerary rites in what role?

Her name is usually translated as 'Lady of the House' or 'Lady of the Temple'.

Heka, whose name is simply the Egyptian word for 'magic', was said to have existed since when?

Isis was sometimes titled Weret Hekau, 'Great Lady of Magic'.

The 'Set animal' used to depict Set has been identified as which real creature?

Egyptologists have never definitively matched the long-snouted, square-eared creature to any real animal.

Imhotep, later deified as a god of medicine, was chancellor and possible pyramid architect to which king?

No text from his lifetime mentions his medical skill; his cult grew over the following 3,000 years.

Min, whose cult centred on Coptos and Akhmim, is shown holding what in his upheld right hand?

Two huge statues of him dug up by Flinders Petrie at Qift may be predynastic.

The jackal-headed embalmer god is associated with which other canine god, shown with grey or white fur?

The name means 'opener of the ways'; his fur sets him apart from his black-coated counterpart.

Osiris is classically shown wearing which distinctive headdress while holding a crook and flail?

His legs are partly mummy-wrapped, and he wears a pharaoh's false beard.