Temples; Egyptian Gods' Houses:

Unlike the gods of ancient Greeks and some other cultures, Egyptian gods did not readily mix with their human subjects, and their interaction was usually found in specific contexts and areas, the most important of which was the temple. Fromg the small reed huts of predynastic times to the towering stone structures of the New Kingdom and later periods, temples were the the focal points of individual population centers and of Egyptian society as a whole.

Divine personification of
"United with Eternity",
the mortuary temple of
Ramses III.
20th Dynasty,
Medinet Habu
Egyptian Gods

Unlike modern religious structures, Egyptian temples were not primarily designed for the worship of the gods. Worship could and did take place within them, but they primarily functioned as complex symbolized models of the cosmos, as interfaces between the physical and supernatural worlds, and as "houses of the gods" for their care and provision - functions which overlapped to a considerable degree. Eventhough some Egyptian gods had no temples of their own, and others were not presented as ubdient deities in any temples, in a sense they were al represented by the temples, which functioned to preserve cosmic order and thus the gods themselves.


Temples Services for Egyptian Gods

The service and care of the gods was thus paramount not only to the Egyptians' sense of religious responsibility toward their deities but also to the continuation of existence itself. This was effected through the practice of rituals which supported the gods so that they in turn might be able to preserve and sustain the world. In fact, Dimitri Meeks has shown that a single common feature shared by the various beings called "gods" by the Egyptians is that they were the recipients of ritual. These rituals were of many types but are most easily classified on a temporal basis.

Viewed this way we may differentiate the daily ritual service of the gods which tended their basic needs; the occasional but regular rituals which were part of the recurrent
festival of the temple calendar; and finally the non-regular rituals which were performed only on special occasions or under special circumstances. Rituals of the third class were naturally the least commonly entacted and are rarely depicted in temple scenes, while those of festival and daily rituals decorate the walls of many Egyptian temples. In virtually all cases, however, temple depictions of ritual service do not reflect the reality of the ritual, but rather an idealized representation in which the king and deity are the sole participants.

Even in scenes where priests are represetned - as in depictions of processions - they are clearly ancillary to the figure of the monarch, for the most fundemental aspect of temple service during the pharaonic period was that in theory, and hence symbolically, it was the king himself who performed all major actions of the service of the cult. This aspect of temple function was rooted in the mythic reality of the king as legitimate descendant and heir of the gods - concepts which will be examined later. However in actual practice it was, of course, the priests who acted as the king's surrogates and who usually performed the rituals involved in the care of the gods.

Leave a Comment on Egyptian Gods