Episode 3 Ancient Egyptian Thought

The History of Ancient Egypt

Professor Robert Brier

Film Review

In the Egyptian origin myth, the world began with eight paired gods who emerged from formless water:

• Hok and Hoket – gods of formlessness
• Kuk and Kuket – god of darkness
• Amun and Amunet – gods of hiddenness
• Nun and Nunet – gods he primordial waters.

The moment creation took place, a mound of earth formed and Atum created himself on this mound.

Atum had two children: Shu (Air) and Tefnet (Moisture). They give birth to the god Geb (Earth) and the goddess Nut (Sky). The sky goddess drapes herself around the earth, swallows the sun everything evening and births it again  in the morning.

Geb and Nut

Geb and Nut gave birth to four gods: Osiris and Ist (referred to as Isis in Greek), Set (Evil) and Nephythys (goddess of death).

Set

Osiris and Ist (Isis)

Osiris and Ist came to earth to civilize Egypt (introducing domesticated crops and animals) and protect humanity against Set. Set built a wooden chest exactly fitting Osiris’s body, tricked him into lying in it, covered it with molten lead and threw it into the Nile (which killed Osiris).

The chest washed ashore tree Biblos (Lebanon), where a tree, which is ultimately used for a pillar in the king’s palace, encompassed the chest in its growing trunk. When Ist retrieved the body and returned it to Egypt, she hacked it into 13 pieces. Unable to find the phallus, she reassembled and buried the body with an artificial one. Osiris subsequently became god of the dead and ancient Egyptians prayed for resurrection in his name.

This origin story is essential to the ancient Egyptian culture of embalming corpses to ensure their life after death. They also adopted a body-shaped chest (sarcophagus) Osiris was trapped in as a specialized mummy case to preserve the body in.

Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/video/1492791/1492797