Heathens, Pagans and Witches discussion

Chosen by Sara as our group read for the next two months. I'm definitely going to read this one.

I'm in on this one too. :)

I'm glad to see that both of you will be giving this one a try. As I said when I chose it, I believe it is a good, basic introduction to the pantheon. I'm planning to get started by adding a few comments shortly.

In a feeble attempt to include myself, I've been reading another book on Egyption Mythology. My friend in India had a girlfriend, who lives in London, and she used to get me to help her interpret her dreams via our mutual friend. As a special thank you, she sent me this book.



After a quick perusal, I'm on fire. I encountered a Goddess I've never heard of. Mafdet, the Goddess of Lynxes. I've have a special sort of craze for Lynxes, and have always thought they were beautiful, fierce and intriguing. I had no idea there was a special deity for them. There's very little in my book about her though, and would welcome anything you guys might come across in this months group read.

LOL, now that's a book I haven't yet read, Aaron!

Let me tell you what I know about Mafdet. There are multiple feline deities in this pantheon, the best known of which are Sekhmet and Bastet. Others include Wadjyt and Shesmetet, who along with Sekhmet and Bastet guard the body of Osiris, according to temple ritual. The others best known are Pakhet and Mafdet.

The majority of these feline deities are female, and usually depicted with the head of a lion. Thus, the lion represents the animal which is sacred to the deity.

Each is often known by the epithet, "Eye of Ra", which essentially means "defender". The lion is an ancient symbol of royal power and so these deities are charged with protecting the King.

Mafdet is mentioned in the Pyramid Texts, though I am uncertain if later texts include her. There, she helps the dead king by clawing out the eyes of evil snakes. (This is something of a complicated image--not so simple as it sounds, as snakes are most often the animal associate with Apep, the lord of chaos.) Because of this, Mafdet's original sacred animal is thought to be some sort of mongoose, though later she was depicted as a cheetah or lynx. Her role is as a divine executioner, serving justice by hunting and slaughtering the enemies of Ra--typical duties for an Eye of Ra. Her symbol was a harpoon fixed to a block.

Strictly speaking, she is not a deity of lynxes. She would be seen as embodying the skill of a lynx or taking on its character.

I know, TMI. . . .I hope this helps with your understanding of Mafdet.

It does help immensely Sara. But were there actually lynxes in Egypt around that time?

Insofar as I know, yes. I'm not enough of a student of animal evolution to know that they looked precisely like lynxes of today, however they must have been close to be recognizable in the art. I'll see if I can locate any photos.

Ancient Egyptian deities are most easily identified in illustrations because of what adorns the tops of their heads. Aset (Isis) has a table, which is sort of pun on her name. Sekhmet shows the solar disk of her father Ra, sometimes with a Cobra. The harpoon/block likely adorns Mafdet. Was there an illustration in the book you read?

Not of Mafdet, only of Bastet. They kept it very general, and there was no listing of Mafdet even in the index.

I don't have most of my books up here in Maine, however I'm going back home this week, and will see what I can come up with visually. Interesting that the indexer didn't include her, though apparently she was discussed enough for you to make a connection.

Yes, I thought it was a rather haphazard sort of index, for an Oxford publication.

I'm about halfway through now. I like the way the book is structured around objects and love the fact that there's a god of creative thought. It's a very complex yet seemingly flexible mythology.

I found it strange that the stories mentioned in Chapter 5 as coming from 'Egyptian literary texts' are so little known - I thought that the well-known myths about Isis, Horus, Osiris and the better-known gods were the only ones that had survived, yet there are others, and stories about ordinary people too.

I need to get back to this discussion and post some comments. I've been awash in end of the season company up at my camp in Maine, and will have a break this week before the next round--pre-Labor Day, which is an end of summer holiday in the US.

Nell wrote: "I'm about halfway through now. I like the way the book is structured around objects and love the fact that there's a god of creative thought. It's a very complex yet seemingly flexible mythology.
..."

Indeed there are deities for a great many aspects in Egyptian mythology. And yes, it is a complex cosmology. In part this stems from the history, in that many of these deities were "local", and then assumed a more regional importance as a local leader or chieftain rose to prominence and consolidated the country. Deities moved in and out of favour, and there are different combinations that have mattered. I'll try and add additional details to this.

There is a surprising number of literary texts that have survived, and in fact, I believe there are at least 4-6 books dedicated to them, sorted into Old, Middle and New Kingdom texts, along with those from the Intermediary periods.

LOL, how much detail would you like?

Sara wrote: "LOL, how much detail would you like?
"

:)

There are some books mentioned in the bibliography that I'll hopefully get around to reading - one that caught my eye deals with Egyptian myths as sources for Old Testament stories - Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament with Supplement. Have you read it?

Eek - it's £103 (but delivered free in the UK...) A s/h copy is £73. Off to the library then...

Amazon UK

I'm not familiar with this particular volume, Nell, and have not read it. So many books, so little time. . . .
Yes, that is quite pricy.

If you search "Egyptian Literature" on Amazon, you will turn up a number of decent volumes covering these myths. I've read some, but not all of these.

And I have read the Pyramid Texts, the Coffin Texts, and The Book of Going Forth by Day (aka The Book of the Dead). The James Allen and Raymond Faulkner translations of these are the Gold Standard.

Wallis Budge is an early translator, and the study of hieroglyphics is much advanced since he wrote his books.

I will be starting this book this evening. Looking forward to it.:)

Sara can I ask which version of 'The Book of Going Forth by Day' you would recommend?

Scratch that, found the one you mentioned :):)

Little wrote: "Scratch that, found the one you mentioned :):)"

I love that you're even considering giving this a try. It can be fairly dense going. Indeed, if I remember correctly, Faulkner and Allen collaborated on a translation. James Allen still teaches at Brown University, where I believe he is the Chair of the Egyptology Department.

And I really do need to get some additional material into this discussion. :-)

Hope all is well, Gina.

Thanks Sara. :):) I also found this one available as a kindle edition. Wondering what you think? Awakening Osiris: The Egyptian Book of the Dead

Little wrote: "Thanks Sara. :):) I also found this one available as a kindle edition. Wondering what you think? Awakening Osiris: The Egyptian Book of the Dead"

I'm not familiar with it, as I do tend to stick with academic translations. I'll take a look at it--I'm curious as to whether it's been translated from the hieroglyphics or if it's a rewrite from the English translations. Let me see what I think. . . .

Sara wrote: "Little wrote: "Thanks Sara. :):) I also found this one available as a kindle edition. Wondering what you think? Awakening Osiris: The Egyptian Book of the Dead"

I'm not familiar with it, as I do t..."

Thanks Sara.:)

OK, I did check this out, Gina. And I remembered why I know about her. She often works with a woman named Nicki Scully, and they run tours to Egypt as well. I have seen others of her books, which are more "New Age" in nature, and use ancient Egyptian cosmologies to create a contemporary approach. I can't find out anything about her background--scholarly or not, or anything that that would lead me to assume she knows hieroglyphics. She does have a website, which is www.normandiellis.com. She works a lot with her understanding of Heka, which is Egyptian Magic. I'd have to read this and see how it compares to the scholarly translations to know if it's a good one or not. I'm not sure when I'd have a chance to do that,though I am curious about her take on Heka, compared, say, to Emily Teeter, Geraldine Pinch or Bob Brier.

I'll stick with the Faulkner and Allen translation for now, then. I would like a scholarly translation to begin with.

Thanks Sara! :):)

First time poster!

This definitely was a very brief introduction to ancient Kemetic belief. I found myself constantly tantalized by brief statements the author made, wondering about what else might be going on there.

I noted comment that we tend to "[see the Egyptians] through Greek and Roman eyes." Because one of the other books I'm reading right now points out the almost-total absence of Greek women's voices in writings during the Hellenic period (Sappho being the notable exception), that also means that we likely see Egypt primarily through male eyes as well. Does anyone know if there are any extant papyri whose scribe was a woman?

Because my Patroness and Patron are Hellenic, I haven't worked much with the Kemitic pantheon. As a result, a lot of the stories told here were either new to me or treated more in-depth than I'd previously read them. That made the book more valuable to me. It also left me wanting a lot more. More about regional deities, more about the names of the deities as the Kemitic people knew them (Aset instead of Isis, for example), more pronunciations, anything at all on deity hieroglyphs. Also useful were the explanations of the duat and the political myths.

I enjoyed this as an introduction, but it really left me wanting more.

Great to read your post, Devichan! Interesting point about seeing Egypt through male eyes, and one that hadn't occurred to me. I guess one would have to have information about everyday life in Greece and Egypt in those times and to know how educated men and women interacted - especially if it was usual for the sexes to discuss important topics like religion. If it was, women may have had some invisible influence on male opinion and on what emerged on the papyri and other texts. After all, Egypt had her share of powerful women.

Devichan wrote: "First time poster!

This definitely was a very brief introduction to ancient Kemetic belief. I found myself constantly tantalized by brief statements the author made, wondering about what else migh..."

Hello Devichan. I'm so glad you made the time to read this selection. I chose it because it was a good, albeit brief, introduction to the cosmology of ancient Egypt. My sense is that this is a cosmology with which many are unfamiliar. I agree that it is important to learn what we can about how this religion functioned and the role it played in the everyday lives of the people.

I also agree that it is important to try and strain out the overlays and name changes. Egypt's is a long history and deities certainly altered and shifted during that time, as well as rose and fell in importance.

I am not familiar with anything that identifies the gender of writers of specific pieces of texts, as typically these weren't signed, or they they were, the signatures have been lost. Most scribes were likely male, though certainly there is a long tradition of priestesses in ancient Egypt.

There are on-line hieroglyphic translators that can render the name of any deity in script. Pronunciations are difficult because essentially there are no vowels in hieroglyphics. Where these are inserted, they represent the best guesses of linguistics scholars. I will see if I can find some examples for you.

If you are interested in reading in more depth, you might try Jeremy Naydler's Temple of the Cosmos, or Emily Teeter's Religion and Ritual in Ancient Egypt. Naydler is is religious scholar, and Teeter is an Egyptologist at the University of Chicago. Either of these will take you deeper.

Nell wrote: "Great to read your post, Devichan! Interesting point about seeing Egypt through male eyes, and one that hadn't occurred to me. I guess one would have to have information about everyday life in Gree..."

Powerful women indeed. I was just reading a piece about another female pharaoh, at the end of the 19th dynasty. She ruled alone, which is something even Hatshepsut did not. So much still remains buried in the sand there.

Do you know that Pharaoh's name?

Oh dear, I should have given it. I'll go and dig out the article, which I think was in the latest issue of Archeology magazine, or maybe it was KMT. I read so much on the subject of Ancient Egypt and subscribe to so many newsletters and list-feeds that I'm never 100% sure. LOL, an organized scholar I am not!

That's a hauntingly familiar problem Sara. I'll have my work cut out for me when I have to provide references for my book. It's not like I can just chalk it up to original research whenever the mood takes me.

And I still haven't found it. Argh, I hate when that happens. I think Google is next--they're pretty good with this sort of thing. My current thinking is that it was part of either AWOL (Ancient World On-Line) or the Egyptian Scholars list-feed. See what I mean. . . .

Thank you for recommending this book since I've always wondered about Egyptian mythology. myself, a Celtic devotee, conclude that the Egyptian mythology seems too removed for me. I'm not saying one is better than another. rather, that Celtic mythology seems more familiar to me because it is a bit more recent. what do YOU think?

I never thought of it as more recent. That's an interesting point. I've always found Celtic mythology to be more remote, because we know so little about it. It would have been great for people like us if the Druids had written a bit more down, although I understand their reasons for not doing it. Even where I live, the local tribes are loath to commit any of their beliefs to paper.

It seems to me that it's more a question of resonance than anything else. Who can say why, however for me, the mythology of the Ancient Egyptians has always resonated. I felt a strong connection to it from the time I was a young girl. It informed my decision to major in history, for example. And later it informed the deities with whom I feel connected. This world feels familiar to me in a way that other pantheons do not.

In a sense though, there are similarities between deities, suggesting that many are archetypal energies. That is how I view them, not as extraterrestrials or divine beings, but as energy forms. As I have written many times, Sekhmet is the healer and the destroyer for me--a not uncommon duality.

As Aaron points out, I am lucky that so much research has been done on the world of the ancient Egyptians, and that so much information has been recovered, even if we don't always know precisely what is intended.

I'm pleased that at least a few of my fellow group members chose to become a bit more familiar with the world that feels like home to me.

It was very informative and readable - thanks Sara.

You're welcome, Nell. It's still my plan to add more information to this thread. Unfortunately "life" has happened while I was busy making this plan. Hopefully I will have more time soon.

What I enjoy learning most in their culture is how religion didn't have to make logical sense. (I admire this in zen as well, my second integrated religion). Interesting how every western student admires the Egyptians for math, etc. yet no mention of their advanced ways of thinking about religion because these aren't taught. Do you agree? Disagree?

I don't know about admiring the mathematical ability of the ancient Egyptians. . . . I think more often this becomes a question of trying to determine just how they accomplished what they did, ie the Pyramids, with limited tools available. And certainly in other realms of science, particularly medicine, they were "off" in their understanding of how our bodies work. For example, they devalued the brain in favour of the heart. Now, I suppose there is an argument to be made that in this, they were on to something after all, as it is the heart that is the strongest electrical conductor in our bodies. :-)

I do agree that there are parts of the ancient Egyptian cosmology that don't necessarily make sense or fit together, at least not in any logical way. It is my perspective that indeed they were not "logical" about their religion. I can give many examples of conflicting beliefs. Now that may arise because of our limited understanding of just how it all worked. Or it may be because in a 3,000 year history, different regions held power and overlaid their own pantheon onto existing ones. There are those that argue for a certain rigidity as well.

In terms of its being an advanced way of thinking, I prefer to view it as the most ancient and early of human interaction with the unknown. There are colourable arguments to be made that at least earlier ancient Egyptian religion was in fact shamanic in nature. As I've said before, Jeremy Naydler successfully (IMO) makes this argument in his book "Shamanic Wisdom in the Pyramid Texts: The Mystical Tradition of Ancient Egypt", among others.

Another argument can be made that the formalized ancient Egyptian religion was a sort of logical extension of the animism that often informs and underlies a shamanic tradition.

All of this is IMO best kept in the realm of historical research rather than studying religion per se. Religion, whatever that means to someone, is a matter of largely personal interpretation. Or so it seems to me.

Sara, I haven't finished this one yet, but will be back to read the posts and perhaps ask some questions when I have. :)

That's fine, Gina. I haven't even had a chance to get all I wanted to say into this thread. I'm grateful that you're giving it a try, and I'm always happy to answer questions on Ancient Egypt. I certainly don't know everything, though at least I have an idea where to look. :-) How are you? It's been quiet here lately, which has been good for me, as I've been transitioning back home after a summer away. Trying to finish up my crystals program as well.

Thanks Sara. All good my end. Busy with art, writing, and harvesting spring vegetables.:) Given up venturing outside my door much, so I'm pleased to say I haven't been invited along on anymore Rapture events lately. :D Things nice and calm, but still missing my goats.

Bet it is lovely to be home again? Best to you.

Gina:):)