The Temple of Cybele

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The Egyptians

By Priestess Jean

Egypt, like Sumer, has a history far too vast to cover in brief essay... and so, I'll give a little background info and then try to focus on those aspects of their religious beliefs that pertain to the primordial Mother Goddess.

The people of ancient Egypt were indigenous to the area, from the advent of humanity. Around 10,000 BCE, climatic changes forced their tribal societies to congregate around the banks of the Nile river. By about 5500 BCE, the usual transition to an agrarian, urbanized society was well underway.

Like many other ancient civilizations, the earliest form of Egyptian religion revolved around the various forces of nature... and indeed, this was a theme that would be repeated throughout their history. Things such as the Nile river, the Earth, the sky, and even the very air itself were thought to be deities. Later, not surprisingly, their first truly sentient deity appears to have been a Mother Goddess.

In southern Egypt, the Goddess was originally known as Nekhbet and was often represented as a white vulture. This of course reminds us of the paintings found at Catal Hoyuk, and the very early association of the vulture with the process of recycling the body of the deceased, back into nature. Interestingly, in the Egyptian hieroglyphic language , the symbol of the vulture represents both "mother" and "ruler".

In the nothern areas of pre-dynastic Egypt, near the Nile river delta, the Goddess was originally called Wadjet. She was usually represented as a cobra. In addition, both of these primordial Mother Goddess archetypes were accompanied by a lion-headed war-goddess. Wadjet's lion was known as Bast , and Nehkbet's lion was called Sekhmet.

Another similarity with our own religion is that both Wadjet and Nehkbet had Oracles... although they didn't operate in quite the same way. Rather than receiving a direct communication from the Goddess, the Priests or Priestesses simply gave an answer based on their own opinion. Wadjet's Oracle was once located in Per-Wadjet (now Buto), and Nehkbet's Oracle was located in Nekheb (now El Kab).

Around 3200 BCE, northern Egypt was conquered by southern Egypt, and the country became unified. About that same time, the hieroglyphic system of writing was invented, and as a result, our knowledge concerning the events which followed is fairly accurate. Unfortunately, the story is amazingly complex and confusing, due to the period of over 3000 years which it spans, and the vast size of their empire.

It should be noted that Egypt did not experience a direct invasion by the Kurgans... instead, they were influenced by contact with their Kurganized neighbors, and followed a similar pattern in terms of the rising importance of warfare, standing armies, and male deities. In the case of Egypt, many of the male deities were not violent war-gods, and served more benevolent and ethereal purposes, such as assisting deceased Pharaohs in the afterlife.

When Egypt was unified in 3200 BCE, the capitol was located in Memphis , which is near modern-day Cairo. At that time, both Wadjet and Nehkbet became co-protectors and patrons of the kingdom, and were commonly referred to as the "Two Ladies". No attemp was made to replace Wadjet by Nehkbet, although Sekhmet did replace Bast as Egypt's official war-goddess. Bast was reduced from a lion to an ordinary housecat, and her name changed to Bastet, which is a diminutive form of Bast.

Within Egypt, some major cities had unique pantheons of their own, which would later be merged into the overall cosmology. As early as 2700 BCE, the inhabitants of Hermopolis were known to worship a Mother Goddess called Hathor , who was often depicted as a cow. Her spouse was a deity called Ra , who was a sun-god.

Hathor was related to an even older fertility goddess known as Bat , who was also portrayed as a cow. Both Bat and Hathor were associated with joyful music and dancing, and their clergy often played an instrument called a Sistrum. Hathor was the most popular deity of her time, and was attended by both Priests and Priestesses.

In the city of Thebes , another Mother Goddess archetype called Mut was worshipped. When Thebes became the capitol, around 2200 BCE, Mut began to replace both Wadjet and Nehkbet, and along with her spouse Amun , eventually came to dominate the national pantheon.

Mut was yet another very ancient deity, who began as a personification of the cosmos, and evolved into a creator and mother. She was perhaps the first goddess of her type to be portrayed as a human, rather than an animal. The Queen acted as her High-Priestess, and her temples were administered exclusively by women.

There was a brief period around 1340 BCE, where the Pharaoh Akhenaten attemped to force Egypt to convert to the monotheistic worship of the sun-god Aten... but the attemp failed, and shortly after his death, Egypt returned to the previous pantheon.

Around 1250 BCE, the Pharaoh Ramesses II moved the capitol from Thebes to the lower Nile delta. Thebes then entered into a period of decline, and as the Hermopolis pantheon was more popular in the northern part of the country, it began to become dominant. By about 1100 BCE Mut was replaced by Hathor (now depicted as a woman)... and later, Amun was merged with Ra, becoming Amun-Ra.

Some time after this re-arrangement of deities, the goddess Isis began to rise in prominence. Isis was a minor Mother Goddess archetype, from northern Egypt, dating to at least 2500 BCE. She was initially regarded as the daughter of Hathor and Amun-Ra, but as time passed she began to take on the qualities of Hathor and replace her. At the same time, Osiris replaced Anubis as the god of the underworld, and Horus replaced Amun-Ra as the god of the sky. These three deities... Isis, Osiris and Horus... were to become the central entities in the Egyptian pantheon, until it's destruction by the Christians in 400 CE.

Isis came to be known as a goddess of fertility, children, nature, magic, and the primary creation deity. She was depicted as a beautiful woman, at various times with a child, the horns and solar disk of Hathor, the sistrum, or the Ankh. She was served by both Priests and Priestesses, including some transsexuals.

Isis, holding a sistrum
Roman marble statue, circa 150 CE

The story of the Mother Goddess in Egypt is clearly a long and complex one... Although their pantheon underwent many politically and socially motivated changes, it clearly began with a Mother Goddess, and always included a prominent Mother Goddess figure. Indeed, in her final incarnation as Isis, she became one of the most famous and popular Mother Goddesses of all time.

Bright Blessings,

Priestess Jean