Why were egyptians polytheistic

The soul, known as ka , accompanies an individual throughout life, and then after death it leaves the body to enter into the realm of the dead. An individual's ka could not exist without his or her body.

Extensive rituals and preparation of the body for death, which included tomb building, mummification, and funerary ceremonies, was meant to protect the body and the soul for the afterlife. The Egyptian pantheon was composed of many gods and goddesses often arranged in family groups of three consisting of a mother, father, and child.

Each god or goddess was linked to one or more places where monumental temples were built to house their images. Gods and goddesses in Egypt took many different forms. Many were portrayed in Egyptian art with both human and animal features. Imagine, being an ordinary Egyptian. Everything that everyone had believed in for 1, years was denounced. Certainly, everyone was deeply concerned. Unfortunately, we know very little about what steps Akhenaten took to educate the ordinary Egyptian people into this new belief.

He may simply have handed down a directive forbidding the worship of the traditional gods and closing their temples. Our best insight in the challenge that many people face in making the switch from polytheism to monotheism is provided by the Book of Exodus, which describes the first fumbling attempts by the Hebrews to abandon polytheism in favor of monotheism.

In the course of their exodus, after their escape from Egypt, we see the Hebrews constantly complaining and even reverting to polytheism by worshiping a golden calf. Learn more about being an Egyptian worker. Akhenaten was way ahead of his time, but when he died Egypt returned to its old ways. No doubt the traditional priesthood breathed a collective sigh of relief.

In conclusion, Egyptian religion seems to have placed remarkably few demands upon the common man and woman. The Hebrew God, as we learn from the Jewish Bible, was a jealous God, who struck terror and guilt into the entire race. The Egyptians, by contrast, were spared both terror and guilt. This was why they paid the taxes—to leave the difficult and mysterious business of handling the gods to those best qualified.

And if things did go wrong, they could always blame the priests or the pharaoh. Beyond Osiris and Amon-Ra, Egyptians venerated different gods during different periods and during different life events; for example, pregnant women and women in childbirth prayed to the hippopotamus-headed goddess Tawaret.

What anthropologists think of as the major gods were the figures most frequently depicted in texts and artwork. Many of these gods had an animal counterpart or were themselves depicted as half-human, half-animal hybrids, with the animal symbolizing the god's qualities.

Bastet, the cat-goddess, was a protective figure. Anubis, the god with the head of a jackal, supervised embalming and mummification. Seth, another animal-headed god, was the god of chaos. Because of the Egyptians' polytheistic beliefs, they celebrated and honored gods individually in various ceremonial activities, and many temples were built to honor specific gods.

Statues of the gods were ritually washed, presented with food and drink and dressed in ornate jewelry. The face of men's coffins and other funerary materials often depicted Osiris. During annual festivals, like the Sed festival, priests and pharaohs interacted with objects thought to have spiritual significance for individual gods.