1) Egyptian Mythology was deeply intertwined with important and relevant ones were Amon, Thoth, Ptah, solar
h, Ptah, solar force. Amenhotep's son, Amenhotep IV incited a
Egyptian Religion. Egyptian's beliefs were the main
influence of the Egyptian culture. While this religion was
a unified theological system, it never existed as a
"religion" to the Egyptians. Their faith was rooted in a
collection of myths, innumerable deities and nature
worship.
Like other cultures, the Egyptians also had their own
"creation myth". Their belief was that only the ocean
existed in the very beginning. The sun, Ra, was then
brought into creation having been hatched out of an egg
(in some versions Ra was borne of a flower) and brought
forth four offspring, the gods Shu and Geb and the
goddesses Tefnut and Nut. Shu and Tefnut became the
air. They settled on Geb, who became the land and
elevated Nut, who then became the sky. Ra ruled over
these four gods. Geb an Nut begot two sons, Set and
Osiris, and two daughters, Isis and Nephthys. Osiris, in
conjunction with his sister/wife Isis, succeeded Ra as king
of the earth. Set, who was Osiris' brother, killed Osiris out
of hatred and Isis them embalmed her brother/husbands
body with the help of Anubis, who became the god of
embalming. The charms that Isis used in Osiris'
embalming process enabled him to resurrect and then
become king of the netherworld (land of the dead). Osiris
and Isis had one son, Horus, who later defeated Set and
became king of the earth. From the Egyptian's creation
myth came an ennead, a group of nine divinities, and a
triad consisting of a divine father, mother, and son. Every
temple in Egypt had it's own ennead and triad. It was
held that the greatest of all enneads was that of Ra and
his children and grandchildren. This group was worshiped
at Heliopolis, which was the center of sun worship. The
origin of several deities is obscure; some were taken from
other religions and some were animal gods of ancient
Africa. Eventually they were all fused into a religious
structure. In addition to the gods already named, some
Khnemu and Hapi. Some of the important goddesses
were Hathor, Mut, Neit, and Sekhet. The importance of
these gods increased with the political ascendancy of the
localities where they were worshiped. For example,
during the Memphite dynasty, Ptah became one of the
greatest gods in Egypt. In turn, when the Theban dynasty
ruled Egypt, the ennead of Thebes was revered as the
greatest. As the Egyptian religion became more evolved,
deities were sometimes confused with actual living
human beings who were glorified after death. Thusly,
Imhotep, who was originally a chief minister during the
Zoser dynasty, was later regarded as a demigod. During
the fifth dynasty, pharaohs started to claim divine
ancestry and henceforth were worshiped as sons of Ra.
In Egyptian Mythology the Egyptian gods were also
anthropomorphized in that they were represented as
having human torsos or bodies which then had human or
animal heads. More often than not, the animal
representing a god would also express characteristics of
said god. For example, Ra was depicted with the head of
a hawk which was sacred for it's swift flight across the
sky. Another example is that of Anubis (god of
embalming), he was represented with the head of a
jackal because these animals scavenged and ravaged
desert graves. Because some gods were represented with
animal heads, the animal in turn were venerated. The
animals themselves did not become objects of worship
until the twenty-sixth dynasty. Throughout all of this the
god that was worshiped and revered most consistently
was Ra, the sun god. Around the time of the Middle
Kingdom the worship of Ra was considered a state
religion, but he was gradually fused with the god Amon
from the Theban dynasty, he then became the supreme
god Amon-Ra. During the eighteenth dynasty the
pharaoh Amenhotep III renamed the sun god Aton. The
word Aton was an ancient word for describing physical
revolution in Egyptian religion by proclaiming that Aton
was the only god and the true god. He then changed his
name to Akhenaton which meant "Aton is satisfied". This
was of dire significance because he was the first
monotheist in Egyptian religion and was so iconoclastic
that he had the plural word gods erased from
monuments and also persecuted the priests of Amon.
However, Akhenaton's sun religion failed to survive. It did
have great influence on the art, thinking, and culture.
After Akhenaton's death, Egypt returned to the ancient,
labyrinthine religion of polytheism.
One of the most important and well known parts of
Egyptian Mythology were the burial practices. The
afterlife was of significant important to Egyptians and
their elaborate rituals are known world wide. The
Egyptians believed that in death, out of several important
psychical elements, the most important of these was the
ka. The ka was a duplicate of the living human body and
accompanied it throughout life and, after death,
departed from the body to take it's place in the kingdom
of the dead. This is where the elaborate burial rituals
come into play because the ka could not exist without the
preservation of the human corpse. Therefore every effort
was made to preserve the corpse after death through
embalming and mummifying. This method was
supposedly a tradition begun by Isis when she had to
embalm her brother/husband after he was killed by Set.
In addition to this process, sometimes wooden or stone
replicas of the body were put into the tomb in the event
that the mummy would be destroyed. It was a belief that
the more replicas placed in a tomb would yield a greater
chance for the dead human to resurrect. As a final
protection against the mummy being destroyed, massive
and elaborate tombs were erected to protect the corpse,
it's replicas, and it's equipment. After leaving the tomb,
the Ka was said to face many challenges and dangers so
each tomb was furnished with a copy of the Book of the
Dead. The Book of the Dead was a guide to the world of
the dead and consisted of things like charms to overcome
difficulties and dangers. Once the Ka reached the
kingdom of the dead safely, it was set to be judged by
Osiris who was the king of the dead and forty two demon
assistants; therefore the Book of the Dead also included a
code of conduct to follow when being judged. If the ka
was judged as a sinner it was condemned to hunger and
thirst or to be torn to pieces by executioners. If the ka
was judged favorably, it then went to the heavenly realm
of Yaru, which was a glorified version of life on earth. All
the necessities for this existence after death, from
furniture to reading material, were placed in the tomb.
Small statues, called ushabtis, were also placed in the
tomb so that the deceased would have the chance of not
having to preform tasks set by Osiris as payment for the
afterlife and his benevolent protection; they served as
substitutes.
2)
Since the beginning of time, religion has been a large part
of society. An example is ancient Egyptian society, and
how it was structured around religion. In ancient Egypt,
religion guided every aspect of life. The Egyptians
followed the religion of their ancestors without any
questions. Their society was almost all structured around
their religion and religious beliefs. For example, the way
they buried their dead was with a religious ceremony
where they tried to revive them; if they stayed dead they
would send them to the afterlife. Another example is that
they used to make religious sacrifices to the gods so that
they could keep the Nile river flowing. The Egyptian
religion strongly believed in gods and goddesses to have
created almost everything. They had over 2,000 gods and
goddesses in their religion, like Khonsu the moon god and
Thoth the god of secrets. Some of the gods like Amun
were worshipped throughout the whole country, while
others were worshipped only locally. Egyptians talk a lot
about these gods and goddesses in their literature,
because they try and incorporate religious beliefs in their
myths and stories. Magic and sorcery played a big role in
Egyptian religion. This is shown in Egyptian literature
because they make a lot of references to miracles and
magic. Ancient Egyptian literature relates to African
literature in the sense that both regions incorporated
religion in their literature. Religion was very important in
both African and Egyptian literature and society.
Egyptian culture and society were really closely based on
religion. The pharaohs would be seen as gods and would
be worshipped by everyone. The middle class blindly
followed their ancestors and didnt think for themselves.
The poor had it the worst because they were always sent
as labor to help the pharaohs with odd jobs. The poor
made very little money and were at the bottom of the
food chain, along with the beggars and the wanderers.
The middle class had some status depending on what
their position was in society. The middle class
businessmen had high paying jobs and traveled a lot so
that they could trade their products throughout Asia and
the Middle East. The elite and the pharaohs were the
highest positions in society and they told the middle and
lower classes what to do, and the lower classes were
happy to oblige. The caste system built in Egypt made it
so that they had a scarce ancient Egyptian middle class
and more of an elite and lower class, and only a few
people floated in the middle. The basic structure of the
caste system was that the pharaoh was sometimes
considered a god because of how much power he had,
and then came the elite, the middle class, and finally the
lower class, and scrubs. They believed that the Pharaoh
was a god, and what he spoke became law. The Egyptian
caste system was a way of life for the Egyptians; the
structure of their caste system was very similar to many
caste systems throughout Africa.
There were many different beliefs about gods. The
Egyptians worshipped trees, water, animals, and even
vegetables. The Egyptians also believed that a person had
two souls, the ba and the ka, which left the body when
they died and then it came back later to the body. The
Egyptians believed that mummification made sure that
the soul went back to the body before it was transported
into the underworld. The Egyptians also believed that
they were the servants of the gods, and the gods
controlled them. They also believed that the gods owned
all the land, therefore a lot of the crops Egyptians sold
were sold at the temples. Egyptians were sometimes
tricked by their religious leaders into paying money, so
that the gods could purify the sins of the people and their
children. Ancient Egyptian religion and culture had really
high respect towards their gods, and did everything they
could to keep the gods happy.
The Egyptians performed many rituals that were part of
their religion, but which they incorporated within their
literature. For example, when a person died, their body
was mummified, therefore the person who mummifying
the body was performing a ritual. Another example is
that the Egyptians would practice reading the Book of the
Dead so that they would be ready to read from it during
judgment of the Dead. Egyptians were obsessed with the
after-life. They thought they would reincarnate into many
different animals before they actually died. Ancient
Egyptian people gave up a lot of their resources so that
they could perform rituals, and so they could construct
their temples. They did all these rituals and these things
so that they could gain the favor of the gods. They also
did it so that they could interact with the gods on a
personal level through prayer and magic. Throughout
Egypts history people have performed many different
rituals and ceremonies in order to get closer to the gods.

Many places associate culture and every aspect of life

with religion. One of those places, Egypt tried to make
religion heavily influenced within every aspect of their
lives. They did everything so that they would be blessed.
They listened to their "lords", a lot of times their
pharaohs, and they always praised the gods. This is
shown within their tales, and their literature. These
religious tales had a great significance to Egyptian, as well
as African literature. Ancient Egyptians throughout their
history have greatly tied religion in with their literature.