News — Egyptian God

On a recent trip to Luxor, Egypt, I was in the backseat of a van on the way to Medinet Habu. I looked out the window and noticed two giant statues sitting in an open field by the road. Our guide turned the car around so we could get a closer look. This was the Colossi of Memnon and Amenhotep III.   The two 60 foot statues of Amenhotep III stand at the gates of the pharaoh's funerary temple. Behind the large statues, you can see that archeologists are working to excavate and reconstruct the rest of the temple. The...

The Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir El-Bahri, near Luxor, is one of the most extraordinary temples in all of Egypt. The entire structure was designed to blend in with the surrounding mountainous landscape. Hatshepsut was the female king of Egypt who adopted the full titles and regalia of a pharaoh.   But scenes on the walls of the Deir El-Bahri temple had deep red details. We were surprised to see the tree of life and palm trees because they were not common in the other temples we visited.  Hatshepsut's temple consists of three levels with steep stairs between the levels.  There are many...

The scarab beetle is an iconic Egyptian deity with fascinating origins. The scarab was thought to have been born from a pile of dung making it a symbol of self-creation. Egyptians would watch the scarab push the dung and noticed it resembled the sun moving across the sky. Ancient Egyptians believed the scarab beetle was a manifestation of the Sun God Khepri. Because the sun would reappear the following day the scarab was known to symbolize rebirth. Scarabs were worn by the living as a powerful amulet for protection. They were also buried with the dead to help them on their...

Canopic jars were used by the ancient Egyptians during the mummification process. They were containers that held the internal organs of the deceased before mummification. The jars had lids or stoppers that were shaped as the head of one of the minor funerary deities known as the Four Sons of Horus. It was the job of these four deities to protect the internal organs of the deceased. The ancient Egyptians firmly believed that the deceased required his or her organs in order to be reborn in the Afterlife. The jars have lids in the shape of the four Sons of...