Religious Beliefs and Practices of the Ancient Egyptians
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Religion was interwoven throughout the life of ancient Egypt, and was connected to Egyptian mythology, science, and medicine to name a few. From the mightiest Pharaonic king to the farmers harvesting abundant wheat harvests, the belief of magic (Heka) and balance (Ma'at) helped ancient Egyptians understand their place in the universe.
By honoring the principle of ma'at (personified as a goddess of the same name holding the white feather of truth) and living one's life in accordance with its precepts, one was aligned with the gods and the forces of light against the forces of darkness and chaos, and assured one's self of a welcome reception in the Hall of Truth after death and a gentle judgment by Osiris, the Lord of the Dead.
Patrick is a librarian with a background in paper-based materials preservation. He enjoys discovering both the shared and defining characteristics of ancient societies, and how the past still shapes us today.
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Uploaded by Patrick Goodman, published on 28 October 2020. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. When republishing on the web a hyperlink back to the original content source URL must be included. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.
