Egyptian God Ra essays

Egyptian God Ra essays Was Amun-Ra the Most Powerful Egyptian God? Through extensive research of ancient Egyptian history, we see that there was a change in religion, and even lifestyle. The king of Egypt, Akhenaton, made a sudden change during his rule in the religious support of the Egyptian gods. With Akhenatons preoccupation with new ideas and religious ideals, he cost Egypt its proud empire. We see that Amun-Ra was truly the most important and most powerful god in ancient Egypt. Akhenatons changing the religious ideals did not last long. Even though Aton was claimed the sole god during Akhenatons rule, Egypt and its people and the new rulers quickly altered the religious ideals towards Amun-Ras favor by claiming him the sole god once again, after Akhenatons death. The most important Egyptian god during most of Egyptian history was Ra, the god of the sun. He was also known as; Re, Amun-Re, Amen-Ra, Amun-Ra, Amun, or Amon.(www, Mysteries) His name, Amon, meant The Hidden One, also Amun means the hidden and Re means the sun.( www, Mysteries) To trace the origin of Amun-Re, we must go back to the Old Kingdom and Heliopolis, where the god Re first appeared as the primary manifestation of the sun god. Re is depicted with the head of a falcon surmounted by the sun disk during his passage across the sky, and with the head of a ram during his nocturnal voyage in the underworld. This local god rose in prominence to become a national god, resulting in the erection of sun temples throughout the land. In the fourth dynasty, the pharaohs began to consider themselves manifestations of this god. Later, during the Middle Kingdom, when Amun became the most important god, Re was fused with him to become Amun-Re.(www, Mysteries) Egyptian religion is a difficult subject to get a handle on. Although Egyptian religion was polytheistic, individual villages in cities with concentrate their spi...