Corvidius Wrote:
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> Okay, I'll put it this way. In a Hindu household,
> and business, you are likely to find images of one
> or more of their major gods, Shiva, Vishnu, Devi,
> Ganesh. So the most important gods are worshipped
> in the home as well as the temple and are
> accesible for all.

If you go today, yes. I would agree. But 2,000 years from now, how much of this would you find if you dug (with today's techniques) in the graves of the poor or sites similar to what we're digging in Egypt?


> What gods are we likely to find
> in the average Egyptian household, Bes, Taweret,
> Bastet, and in later times, Horus in his
> Harpocrates form only. I'm sure there are others,
> but these are the ones that immediately spring to
> mind.

Lack of a household shrine does not mean they weren't worshiping or that they felt these deities didn't take an interest in them. Most Protestant households here in America (well, Baptist and Methodist) have little to no religious symbols in them but this doesn't mean they don't worship Jesus or the Christian god. There are a lot of amulets in Egypt showing some affiliation with major deities including Sekhmet, Khepri, Isis, Hathor, and others. In ancient Egypt, everyone spent some part of the year in service to the local temple, whether as laborer or as priest/priestess.

> Gods such as Atum, Ptah, Thoth and Ra are, I
> think, not going to be worshipped within the
> household, or the temple as it was not a place of
> worship in our sense for the people, being
> represented only by the rekhyt birds.

The rekhyt show up (if memory serves, please correct) in official proclamations on temple walls. While only certain classes of priesthood could enter the Holiest of Holies in each temple, there were spaces for others in the temples. Some temple walls have the deity's ears carved on them so that people could stand there and talk to the deity (and the deity would listen.) and at Karnak there were found "Temples of the Hearing Ear" (smaller chapels) dating before the time of Ramesses II where people could talk to the gods.

> We get lots of good information from Deir el
> Medina, but do they represent the bulk of the
> population, far from it, and as well as their
> literary skills, due to their tomb building and
> grave goods making functions, will have a far
> greater knowledge of Egyptian gods than the bulk
> of the population. At the equivalent village in
> Amarna a group of shrines to gods was found, which
> shows quite some tolerance on the behalf of
> Akhenaten, but in the city among the ordinary folk
> only cult statues of the likes of Bes have been
> found. The Aten was certainly a god for all, but
> that is a consequence of monotheism.

The Aten wasn't that much of a "god for all" since the only ones permitted to talk to the Aten or give directions from the Aten was Akhenaten and his family. Offerings were given to Akhenaten to give to the Aten. And Akhenaten wasn't that tolerant according to what I've read, sending soldiers around to destroy temples and altars and even going door-to-door (in later years) to make sure people weren't worshiping other deities.

-- Byrd
Moderator, Hall of Ma'at