Week 4 Essay: Analysis of the God's and Goddess's of Ancient Egypt

  For this week's reading it was somewhat difficult to decipher the gods and goddesses expect for maybe a small handful. For reference the Unit: Ancient Egyptian Myths and Stories can be found here. The stories never really went into full detail other than mentioning their purpose and roll in handling, or governing, society.  Great emphasis went into Ra, and he was present at some point in almost every story.  Nu, Ra's father, always had a sense of divine wisdom to him and he never seems to lose his temper. He was never hot-headed and was always there when Ra needed his council.  Isis wasn't necessarily a bad goddess, but she did use treacherous ways to achieve the title of deity.  If it weren't for her drive and being an enchantress she would have remained just another human.  

  Throughout the tales Osiris seemed to be the most good-natured god, and he interacted with the humans the best.  He banded the different tribes together, unified them, and created the law and order of the land.  He brought peace and tranquility to the kingdom, and it was trouble-free at one point to where he felt he could temporarily leave his kingdom and spread peace elsewhere.  When he died sorrow came over his followers, and it sent Isis into a frenzy.  Ra was regarded as the first actual ruler of mankind, but when he grew in age and left them they did not possess a good foundation or unity.  Man lived as they pleased, and their little bands battled amongst each other.  Another character the author chose to emphasize on was Set, Orsis's brother, who acquired a different temperament than Orsis.  He was the modern day bad guy who had it out for his brother's crown.  He sabotaged Orsis's homecoming, killed his brother, and banished Isis as she traveled to find his remains.  

  One thing that I notices was when there were times when a certain individual or god was in need of help, the only time they would receive it was when the situation was direly desperate.  After completing two weeks of readings on Greek Mythology I can see a vast diversity in comparison.  In Greek Mythology the god's helped those in need far more than the Egyptian's did.  The reason why was not discussed in the Unit, but it did leave a lot up to speculation and inference.  I don't know if this Unit cuts out a lot of information for the sake of length and reading time, but I have concluded myself that it seems that Egyptian Mythology is rudimentary when compared to Roman or Greek Mythologies.  

(Souce)