Ancient Egyptian Deities

Studying ancient Egyptian beliefs is an exciting part of the knowledge one can add to the intellect. Many ancient Egyptian deities, accompanied by their myths, formed the core of these beliefs. Therefore, we can define the Ancient Egyptian Deities as those gods and goddesses whom the Ancient Egyptians worshipped. Additionally, these gods’ beliefs and rituals founded the ancient Egyptian religion that emerged sometime in prehistory.

Also, Egypt’s natural surroundings and events presumably influenced Ancient Egyptian mythology. Thus, we can notice that these deities represented natural forces and phenomena. Therefore, the Egyptians supported and appeased them through offerings and rituals—accordingly, the offerings aimed at keeping the divine order, Maat, functioning.

Pharaoh’s Role in Religion

The pharaoh played a vital role in ancient Egyptian religion. Early signs prove that the pharaoh started performing this role immediately after the foundation of the Egyptian state. Historically, the pharaoh started playing this role around 3100 BC. The pharaoh began to control the authority to perform the rituals by then. Indeed, among these rituals was giving offerings to deities in their temples. Thus, the pharaohs are the intermediate between people and those gods, presenting offerings and fulfilling rituals. Generally, the pharaoh was the god’s representative and son on Earth.

List of Ancient Egyptian Deities

A significant number of deities, 2800 gods, formed the ancient Egyptian religion. Some of these deities played an essential role in the universe, while others played a minor role. Herein, we give an idea about the most prominent gods in ancient Egypt, according to the following order:

Goddesses in Ancient Egypt

1. Isis.
2. Amentet.
3. Ammit.
4. Anput.
5. Anat.
6. Anuket (Anukis).
7. Bast.
8. Bat.
9. Hathor.
10. Hatmehyt.
11. Hededet.
12. Hemsut.
13. Heqet.
14. Also, Hesat.
15. Iabet.
16. Kauket.
17. Kebechet.
18. Maat.
19. Menhet (Menhit).
20. Meretseger.
21. Meskhenet.
22. Mut.
23. Naunet.
24. Nehmetawy.
25. Also, Nekhbet.
26. Neith.
27. Nephthys.
28. Nut.
29. Qadesh.
30. Renenutet.
31. Renpet.
32. Satet (Satis).
33. Sekhmet.
34. Also, Seshat.
35. Serqet (Selkit).
36. Sopdet (Sothis).
37. Taweret.
38. Tayet.
39. Tefnut.
40. Tjenenet.
41. Wadjet.
42. Besides, Weret-hekau

Ancient Egyptian Gods

1. Amun of Luxor.
2. Ahy.
3. Am-heh.
4. Andjety.
5. Anhur(Onuris).
6. Anubis.
7. Apep (Apophis).
8. Aten.
9. Atum.
10. Also, Banebdjed.
11. Bes.
12. Geb.
13. Hapi.
14. Heka (Hike).
15. Also, Heryshef.
16. Horus.
17. Horus, the Elder.
18. Khentykhem.
19. Horus Behedet.
20. Horus, son of Isis.
21. Horakhty.
22. Horemakhet.
23. Also, Hu.
24. Imiut.
25. Khentiamentiu.
26. Khepri (Kheper).
27. Also, Kherty (Cherti).
28. Khonsu
29. Khnum;
30. Kuk;
31. Maahes (Mihos);
32. Maahaf;
33. And, Min;
34. Montu;
35. Nefertum.
36. Nun.
37. Osiris.
38. Ptah.
39. Ra.
40. Reshep.
41. Sahu.
42. Serapis (Sarapis)
43. And, Sepa.
44. Set.
45. Shai.
46. Also, Shu.
47. Sia.
48. Sobek.
49. And, Sokar.
50. Sopdu (Sopedu).
51. Thoth.
52. Besides, Wepwawet.

Goddess Amunet

Amunet is one of the primordial goddesses from the Ancient Egyptian religion. This fascinating goddess plays a central role in the Egyptian creation myth. However, over time, we lost the stories of Amunet in the drift of history. Subsequently, another goddess replaced her altogether.

Goddess Anuket

The ancient Egyptians worshipped the Egyptian goddess Anuket as the personification of the Nile River. People referred to her as the “Nourisher of the Fields”. Moreover, they also saw her as the deity who would protect women during childbirth.

Goddess Bastet

Ancient Egyptians considered Goddess Bastet, the protector of females, home, domesticity, cats, pleasure and good health. She protected households against evil spirits and diseases affecting women or children. Like other ancient deities, the goddess also had an essential role in the afterlife.

Goddess Bat

Ancient Egyptians revered Goddess Bat as the deity of fertility. The first evidence of Bat worship originates from the earliest records of the religious practices in ancient Egypt.

Most importantly, Egyptian mythology revered her as the cow goddess. Symbols depict her with a human face with cow ears and horns or a woman. As with other Egyptian divinities, Bat’s identity subsumed with another goddess later. Legends associate Bat with Upper Egypt and the Milky Way galaxy.

Goddess Hathor

According to the ancient Egyptian religion, Goddess Hathor was one principal goddess. Sacredly, she was the goddess of sky, music, dance, joy, love, sexuality and maternal care. In addition, she was the heavenly mother of Horus and Ra.

Goddess Isis

Goddess Isis is one of the famous goddesses in ancient Egypt. Religiously, she was the goddess of fertility, motherhood, magic, death, healing and rebirth. Undoubtedly, this goddess came from a divine family. According to her family origins, Isis was the first daughter of Geb (Earth) and Nut (deity of the sky). Besides, she was the wife of her brother Osiris and gave birth to the god Horus.

Goddess Kauket

Kuk (also called Kek or Keku) is the ancient Egyptian deity of night and darkness. As a concept, ancient Egyptians viewed Kuk as having male and female qualities. His female form was known as Kauket (also spelt as Keket), simply the female form of the word Kuk.

Goddess Maat

Maat or Maʽat refers to the ancient Egyptian concepts of truth, balance, order, harmony, law, morality, and justice. Maat was also spelt Mayet in ancient Egyptian religion as the personification of truth, justice, and the cosmic order. The daughter of the sun god Re, she was associated with Thoth, the god of wisdom. Maat was also the goddess who personified the previously mentioned concepts and regulated the stars’ seasons. Also, Maat handled the actions of mortals and the deities who had brought order from chaos at the creation moment. Her ideological opposite was Isfet (Egyptian jzft), which meant injustice, chaos, violence, or evil.

Meretseger Goddess

Meretseger (also known as Mersegrit or Mertseger) was a Theban cobra-goddess in ancient Egyptian religion, guarding and protecting the vast Theban Necropolis – on the west bank of the Nile, in front of Thebes – and especially the heavily guarded Valley of the Kings. Her cult was typical of the New Kingdom of Egypt (1550–1070 BC).

Goddess Mut

Ancient Egyptians worshipped the deity Mut as a mother goddess. According to the ancient Egyptian language, her literal name translation is mother. Like other goddesses, the attributes associated with Mut evolved and diversified over the thousand years of ancient Egyptian culture.

Goddess Naunet

Naunet represented the sky over the primaeval ocean as the feminine counterpart of Nun (the primaeval waters of chaos) in the Ogdoad theology of Hermopolis. She may be a primaeval form of the sky goddess Nut.

Nehmetawy goddess

Goddess Nehmetawy is not very widely known. Nehmetawy (she who embraces those in need) was a goddess in the ancient Egyptian religion. Nehmetawy was the wife of the snake god Nehebu-Kau, or in other places of worship, like in Hermopolis, the wife of Thoth. Her depictions are anthropomorphic, with a sistrum-shaped headdress, often with a child in her lap.

Neith Goddess

Neith (Nit, Net, Neit) was an ancient goddess of war and weaving. Goddess Neith was the patron goddess of the Red Crown of Lower Egypt and the city of Zau (Sais, in the 5th Nome of Lower Egypt) in the Delta. According to the Iunyt (Esna) cosmology, Neith was the creator of the world and the mother of the Sun, Ra.

Goddess Nekhbet

Nekhbet is a local goddess from the early predynastic era in ancient mythology. The ancient Egyptians named this goddess “the patron of the city of Nekheb” – El Kab. Subsequently, she became Upper Egypt’s patron and unified Ancient Egypt’s second patron. In Egyptian religion, people also viewed Nekhbet as the protector of all the rulers of Upper Egypt. The bird vulture represented the mighty goddess.

Goddess Nephthys

Ancient Egyptian culture recognises Nephthys, also known as Nebet-Het, as a powerful goddess. She belonged to the Great Ennead of Heliopolis from Egyptian mythology. The myths recognise Nephthys as the daughter of the god Geb and goddess Nut. Also, ancient Egyptian mythology pairs the goddess herself with Isis, her sister, in funerary rites.

Goddess Nut

Most cultures of regions with rain personify the sky as masculine, the rain being the seed that fructifies Mother Earth. In Egypt, however, rain plays no role in fertility; all the good water is on the Earth (from the Nile River). Nut, in Egyptian religion, is a goddess of the sky, the vault of the heavens, often depicted as a woman arched over the Earth god Geb.

Renenutet Goddess

Renenutet (also known as Termuthis, Ernutet, Renenet) was a cobra goddess from the Delta area. She was a powerful goddess whose gaze destroyed her enemies. However, the ancient Egyptians had no reason to fear her, as she offered protection in many areas of their lives. Also, she was a goddess of nourishment and the harvest in ancient Egyptian religion. The importance of the crop caused people to make many offerings to Renenutet during harvest time. Initially, her cult was centred on Terenuthis in Monufia Governorate, Egypt.

Satet Goddess

Satet, also known as Setet, Sathit, Satit, Sati, Setis or Satis, was an archer-goddess of the Nile cataracts. Her name comes from “sat” (shoot, eject, pour out, and throw). Satet, also known by numerous related names, was an Upper Egyptian goddess who, along with Khnum and Anuket, formed part of the Elephantine Triad. A protective deity of Egypt’s southern border with Nubia, she came to personify the former annual flooding of the Nile and to serve as a war, hunting, and fertility goddess.

Goddess Sekhmet

The goddess Sekhmet is one of the most significant goddesses of Ancient Egypt. The goddess usually represents a leonine deity. The symbol depicts her as a woman with the head of a lion. Her name translates to “Powerful.” Moreover, it translates as “The Female Powerful One.”

Ancient Egypt’s history is sprinkled with several lores of the god Ra. Sekhmet was the daughter of Ra. She is not only a warrior goddess but is also the goddess of healing. The pharaohs revered Sekhmet as their protector since the goddess led the kings in warfare.

Serket Goddess

Serket (also known as Serqet, Selket, Selqet, or Selcis) was the goddess of fertility, nature, animals, medicine, magic, and healing venomous stings and bites in Egyptian mythology, originally the deification of the scorpion. Serqet’s family life is unknown, but she is sometimes credited as the daughter of Neith and Khnum, making her a sister to Sobek and Apep.

Goddess Seshat

Seshat was the ancient Egyptian goddess of wisdom, knowledge, and writing. Ancient Egyptians saw her as a scribe and record keeper, and her name meant she who Scrivens (i.e. she who is the scribe), and she was credited with inventing writing. She also became identified as the goddess of accounting, architecture, astronomy, astrology, building, mathematics, and surveying.

Goddess Taweret

In Ancient Egyptian religion, Taweret (also spelt Taurt, Tuat, Tuart, Ta-weret, Tawaret, Twert and Taueret, and in Greek, Θουέρις – Thouéris, Thoeris, Taouris and Toeris) is the protective ancient Egyptian goddess of childbirth and fertility. The name “Taweret” (Tȝ-wrt) means “she who is great” or simply “great one”, a standard pacificatory address to dangerous deities. The deity is typically depicted as a bipedal female hippopotamus with feline attributes, pendulous female human breasts, a lion’s limbs and paws, and a Nile crocodile’s back and tail. She commonly bears the epithets “Lady of Heaven”, “Mistress of the Horizon”, “She Who Removes Water”, “Mistress of Pure Water”, and “Lady of the Birth House”.

Goddess Tefnut

Tefnut is an Egyptian deity from the Ancient Egyptian religion of moist air, moisture, dew drops and rain. She was one of the most prominent goddesses from the ancient faith and was associated with several other important deities. According to ancient texts, the goddess Tefnut was the sister and consort of the air god Shu. Moreover, she is the mother of Geb (father of snakes) and Nut (goddess of the sky).

Goddess Wadjet

Ancient Egyptians worshipped the goddess Wadjet as the cobra goddess of ancient times. Symbols often depicted her as a cobra wrapped around a papyrus stem. The Greek world knew the goddess as Uto or Buto. Moreover, people from the city of Dep hailed the goddess as their local deity. This place later became a part of the city named by the Egyptians as Per-Wadjet or House of Wadjet. The Greeks referred to this city as Buto, now called Desouk. People considered it a vital site in prehistoric Egypt, and it contributed to the cultural developments of the Paleolithic.

God Amun

God Amun is a deity in Egyptian mythology who became one of the most important deities in Ancient Egypt. Amun’s name means “The Invisible.” his name is also spelt Amon, Amoun, Amen; sometimes, Imen.

The ancient Egyptians depicted the god Amun in various shapes. Likewise, Amun appeared in many forms. Ancient Egyptians described Amun as a human figure, a man with a ram head and a frog. Also, they showed him as a man with a frog head, a ram and a goose. Besides, he looked like a man wearing an ostrich-plumed crown and a goose.

God Anubis

The god of death, Anubis, is one of the most powerful deities in the Ancient Egyptian pantheon. Ancient texts refer to him as the god of mummification, embalming, cemetery, tombs, the afterlife and the underworld. His depiction as a canine or a man with a wolf’s head is a famous symbol in pop culture.

God Apep

Apophis, also called Apep, Apepi, or Rerek, an ancient Egyptian demon of chaos, had the form of a serpent and, as the foe of the sun god, Re, represented all that was outside the ordered cosmos. Although many serpents symbolised divinity and royalty, Apophis threatened the underworld and exemplified evil. His name is reconstructed by Egyptologists as *ʻAʼpāp(ī), as it was written ꜥꜣpp(y) and survived in later Coptic as Ⲁⲫⲱⲫ Aphōph.

God Aten

The history of the god Aten and his religion is one of ancient Egypt’s most controversial and exciting aspects. Old scripts also refer to god Aten as Aton, Atony or Itn. There are also several interesting aspects to the story of the god Aten, which intermingled with Pharaoh Akhenaten.

God Bes

Bes, a minor god of ancient Egypt, is represented as a dwarf with a large head, goggle eyes, protruding tongue, bowlegs, bushy tail, and usually a crown of feathers. This ancient Egyptian god may have been a Middle Kingdom import from Nubia or Somalia, and his cult did not become widespread until the New Kingdom. Bes ( also spelt as Bisu), with his feminine counterpart Beset, is an ancient Egyptian deity worshipped as a protector of households, mothers, children, and childbirth.

God Geb

Synonymously, ancient Egyptians called Geb the Father of Snakes. Geb was the Egyptian god of the Earth. He was also a mythological member of the Ennead of Heliopolis. Myths from ancient Egypt state that Geb’s laughter created earthquakes and allowed crops to grow. Geb was the god of Earth, vegetation, fertility, earthquakes and snakes.

God Hapi

The Ancient Egyptian Religion highly revered the deity Hapi, the god of the Nile’s annual flooding. Hapi was one of the most popular gods in ancient Egypt. Every year the Nile River flooded and deposited dark and rich soil on the banks of the river. This soil was highly fertile and allowed the crops of Egypt to flourish. One could say that the annual flooding of Egypt sustained the entire country.

God Horus

God Horus is one of the most significant ancient Egyptian deities. He was the God of the Kingdom, the sky, and the God of Living. Also, Horus was the son of Isis and Osiris, as well.

God Khepri

Khepri was a scarab-faced god in ancient Egyptian religion representing the rising or morning Sun. By extension, he can also represent creation and the renewal of life.

Khnum God

God Khnum, also spelt Khnemu, was the ancient Egyptian god of fertility, associated with water and procreation. Ancient Egyptians represented this god as a ram with horizontal twisting horns or a man with a ram’s head. Chronically, Khnum was worshipped from the 1st dynasty (c. 2925–2775 BCE) into the early centuries CE.

God Khonsu

Khonsu is the ancient Egyptian god of the moon. His name means “traveller”, which may relate to the perceived nightly travel of the moon across the sky. In Egyptian mythology, Khons was the son of the god Amon and the goddess Mut. In the late New Kingdom (c. 1100 BCE), the ancients built a significant temple for Khons in the Karnak complex at Thebes. Ancient Egyptians generally depicted Khons as a young man with a side-lock of hair; he wore a uraeus (rearing cobra) and a lunar disk on his head. Khons also was associated with baboons and were sometimes assimilated to Thoth, another moon god associated with baboons.

God Min

Min (Egyptian mnw) cult originated in the predynastic period (4th millennium BCE). In ancient Egyptian religion, Min was a god of fertility and harvest, the embodiment of the masculine principle. Ancient Egyptians worshipped him as the Lord of the Eastern Desert. His cult was most robust in Coptos and Akhmīm (Panopolis). Wherein his honour, great festivals were held to celebrate his coming forth, with public processions and offerings. The lettuce was his sacred plant. Ancient Egyptian depicted him in many different forms. However, ancients most often represented this deity in male human form, shown with a phallus erect which he holds in his right hand and an upheld left arm holding a flail.

Montu God

Montu was a falcon god of war in ancient Egyptian religion, an embodiment of the conquering vitality of the pharaoh. Ancient Egyptians mainly worshipped God Montu in Upper Egypt and the district of Thebes.

God Nefertum

Nefertem ( also spelt Nefertum or Nefer-temu) was, in Egyptian mythology, originally a lotus flower at the creation of the world that had arisen from the primal waters. God Nefertem represented the first sunlight and the delightful smell of the Egyptian blue lotus flower, having emerged from the primal waters within an Egyptian blue water lily, Nymphaea caerulea.

God Osiris

Osiris is one of the most revered deities in the history of Ancient Egypt. He is the god of agriculture, fertility, the dead, life, resurrection and vegetation. The imagery used for the god shows him as a green-skinned deity with a king’s beard. Osiris has mummy-wrapped legs partially, and he wears a distinctive Atef crown. Also, the god holds a symbolic crook and flail. Ancient Egyptians first associated Osiris with mummy wraps.

God Ptah

Ptah is an ancient Egyptian deity, a creator god and patron of craftsmen and architects. In the triad of Memphis, he is the husband of Sekhmet and the father of Nefertem. Ancient Egyptians also regarded God Ptah as the father of the sage Imhotep.

God Ra

One of the most powerful gods from the ancient legends, God Ra, is an ancient Egyptian deity of the Sun. During the Fifth Dynasty, Ra became one of the most important gods in Egyptian culture. People identified him with the noon-day Sun. According to tales, Ra ruled the world: the Earth, the sky and the underworld. Indeed, Ra was the supreme god of the Sun, kings, order and the atmosphere.

Serapis God

Serapis, also spelt Sarapis, Greco-Egyptian deity of the Sun, was first encountered at Memphis. His cult was celebrated in association with the sacred Egyptian bull Apis (called Osorapis when deceased). God Serapis was thus originally a god of the underworld. Still, Ptolemy I Soter was reintroduced as a new deity with many Hellenic aspects (reigned 305–284 BCE), who centred the worship of the god at Alexandria.

God Set

Noteworthy that Seth and Suetekh are synonyms to Set. In ancient Egyptian mythology, God Set represents the Egyptian deity of war, chaos, and storms. He was the brother of Osiris, Isis and Horus, the Elder. Set was also Horus the Younger’s uncle and Nephthys’s brother-husband. In addition, Goddess Tawaret, a hippo-headed deity who presided over fertility and childbirth, was a consort of Set.

Shu God

God Shu was one of the primordial Egyptian gods, spouse and brother to the goddess Tefnut, and one of the nine deities of the Ennead of the Heliopolis cosmogony. He was the god of peace, lions, air, and wind.

God Sobek

The Ancient Egyptian culture has strong ties with the magnificent Nile River. The culture revolved around the inundations of the river and the fertility it provided. Not surprisingly, this idea manifested itself in the Egyptian religion by taking the form of the god Sobek himself.

Sokar God

Sokar (also known as Seker, and in Greek, Sokaris or Socharis) was the Memphite god of the dead. Still, god Sokar was also the patron of the workers who built the cemetery, the artisans who made tomb artefacts, and those who made ritual objects and substances used in mummification. 

God Thoth

Thoth was one of the most important gods of Ancient Egypt. He was the god of writing, wisdom, magic and the moon. Various versions of the origin of Thoth sprinkle the course of history. Some stories claim that this god created himself. However, others argue that he originated from the seed of Horus and came from Set’s forehead. People often saw Thoth as the son of the two gods representing order and chaos. Thus, they chose him also the god of equilibrium.