Totem worship was popular in ancient Egypt, that is, the worship of certain animals. There are local gods everywhere. After the central pharaoh's power was strengthened, a unified worship of the sun god arose in Egypt. The sun god Lai (the ancient Egyptians had many different names for the sun god, such as "Lai", "La", "Amen", "Amon") "Mang", "Puta", etc., vary depending on the period. These titles sometimes also refer to the god who created the heaven and earth. The transliteration of the sun god is also not uniform, such as "Aten", "Aton", "Aden", " Atong" etc.) are regarded as the highest gods. The "Ode to the Sun God Atong" from the Middle Kingdom period is a famous piece of ancient hymns. These hymns were written during the period of Pharaoh Akhenaten when he declared that the sun god was the only supreme god worshiped by the country. One of them wrote:
He created everything in the world,
From his eyes came humanity,
From his mouth came the gods,
For the cattle he created grass,
For mankind, He created fruit trees.
He gives life to the fish in the river,
and to the birds in the sky,
He gives breath to the chicks in the eggshells,
It also preserves the life of insect eggs.
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Worshipping and praising the sun god as the king of gods and the creator of all things is actually the deification of the absolute power of the pharaoh in the world. In fact, the Pharaoh was regarded as the son of the sun god. This is the ancient Egyptian idea of ??divine right to kings. Here we can also see how literature is connected with the religious sacrificial activities of ancient Egypt. It enthusiastically praises the great power of the sun god who brings life to the earth, and represents the achievements of ancient Egyptian religious poetry. Through it, we understand that the ancient Egyptians worshiped the sun precisely because the sun's rays shine on mankind and bring vitality to all things. It is the sun god, the Aton god, who dominates everything. From the Aton god, the Aton religion emerged. The belief in the Aton religion is obviously developing in the direction of monotheism (Egyptian archaeologist Professor Ahmed Fikri believes The great Aton hymn certainly had an influence on ancient Hebrew literature, especially when compared with Psalm 104 of the Old Testament. The two are very similar to this hymn and other literary works in Western Asia. People are very fond of it. )
Praising the Nile River has always been one of the important themes in Egyptian literature, and there are many famous works in this regard in ancient Egypt. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus said that "Egypt is a gift from the Nile." The ancient Egyptians felt more intimately about this. They were full of love and reverence for the Nile. They made long poems praising it with exaggerated words, one of which said: "Oh! Nile, I praise you, you flow from the earth and feed Egypt... As soon as your flow decreases, people stop breathing ."
The famous Ode to the Nile in ancient Egypt is attributed to the "Ode to the Nile" written by Mernapta (also translated as Melnapta), the son of Ramses II. According to Egyptian scholars, the poem was written around the 13th century BC. "Ode to the Nile" *** verse 14, the following is its first verse:
Ode to the Nile
Long live the Nile!
You are here in this great country appeared on the earth,
came in peace and gave life to Egypt:
O God Amon, you guide the night into the day,
your guidance makes people Happy!
Reproductive Ra (Ra is the god of the sun and is considered to love flowers.) The garden created by God gives life to all animals;
Never-endingly irrigating the earth,
the journey down from heaven (the Nile God straddles the sky, and his journey is the same as the river on earth.),
food The cherisher, the giver of grains,
Ptah (Ptah is the god who created Egypt and the architect of the universe.) God, you bring light to every household
!
The Nile River floods regularly every year. The land on both sides is fertile and suitable for farming. It was developed very early. The development of ancient Egypt's brilliant culture and art is inseparable from the development of both sides of the Nile River and the development of farming. The Nile River is the cradle of Egyptian civilization. People have a close relationship with it. It is natural to sing praises to it and use beautiful words to condense it into gorgeous poems.
As early as the Old Kingdom, there were already various talismans about the afterlife in the tombs of the pharaohs. During the Middle Kingdom, the variety of religious talismans increased, and even middle-class residents placed talismans in the coffins of their dead. During the New Kingdom, the "Book of the Dead" (first translation "Book of the Dead") was produced, which is a collection of various incantations, prayers, hymns, etc. written on long papyrus scrolls.
The ancient Egyptians believed that after death, a person must first experience a period of life in the Kingdom of the Underworld, where only after passing the tests of various gates can he gain the opportunity to be reborn. After the noble person died, the body was anointed with spices, mummified, wrapped in linen and placed in a sarcophagus, with books for the deceased to read. There are three types of books of this kind: "The Book of the Dead", "The Book of the Lower Realm" and "The Book of the Doors".
It is actually a travel guide for the deceased to the Kingdom of the Underworld. It protects the souls from living happily in the Kingdom of the Underworld, avoids all kinds of difficulties, successfully copes with the judgment, and reaches the "Palace of Truth" safely, where they can live in the upper world where the grain is abundant and the cool breeze blows. Go with the gods; if you get the chance, you can also go with the great god Osiris (a god with all-Egyptian significance, originally the god of plants and water. From the annual growth of plants, people derived the concept of Osiris's death and resurrection, and added He is worshiped as the god of the dead.
The "Book of the Dead" contains the thoughts and beliefs of the ancient Egyptians and their various details. From this we can also see the ancient Egyptians’ love of life and yearning for a happy life; the ancient Egyptians’ theology, their holy scriptures and their concepts of the afterlife. All this is based on a simple belief: to express eternal life with the image of living forever. The Book of the Dead undoubtedly provides valuable information for us to understand the ancient Egyptians' thoughts on life. Obviously, in a slave society, the vast majority of poor people and slaves were unable to purchase this kind of "Book of the Dead". This book is actually a reflection of the slave owner's attempt to extend the wealth and splendor of his life to the world after his death.
"The Book of the Dead" consists of twenty-seven chapters, each chapter is of different lengths and has its own title. Here are the first few sections of the first chapter:
The dead rise up, Sing a hymn to the sun
Praise to you, alas, to your amazing ascent!
You rise, you shine! The heavens roll aside!
< p>You are the King of Gods, you are the God of all,We come from you and are worshiped in your midst.
Your priests come out at dawn;
Clean the heart with laughter;
Holy winds carry music through your golden harp string.
At sunset, they embrace you, like every cloud
From your wings shine the reflected colors.
You have sailed over the zenith, your heart is happy;
Your morning and evening boats meet in the breeze;
In your In front of you, the goddess Mato held up her fate-determining "feathers",
Anu's palace was filled with voices, saying your name.
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The poem is solemn, elegant and magnificent, showing the ancient Egyptians’ infinite worship of the sun god Ra (Lai). He can not only bring life and joy to the living, but also to the dead. People praise him during his life and also praise him after his death. The sun god was both the ideal and the religion of the ancient Egyptians. The religion of ancient Egypt was the religion of the slave owners and served the slave owners. Slave owners paid tribute to the Sun God before and after their lives, so that their happiness, which was built on the blood, tears and suffering of slaves, could last forever.
Many ancient Egyptian poems praise kings. The following verse praises Ramses II:
His eyes can see through all living things. .
He is the god Re, who sees with rays,
who shines brighter than the sun on Egypt,
who makes the country prosperous more than the Nile,
He gives food to his believers,
He feeds all who follow him.
It is worth noting here that the king is compared to the god Ra, to the sun, and to the Nile River. The king is a humanized god, and the god is a deified human being. Praise to the sun god and praise to the power of the human king were the same in the eyes of the slave owners and rulers of ancient Egypt.
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