Beetle Gods of Ancient Egypt

Abstract

Ancient Egypt, the land of the pyramids and the sphinx, is a culture steeped in mystery. Elaborate tombs and temples display a culture and religious beliefs that are alien to the western mind. Many of their gods took the forms of animals of several kinds—including insects—and the ancient Egyptians treated those animals in ways that dignified their status as representatives of the gods. The ancient Egyptians believed that the activity of the animal in real life was symbolic of its ritualistic importance (Kritsky 1985). For example, the god Thoth, the ibis-headed god, was the inventor of hieroglyphics and the record keeper of the gods. The choice of the ibis as the animal representative of Thoth related to the ibis' habit of dipping its curved bill into the waters of the Nile in search of food, which was a motion similar to a scribe dipping his pen into ink. In honor of the god Thoth, cemeteries filled with mummified ibis birds have been found at Abydos and near Hermopolis.