The Late Period, Dynasties 27 - 31 The Persians - The Mammisi - Alexander the Great - The Ptolemeian Period - Temple Building Soars - The Role of the Priesthood - Sarapis - Sacred Animal Cults - The Roman Period - Isis & Harpocrates The Late Period, Dynasties 27 - 31 The Persians The Late Period starts after the fall of the Saite dynasty with the 27th Dynasty, the first one of the Persian period. The Persian Cambyses II is mentioned by Herodotos as having caused the death of a sacred Apis bull, which maybe tells us that he was not a ruler who heeded the ancient Egyptian religion, while Darius I took care to build a temple at Kharga Oasis and repair others. The general tendency was however to try and win the loyalty of the Egyptians through large land donations to temples (Horus of Edfu) and through merging their own gods with Egyptian ones. Nectanebo I, who founded the 30th Dynasty, became a great restorer of temples throughout Egypt, and is particularly known for having erected the small kiosk at Philae island. His son Nectanebo II continued this work, and a definite return to old values and the ancient deities can be noted. A statue of the Horus Falcon, protecting a diminutive Nectanebo II in front of his legs, symbolizing the ancient concept of Horus as the Living God King of Egypt. It also bears the inscription of the king´s name: 'Strong [the harpesh] is Horus of Behbeit [the shrine]'. The shrine was also a temple to Isis in Behbeit. Top The Mammisi During the Late Period there was an innovation called the mammisi. this was a simple building, erected in front of the main temple, which symbolized the birth house where the divine child is born and fostered. It was not a place where human women went to give birth but a place for sacred rituals aimed at manifesting and ascertaining the divine descendancy of Pharaoh. The Greek Period Alexander the Great When Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, the Two Lands became a part of the Hellenistic world and could no longer stay sheltered in the Nile valley. Alexander the Great took care to show respect for the ancient gods, he rebuilt temples, offered to Amun-Min at Karnak, went on a pilgrimage to Siwa in the Western Desert to let his rulership be acknowledged by the Oracle of Amun. Thereupon he let himself be crowned at Memphis according to Egyptian ritual and tradition, called himself Egyptian Pharaoh and Greek King. From now on the Greek eagle of Zeus and the Egyptian banners with animal symbols were seen side by side. The Ptolemeian Period During the Greek period temples everywhere were supported and in most cases extended to. The state cult above all was still Amun but the cult of Isis and Osiris, as well as Harpocrates and Serapis now increased its´ importance. Cult places and smaller chapels were built in order for the Ptolemeians to increase the income, and shares of these shrines were sold to Egyptian families to manage. To each of these belonged a cemetery for burials of the sacred animal in question. Top Temple Building Soars This period saw a building program of no small means. Temples all over Egypt were built, rebuilt or expanded. Here splendid temple structures like that for the Opet Festival at Karnak, of Hathor at Dendera, Horus at Edfu, Isis and Horus the Child (Gr: Harpocrates) at Philae,Sobek and Horus at Kom Ombo and Khnum at Esna still stand to tell about a continued tradition of Egyptian religious elements. They were, just as in older periods, built not for a congregation but for the deities themselves, and in these days they also included chapels on the roof and birth houses, which were not for humans, royal or commoner, to give birth in, but for celebrations of the birth of the divine child in a triad of deities. They also served a ritual function in ascertaining the divine right of the king to rule. None of these elements was however without precursors in earlier periods. The Role of the Priesthood The priesthood saw as its duty to act as protectors of Egyptian knowledge, and to preserve culture and customs from the influence of the 'Ionian dogs' as they called the Greeks. By time the Ptolemeian rulers accepted to adhere to the religious duties and rites that had always been part of the divine rulership of Pharaoh. To that went the building of temples and performing offerings to the deities. The inscriptions on the walls of these temples are more intricate and detailed than before and so these temple walls act as source books of Egyptian temple ritual. The priesthood in the Egyptian temples were free to take care of the traditional rituals and to manage the temple schools. Everything with a Greek influence was kept away both from rituals and from hieroglyphic writing. There is no record of Greeks serving as priests in Egyptian temples during the Ptolemeian Period, even though the rulers built many temples for Egyptian deities. These many building projects are connected with economical changes and the communities around the cult centers paid for the projects and thus they could go on for many years. The priesthood and the surrounding communities were therefore linked together due to economical circumstances, and the religious knowledge was once again concentrated to the temple schools. While pharaoh was still the symbolical link to the gods, and still played a ritual role in cult, he existed far apart from common people and was sometimes referred to not by name but only as 'pharaoh'. Top Sarapis Throughout the Ptolemeian Period, the Egyptians continues to worship their own gods, whether national or local, in more or less the same was as always before. But in the early Ptolemeian period, the cult of Sarapis rose. This was an anthropomorphic deity, most likely of Egyptian origin but with Hellenistic attributes like those of Zeus, Helios, Hades, Asclepios and Dionysos added. The basic model for Sarapis could be said to be Osiris combined with the Apis bull which made up Osirapis, which in Greek became Sarapis. On his head could be seen a corn measure, indicating him as the protector of the corn supply, and therefore pointing at his fertility function. His main cult center was, though linked to the Apis bull, not at Saqqara, but at the Serapion at Alexandria, where a great temple was built to him. This became a place of pilgrimage for the Greeks, but the Egyptians never fully accepted him. Isis was seen as his consort and the two formed a pair which embodied the natural forces of male and female fertility. The Ptolemeians spread this cult all over the Mediterranean by erecting temples in their provinces. The Egyptian Isis was also assumed into the Greek pantheon as Aphrodite, and Thoth was equated with Hermes. Isis was now seen as a universal mother deity rather than the symbolical mother of the king, which had been her main role ever since the early Dynastic Period. Sacred Animal Cults The importance of these cults began to rise in the late New Kingdom and was at its peak during the Late Period (747-332) and the Ptolemeian Period. Its origin goes back into the beginnings of Egyptian history as the worship of gods in animals form. After c 700 bc. sometimes the whole species of certain animals were considered sacred, like the ibis (sacred to Thoth) or the falcon (a symbol of Horus and Osiris). Ptolemeian rulers patronized ancient cults like the Apis, Mnevis and Buchis bulls. In the case of the Apis bull, only one individual animal was sacred at a time, chosen depending of its´ individual markings, kept and later buried at Saqqara with elaborate rituals. Bast, while an ancient female deity appearing in anthropoid form with a cat´s head, was now reemerging in cat form and enjoyed a great popularity among both Egyptians and Greeks, who likened her to their own Artemis. Her main center of worship was at Bubastis in the Delta, and cemeteries with mummified cats have been found there as well as at Saqqara near Memphis. At Saqqara and at Tuna el-Gebel has also been found mummified and buried in subterranean galleries ibises and baboons sacred to Djehuty(Thoth). At Elephantine rams sacred to Khnum were mummified and buried with crowns on their head in large sarcophagi. Both at Kom Ombo and at Faiyum were found mummified crocodiles. Religious traditions among common people meant adhering to one´s local deity and local sacred animal. Probably due to the presence of different foreign soldiers who were often placed at the necropolises, and their highhanded manners, fighting was frequent. At one instance a roman was lynched after he had killed a sacred cat by mistake. Top The Roman Period During this time there was a tendency to build temples to female deities like Isis, Hathor, Bast and Neith, whereas earlier the emphasis had been on male ones like Amun, Osiris, Horus and Khonsu. The temples built under Greek and Roman rulership have given us great insight in the function of the temple cult in earlier periods. As they were all build over a relatively short period of time, they show a connected whole. They have yielded a vast material of texts and relief, which, although they are expressions of communal religious traditions and therefore say nothing about individual beliefs, they still open up a way to greater understanding even of earlier temple ritual and practices. See The Temple Building for an account of these buildings. The common Egyptian stayed for a long time with his Egyptian temples and deities. Even Greeks throughout Egypt continued to worship many of the Egyptian deities, especially Horus the Elder (Haroeris) who was represented as a Roman soldier with a falcon head. (Also called Horus of Behdety). New laws were regulating ritual life, new temples were built and old ones rebuilt on the order of Roman rulers. Late inscriptions at Esna show a religious depth which some say was hardly preceded. The temple at Philae was kept open even into Christian times and was not shut down until the time of Justinianus (527-565 A.D) Top Isis and Harpocrates. An account of Isis. The name 'Harpocrates' comes from the Egyptian 'Har-pa-khered' which means 'Horus-the-child'. Ancient Egyptian names of deities were regularly translated into Greek. Harpocrates was the young Horus child, depicted wearing the 'sidelock of youth', often sucking his fingers and sitting in the lap of Isis. In this period Isis identified with the Roman deity Demeter and she had already lost her Egyptian original symbolism which had been both that of the symbolical mother of Pharaoh, and that of a funeral deity together with her sister Nepthys, both of the Ennead at Heliopolis. The Roman influenced deity Isis went on to become a great universal mother deity whose influence was spread throughout the Mediterranean world and competed in popularity with the cult of Mithras and even endured into the early Christian days. In the year 30 AD, after the death of Cleopatra, Egypt became a Roman province. Alexandria during the Romans was a cosmopolitan center where ancient traditional Egyptian religious concepts were mixed with Greek, Jewish and later also Christian concepts and ideas and some say that it lives on even today in the idea about the Trinity. Even as late as in 200 AD Christianity competed with the cult of Serapis and Isis. Sources: Egyptian Myths - George Hart A Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses - George Hart Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt - Erik Hornung The Cult of the Sun - A. Rosalie David The Egyptians - Barbara Watterson Chronicles of the Pharaohs - Peter A. Clayton Egypt, The World of the Pharaohs - Hartwig Altenmueller et al