According to Fashionissupreme, the Nile is a fat man, around the loins of the fishermen’s loincloth, a tuft of aquatic plants on his head. With the body marked by wavy lines, the Sea, We’ṣ-wêr, is personified. The earthquake, Newr-tq̂ ‘, which some relate to Seth shaking under Osiris, is also divine. The air that holds up the sky, the clouds, the sun, is Ḥeḥ or Šôw “He who lifts”, portrayed precisely with his arms raised; humidity, the goddess Tfêne. The four winds often have four heads and are indicated: that of the north as bull or ram; that of the east as a hawk; the southern one like a lion; that of the west like a snake; and they also carry wings. Perhaps they are the same as the cherubs seen by Ezekiel holding the throne of Yahweh. The sun is a ball that flies under the sky. For others it is a large bullet between the antennae of a dung beetle, Ḫéprer. Sometimes the bullets are two, one depicts the sun of today, another that of tomorrow; because at first it was believed that a new sun was formed every day. The moon was also a god, Jq̂‛ḥe, venerated under the name of Ṣhq̂wte, in Greek transcribed Θωύϑ, which means “Clear” (cf. in sem. ḍ a ḥ a ḥ, wa ḍ and ḥ “be clear”). Among the stars had attracted the greatest attention the circumpolar, Eḫmejew-śek “Those who cannot set”. Opposite to their northern sky, was the southern one where the Eḫmejjew-wôreṣ “Those who cannot get tired”, that is, who never stop to set and rise again, were located. Among them was the goddess Sirius, Śq̂pṭe “Acute” (Σώϑις); Orion, Śe’ḥew, and numerous other star-gods.
To explain the gods of Egypt, as indeed those of other peoples, various theories were devised, of which two remain: totemism and animism. The first, now less followed, affirms a relationship of brotherhood, descent, protection between certain classes of material objects (mostly animals and plants) and those who adore it. As far as has been investigated, such reports were not found in Egypt. For many ideal entities, such as the goddess Righteousness and the like, it would be absurd to talk about it. So the theory ignores part of the phenomenon. Animism in turn affirms that the primitive gives material objects, animals, plants a soul similar to that of men. This, even if correct, would account for anthropomorphism, not divinization; men are the least adored. The ” we cannot fail to see a connection in it. Victorious Thebes, as in its time Rome, is not divinized because it is a person, but because its power arouses a dark complex of feelings in the minds. By continuing these actions, for the instinct that pushes to give personality to what has a name, entities have been created that in some cases end up perhaps detaching themselves from the thing that gave them origin. we cannot fail to see a connection in it. Victorious Thebes, as in its time Rome, is not divinized because it is a person, but because its power arouses a dark complex of feelings in the minds. By continuing these actions, for the instinct that pushes to give personality to what has a name, entities have been created that in some cases end up perhaps detaching themselves from the thing that gave them origin.
When the story begins, as we see, these deities are worshiped in more places and each place has more gods. As for the animal and the plant, a single individual is almost always sufficient for the cult, while maintaining a certain veneration for the whole species; it is supposed to be distinguished from the others by special characters. Then we often see the image, still rough in appearance, substituted for the real thing; the animals are rendered legless and crouched, as the historical reproductions show. For psychological reasons impossible to investigate, some gods have already risen to greater consideration than others, they have become the “citizen god” par excellence. He is the lord of the temple and the place and the custom arises of calling this from the sanctuary, as Per-Ḥatḥûr “Temple of Hathor” (el-Gebelein) and the like. Until the Greek time the names were formed by gods or sacred animals: Antaiupolis, Aphroditespolis, Apollonospolis, Eileithyiaspolis, Heliupolis, Herakleuspolis, Hieraconpolis, Kynonpolis, Krokodeilonpolis, Latonpolis, Leontonpolis, etc. Many times the deities have been brought together in kinship. Thus the goddess-lioness Śáḫme is given as wife to the god-creator Ptah of Memphis and the lotus-god Nefrtêm as son; the ram-god Gnûm is given as paredre Satis of Sehel and Anûqe of Elephantine; elsewhere he has the frog goddess Ḥeqe as his wife; to Hathor of Denderah for sons Eḥe and Zem’-tó’we; Śobek, crocodile, is the son of Neith. A step forward was already made in the first two dynasties: the monuments of that time show the cow, assumed to be a celestial divinity, identified in Sothis; the sacred animal ‘ Eš has become a man and is represented with a human body and head of an animal or completely man; the snake goddess Buto is portrayed as a woman.
