Jump to content
Main menu
Main menu
move to sidebar
hide
Navigation
Main page
Recent changes
Random page
Help about MediaWiki
Special pages
Niidae Wiki
Search
Search
Appearance
Create account
Log in
Personal tools
Create account
Log in
Pages for logged out editors
learn more
Contributions
Talk
Editing
Unas
(section)
Page
Discussion
English
Read
Edit
View history
Tools
Tools
move to sidebar
hide
Actions
Read
Edit
View history
General
What links here
Related changes
Page information
Appearance
move to sidebar
hide
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
==Evolution of religion and kingship== The reigns of Djedkare Isesi and of Unas were a time of changes in [[Ancient Egyptian religion]] and in the ideology of kingship, changes that are first demonstrable under Unas.{{sfn|Goedicke|1971|p=155}} A statistical analysis of clay seal fragments bearing [[Ancient Egyptian royal titulary#Horus name|Horus name]]s of pharaohs of the Fifth Dynasty points to a marked decline of the cult of the king during Unas' time on the throne.{{sfn|Verner|2001a|pp=408–409}} This continued under Unas' successor Teti, for whom we know only two seals bearing his Horus name.{{sfn|Verner|2001a|p=409}} This trend reflects the lessening of the king's power in conjunction with the growth of the administration and priesthood.{{sfn|Verner|2001b|p=590}} Meanwhile, the cult of [[Osiris]] was becoming more important{{sfn|Dorman|2015}} with this god replacing the king as the guarantor of life after death for the pharaoh's subjects.{{sfn|Malek|2000a|p=103}}{{sfn|Altenmüller|2001|p=601}} The German Egyptologist [[Hartwig Altenmüller]] writes that for an Egyptian of the time "the [...] afterlife no longer depends on the relationship between the individual mortal and the king, [...] instead it is linked to his ethical position in direct relation to Osiris".{{sfn|Altenmüller|2001|p=601}} In contrast, the cult of the sun god [[Ra]] was in apparent decline,{{sfn|Verner|2001b|p=589}} even though Ra was still the most important deity of the Egyptian pantheon.{{sfn|Altenmüller|2001|p=601}} Thus, Djedkare Isesi and Unas did not build a [[Egyptian sun temple|sun temple]] in contrast with most of their Fifth Dynasty predecessors.{{sfn|Dorman|2015}}{{sfn|Verner|2003|p=84}} In addition, the names of Menkauhor Kaiu and Unas do not incorporate any reference to Ra, in rupture with a tradition which held since the reign of [[Userkaf]], about a century earlier. The ''Pyramid Texts'' found in Unas' pyramid demonstrate the importance of Osiris and Ra in ancient Egyptian religion at the time. Both gods were believed to play the key roles in accessing the afterlife, with Ra as the source of life and Osiris as the force through which the next life would be attained.{{sfn|Allen|Der Manuelian|2005|pp=7–8|loc=The Function of the Pyramid Texts}}{{efn|group=lower-alpha|Another important religious work, the Memphite Theology, may have been written during the reign of Unas.{{sfn|Verner|2001b|p=590}} The Memphite Theology is a story of the creation of the world and of the religious and social order of ancient Egypt through the word and will of the god [[Ptah]]. The king himself is described as the personified Horus and an aspect of Ptah.{{sfn|Arieh Tobin|2001|p=471}} It is now widely believed, however, that this theological text dates to either to the 19th Dynasty or to the much later [[Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt|25th Dynasty]] (760–656 BC).{{sfn|Arieh Tobin|2001|p=470}}{{sfn|Ockinga|2010|p=113}} }}
Summary:
Please note that all contributions to Niidae Wiki may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here.
You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see
Encyclopedia:Copyrights
for details).
Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)
Search
Search
Editing
Unas
(section)
Add topic