The Pharaoh in Egyptian Religion

Although the character and reach of the identification of the pharaoh with the divine shifted over the course of pharaonic civilization in Egypt, there persisted throughout the Old and New Kingdoms the view that the pharaoh had either divine attributes or divine nature and in either case had and exercised divine power. As Schulman puts it: "The Egyptian king was, from the beginning of recorded Egyptian history until the triumph of Christianity, god." Schulman's note that the king's four-name "royal titulary" unvaryingly identified the pharaoh with the god of cycles of light and fertility, Horus, in his various aspects, and eventually (and with relative levels of strength) identified him with the sun god as well. This core fact can scarcely be discounted, inasmuch as such commentators as Fairman declare that "the dominant element in the Egyptian concept of kingship was that the king was a god--not merely godlike, but very god."

Over the course of the dynasties, the king's divine

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idence for violation of royal tombs. But throughout the pharaonic period the impulse toward public expressions of sacred reverence for the deceased king appears to have been persistent. Sacred reverence for the living king may have been more problematic in the culture. That is why it was incumbent on the living pharaoh to align himself with divine power. Silverman cites the concept of ka, or the transitional, enabling feature of divinity to enter the royal stature. Legitimation of the credibility of the divinity that inhered in royal stature seems to have been accomplished by way of ritual, or those actions, recitals, or behaviors whereby the resonance of divinity could be asserted, and thereby lent credibility and cultural seriousness: Clearly the individual who came to the throne could not hope to make the people forget or deny his human origins, but through ritual, the acceptance of an eternal office and an amalgamation with it, he could officially take on the divine attributes of the office. Cerny cites the pharaonic practice of consulting the gods for the purpose of confirming the legitimacy of this or that priest, particularly during public festivals. A confirmation of the king's choice would have lent credibility t
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2860
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)

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