The Temples of Ancient Egypt - The Earthly Homes of the Gods & the Mortuary Temples of the Kings

On The East Bank of Egypt where the sun rises every morning, the ancient Egyptians created temples that were considered to be the earthly homes of the Gods, Karnack temple is the earthly home of  the supreme God Amun Ra.

The temples or homes were a symbolic impression of the universe,  a picture that has been created from stone to describe the first moment of creation, the pylons are the East and Western deserts, the gateway portals represent the path that the River Nile would flow though Egypt giving her life each and every day. Gradually the earth rises in the temple as you reach the mound of creation,  the Hypostyle halls that had huge columns portrayed as the lotus plants that came into being,  at dawn the lotus rises symbolically to worship the sun. At the going down of the sun each evening the Lotus plant submerges beneath the waters of the Nile. It encompasses all the forces of nature and lives in the four elements, its roots are bound to the earth, and its stem rises through water, it flourishes in the air and blooms in the sunlight.

Each temple on the East Bank was considered the home of a god,  Karnack is the Home of the God that rose to supreme importance in ancient Egypt, the God Amun Ra the God of the Sun, he is shown wearing a sun disc between his two feathered plumes, and he became the supreme God of the ancient Egyptians, his name means 'The Hidden One', he was thought of as the invisible force of the wind. Ra means Ray of light, because he illuminates everything in shadow, he had the power of creation within him, whatever he named came into existence, he was the life power and source of the universe.

The sun always sets on the Western shore of the River Nile  so this is where the kings built their Mortuary Temples and tombs in the Valley of the Kings and Queens. The Western shore was the Domain of the God Osiris the God of the Underworld

In the mortuary temples the priests presented the Ka statue of the deceased king with offerings to satisfy his needs, Every morning  the statues of the King were washed, dressed, and offered incense, food, flowers wine and prayers .

Mortuary temples were also used also for festivals during the king’s lifetime.  The temples could be considered as books that were written in stone to last for millions of years and to inspire the nation of the king’s courage and deeds in his lifetime, it was believed that if you spoke the words that you read on the walls of the temples or tombs, that the king would be born again and remembered for all time, it works the same way in which we would visit the grave of a loved on with flowers and to remember their memory.

The ancient Egyptians believed that the spirit of a person (the Ka) came into being at birth, and was intimately linked to the physical body during his eternal life after death, (the Ba) when it would require sustenance of food and drink. and so the Kings and Queens and high ranking were mummified before burial, as it was believed that the mummified body was the home to where the soul or spirit (the Ba) would return to after death

The Homes of the Gods and the mortuary temples inspired the belief in their Gods and Kings, fulfilling both the human aspirations and the spiritual needs of the ancient Egyptians, below is the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut at Dier El Bahari on the Western shore of the Nile.



This is the incredible Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut