syn·cre·tism
Noun
/?siNGkr??tiz?m/
- The amalgamation or attempted amalgamation of
different religions, cultures, or schools of
thought
- The merging of different inflectional varieties
of a word during the development of a language
It is evident that
Egyptian practiced some considerable amount of
syncretism. Two or more
Egyptian gods were
often syncretized to be one mixed deity, that
usually happens by linking two names and/or two
characters of two similar or different gods to
come together as one holy being. The Egyptian
ancient history is full of examples, Amun-Ra is
probably the most popular name to mention, besides
Amun-Khepri and Atum-Khepri.
While Ra-Horakhty combines two aspects of the same
Egyptian deity, Ra, Amun-Re combines two completely
different deities, Amun which represents the most
powerful invisible power in ancient Egypt and Ra which
represent the most visible might of the ancient land,
the sun. That confirms the fact that ancient Egyptians
didn't persecute between all their deities, on the
contrary, all of those ancient deities were believed to
have existed along each other in harmony. But needlesst
o say, there are some less compatible deities in
ancient Egypt, with whom syncretism was never
practiced, such as Amun and Aten.
Syncretism wasn't always combining two gods, it
combined sometimes up to three, four and five deities,
such as Harmachis-Khepri-Ra-Atum, which mixed together
several gods to form one of the most mysterious ancient
Egyptian gods. And also forming the consummate
funerary deity out of Sokar, Ptah and Osiris.
Syncretism also occured between foreign, such as
Asiatic and Greek on the one hand, and Egyptian
gods, such as As the Asiatic-Egyptian deity
Anat-Hathor, where Hathor came together with the
Asiatic god. Also Serapis, which is the combination of
Apis, Osiris, Zeus and Helios.
The reason behind syncretism of ancient Egyptian gods
is unknown, specially gods that have different natures,
some Egyptologists believe that this is not a strange
act, since usually the combination occurs between
non-conflicting deities, but still it is beyond our
understanding why Egyptians had to do this, instead of
worshipping their deities independently.
However, some believe that this is a normal step
towards the rise of monotheism in Egypt, which doesn't
have any evidence to support or deny.