19th August Rod Amos The Sun Worshippers.

Rod Amos spent most of his working life as a doctor specialising in rheumatology and arthritis at the Children’s Hospital in Sheffield so was there a connection with his talk? Could sun worship be a treatment for these crippling conditions?

Well, if there is, then it certainly didn’t come out in his fascinating and detailed talk about the Sun Gods of Egypt!

Sun worship was prevalent in the ancient Egyptian religion. The earliest deities associated with the sun are all goddesses, including Hathor, Nut, Bat, and Menhit. Hathor, and then Isis gave birth to and nursed Horus and Ra respectively. Hathor – see picture – the horned cow is one of the 12 daughters of Ra.

Isis nursing Horus

Their belief in the birth life and death sequence was reflected in the passage of the day itself, starting with dawn and moving on through to the night.

In the stories of the Egyptian Gods there are many similarities with the Christian stories of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel and the great flood for which Noah built the ark.

Sitting between the Gods and the people were the Pharaohs. Egyptologists have long debated the degree to which the Pharaoh was considered a god. It seems most likely that the Egyptians viewed royal authority itself as a divine force. Therefore, although the Egyptians recognized that the Pharaoh was human and subject to human weakness, they simultaneously viewed him as a god, because the divine power of kingship was incarnated in him.

Rod covered many aspects of the beliefs of the Gods and Pharaohs and none more strange than the weighing of the heart against a feather –if it was too heavy then entry to the afterlife was not permitted.

Heart weighing scene