Egyptian mythology is dogmatic that the institution of kingship was coeval with the rule of the gods. Thus, the king list preserved in the Royal Canon of Turin, which dates to the 19th dynasty, begins with a dynasty of 11 deities who ruled for over 7,700 years. Through creation Re became the king of gods and men and although he eventually tired and withdrew from the world he had made, he continued to hold sovereign power as god of the heavens. On earth, the rule of Re led to a royal succession among the gods themselves, and in the Canon the length of the reign of each god is given before the reigns of human kings, d'he texts state that eventually Osiris
Became king of Egypt, and as the heir of Or Horus next took over his father’s king.-However, his own rulership took on even wider, mic, proportions as it was fused with the ruk and with that of the ancient falcon god Ilorus was himself originally a cosmic deity. This Ic kingship is made clear in the Coffin Texts:
‘Horus...has become lord of the [solar] barque aiv inherited the sky...
It is this Horus, the son of Isis, who rules over ' heavens and the gods therein.’
Coffin Texts
Horus, in turn, became the link with the 1: human king. Although, according to its priir
The enthroned Osiris, attended by Isis, Nephthys, Horus and Thoth. As king of the netherworld, Osiris personified one aspect of kingship in Egyptian mythology. Scene from the cult chapel of Amenophis atSaqqara. 19th dynasty. Egyptian Museum, Berlin.
Expression in the Heliopolitan theology, this story may be understood as much as an affirmation of the king’s descent from the gods as a genealogy of divine kings, we must not lose sight of the fact that from an Egyptian perspective the myth links king-ship to the gods just as much as it establishes it by means of the gods.
Hymns to the gods often name them as ‘kings’ - especially hymns of the later New Kingdom which also give deities many of the epithets used of kings such as ‘royal ruler’ and ‘ruler of the Two Lands’.
World History
