Gods and Men in Egypt: 3000 BCE to 395 CE.

• Author: Teeter, Emily
• Position: Book review

Gods and Men in Egypt: 3000 BCE to 395 CE. By FRANCOISE DUNAND and CHRISTIANE ZIVIECOCHE. Translated by David Lorton. Ithaca: CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2004. Pp. xvii + 378, illus. $45.

Although much has been written about ancient Egyptian religion, there are few books devoted entirely to this important subject. Among these are S. Morenz, Egyptian Religion (Cornell Univ. Press, 1973); E. Hornung, Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many (Cornell Univ. Press, 1982); S. Quirke, Ancient Egyptian Religion (British Museum, 1992); D. Frankfurter, Religion in Roman Egypt (Princeton Univ. Press, 1998); D. Redford, ed., The Ancient Gods Speak: A Guide to Egyptian Religion (Oxford Univ. Press, 2002); and G. Pinch, Egyptian Mythology (Oxford Univ. Press, 2004). The many works by Jan Assmann deal with specific issues in religion, and so are not included among these comprehensive works.

The excellent book under review approaches the topic in new ways. First, the authors focus on the "big ideas," leaving the reader with a good sense of how religion worked within the society. Second, the book covers the pharaonic period (Zivie-Coche), as well as the Ptolemaic, Roman, and early Christian eras (Dunand). Usually, these two major blocks of time are treated separately and as only tenuously related. But here the authors stress continuities, and also how beliefs changed over time, largely in response to "foreign," primarily Greco-Roman, cultural influence.

The first chapters lucidly outline fundamental aspects of thought and religion (the idea of the divine, the development of gods, the organization and appearance of deities, creation, cosmologies, cult activity, temples, and the role of officiates in the cult). Chapter four, "Of Men and Gods," deals with popular religion and personal piety. Zivie-Coche disputes the assertion that popular religion, also called "the religion of the poor" (i.e., cult enacted outside the temple), was a second and separate set of beliefs and practices, pointing out that both popular and royal religion have much in common: both called upon the same deities, both "drew their material from a common substrate" of beliefs, and both "operated within defined frameworks that were accepted by all." In the end, they were just "different vehicles" conveying the same belief system.

The author responds to the influential ideas of Jan Assmann, who has posited that the religion of the Ramesside Period (ca. 1100 B.C.) is dominated...