Overview

It is of course important to understand, before delving into the idea of Egyptian religion, that ancient religion was by no means monolithic or standardized, but varied from region to region. However, there is a general framework that can be, with some safety, applied to Egyptian religion as a whole.

Forces of nature were believed to be gods, and developed as such. Animal gods were quite common; as an example one is Bast (or Bastet), a warrior goddess who was at times depicted with a cat head or as a cat herself. Within this Egyptian conception of the world, there were three types of sentient beings: the gods, living humans, and the dead. The gods within this system were accessible, remarkably so to the modern viewer. There were multiple ways to contact them, both within and outside of the home. There were temples to pray at; offerings could be made, even within the home; stele carved with ears represented a direct line to the gods' ears. (Teeter 2011, 84) It was intensely personal, frequently used, and this reflected "people’s confidence that the gods were accessible and could be trusted to assist them in matters of concern both large and small.” (Teeter 2011, 77) The gods were available and listening.

With the end of the Dynastic period and the beginning of the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, Egypt saw a huge amount of syncretism in their deities. Gods and goddesses imported from the Hellenistic and Roman world found sympathetic counterparts in Egyptian deities and started sharing attributes and cult centers. Egyptian deities began to acquire different names that linked them to the newer Hellenistic and Roman deities. As one of the more popular goddesses in Egypt, Isis was easily identified with many different goddesses and went by such a vast number of different appellations that they were recorded in a religious book at Oxyrhynchus. This book lists the location and then what she is called in that location: “...at Hermopolis, Aphrodite, queen, holy; at Tanis, of graceful form, Hera: at Canopus, leader of the Muses.” (Lewis 1999, 86-7) Isis is a particularly robust example but syncretism happened at many different levels; with the creation of a new Hellenistic-Egyptian god of Serapis, or the worship of a combination deity, such as Neotera-- an Aphrodite-Hathor combination. (Lewis 1999, 87)

With such a large number of gods and goddesses to worship, a large portion of the Egyptian calendar was devoted to public festivals and processions of deities. Despite the overwhelming amount of public worship, the presence of religion and worship within the household is undeniable. Domestic worship centered around the “temporal focus of life-cycle and intergenerational continuity belonging to a place.” (Stowers 2008, 13) As such, the practice of religion within a household dealt with simple veneration of gods within household shrines as well as performative images (such as small statues or amulets). (Ritner 2008, 172-3) Acts of worship with these objects would center around birth, fertility, and protection from illnesses and poisonous animals. While some objects found in domestic spaces can easily be understood as religious, such as amulets and fertility figures, some other objects are not so easily understood. Within a temple context, a cup for libations would be decorated with the purpose of setting it above the ordinary, emphasizing that it possesses a sacred use whereas a cup used in the household for libations would not be specifically decorated to mark its sacred use. This overlap between common household items and items used for religious purposes within the house makes it difficult to ascertain the true extent of domestic religion via extent materials.

Despite this difficulty, the huge range of materials that Karanis provides allows an in-depth look at materials within their context. Through examining the material remains in house C409 we hope to draw some conclusions about the presence and performance of religion within the household in Roman Egypt.