Temples Of Egypt

The ancient Egyptians were very keen on religion, even when they built the Egyptian Temples, their main purpose was religion, but that wasn't their only intention. The Egyptian temples were built to worship Gods, commemorate Pharaohs, and declare the reign under Egypt's control. They were considered the houses of Gods and Pharaohs, and not anyone was allowed to go inside these sacred temples.

Temple meant in ancient Egyptian "Mansion of a God," as the Egyptian temples were built for the official worship of Gods. Still, not all the Gods had their own temple, as some were just involved in magical or private religious practices. These temples were built on the East side of the Nile and were called "Divine Temples."

In the Egyptian Creation Myth, the first temple was built as a shelter for a God and the God in the myth differed from one place to another around Egypt. Rituals made inside the temple were offerings to the Egyptian deities to uphold the maat, which is the universe's divine order.

Another kind of temple was built on the West side of the Nile and was called "Mortuary Temple." Egyptian Pharaohs built their mortuary temples often linked to their tombs to sustain their spirits in the afterlife by the offerings made in the temple. Actually, the temples weren't built this way at the beginning during prehistoric Egypt. In the late fourth millennium BC the first shrine ever known was made; they used then wood, reed matting, and mud brick.

By the time the design and construction of the temples evolved as well as its importance, in the Old Kingdom, king Sneferu started linking the pyramidal tomb at the foot of the temple. During the Middle Kingdom, there was expanding use of stone in the construction of the buildings. Then in the new Kingdom, the influence of the temples increased, as it was the center of economic activity.