Page "Ancient Egyptian religion" Paragraph 10

The Egyptian gods had complex interrelationships, which partly reflected the interaction of the forces they represented.

The Egyptians often grouped gods together to reflect these relationships.

Some groups of deities were of indeterminate size, and were linked by their similar functions.

These often consisted of minor deities with little individual identity.

Other combinations linked independent deities based on the symbolic meaning of numbers in Egyptian mythology ; for instance, pairs of deities usually represent the duality of opposite phenomena.

One of the more common combinations was a family triad consisting of a father, mother, and child, who were worshipped together.

Some groups had wide-ranging importance.

One such group, the Ennead, assembled nine deities into a theological system that was involved in the mythological areas of creation, kingship, and the afterlife.