The Egyptian pantheon was especially fond of zoomorphism, with many animals sacred to particular deities—cats to Bastet, ibises and baboons to Thoth, crocodiles to Sobek and Ra, fish to Set, mongoose, shrew and birds to Horus, dogs and jackals to Anubis, serpents and eels to Atum, beetles to Khepera, bulls to Apis.

Egyptian deities represent natural phenomena, from physical objects like the earth or the sun to abstract forces like knowledge and creativity. The actions and interactions of the gods, the Egyptians believed, govern the behavior of all of these forces and elements.

Most Egyptian gods represented one principle aspect of the world: Ra was the sun god, for example, and Nut was goddess of the sky. When a god was angry, she might be portrayed as a ferocious lioness; when gentle, a cat. The convention was to depict the animal gods with a human body and an animal head.

Some of these deities’ names are well known: Isis, Osiris, Horus, Amun, Ra, Hathor, Bastet, Thoth, Anubis, and Ptah while many others less so. The more famous gods became state deities while others were associated with a specific region or, in some cases, a ritual or role.

In the Osiris myth, the most important Egyptian myth, Set is portrayed as the usurper who killed and mutilated his own brother, Osiris….Set (deity)

Seth. Seth was the god of chaos, violence, deserts, and storms. In the Osiris myth, he is the murderer of Osiris (in some versions of the myth, he tricks Osiris into laying down in a coffin and then seals it shut.) Seth’s appearance poses a problem for Egyptologists.

Thanatos

Ra was believed to rule in all parts of the created world: the sky, the Earth, and the underworld. He was the god of the sun, order, kings and the sky. Ra was portrayed as a falcon and shared characteristics with the sky-god Horus.

Like all royal crowns, the uraeus was a gift to the pharaoh from the sun god Ra, and the rearing cobra often appears with a golden sun-disk atop its head. This is Apophis, enemy of the sun god Ra. Apophis exists outside of the created world and to the Egyptians represented chaos.

Hathor

Horus, patron deity of Hierakonpolis (near Edfu), the predynastic capital of Upper Egypt. Its head was executed by means of beating the gold then connecting it with the copper body. A uraeus is fixed to the diadem which supports two tall openwork feathers.

Nephthys

Anubis, also called Anpu, ancient Egyptian god of the dead, represented by a jackal or the figure of a man with the head of a jackal. In the Early Dynastic period and the Old Kingdom, he enjoyed a preeminent (though not exclusive) position as lord of the dead, but he was later overshadowed by Osiris.

Wepwawet

Anubis is the Egyptian god of mummification and the afterlife as well as the patron god of lost souls and the helpless.

Anubis is the son of Osiris and Nephthys.