Ancient Egypt • Symbols

In ancient Egypt symbols and concrete pictures were a couple of the means used by the Egyptians to understand and describe their universe.

Gods Represented by Animals

As did many other nations, the Egyptians found the animal kingdom to be full of suitable images to give life to their thoughts; through the essence of animals they could describe features and qualities that were otherwise hard to put into words.

The goddess Sakhmet was the ancient Egyptian goddess of war and destruction; she was represented with a lions head, symbolizing her savagery. In the world of ancient Egyptian symbols the lion was an expression of the physical and majestic power of the king. A good example is the ancient sphinx, with its lion's body and human head.

The lion, the cow, the ram, the falcon, the snake and the crocodile were some of the most important animal images in the creation of ancient Egyptian symbols.

The buds of the lotus flower were a symbol of the renewal of life.

The Renewal of Life

A central concept running through ancient Egyptian symbols was that life was constantly renewed. Just as people renew themselves in sleep every night, the life-giving sun sets daily into the underworld and renews itself in the primitive darkness from which everything arose.

The renewal is complete with the rising of the sun. In ancient Egyptian art, the scarab is also often seen rolling the sun in front of it; but with or without the sun, the scarab is a symbol of the rising sun.

The Eye of Ra

A large number of ancient Egypt's symbols are also connected with the human body. The land of Egypt was called the Eye of Ra meaning the eye of the sun, or the sun god. As an amulet, the Eye protected the carrier against all kinds of dangers.