Kemetism

Origins

Kemetism is a modern revival of ancient Egyptian religion, practised in several groups, among them Kemetic Orthodoxy. The name comes from Kemet, an ancient Egyptian name for Egypt that is usually translated as the black land, after the fertile soil along the Nile.

Beliefs and values

Practitioners honour gods such as Isis, Osiris, Thoth and Hathor. Maat, the principle of truth, order and balance, guides conduct. A daily offering at a household shrine echoes the temple ritual in which priests tended the image of the god.

Timeline

c. 3000 BCE

Upper and Lower Egypt are united under one ruler, by the usual dating.

30 BCE

Egypt becomes a Roman province.

391 CE

Imperial decrees begin to close pagan temples.

6th century CE

The temple of Isis at Philae, among the last to stay open, is closed.

1822

Champollion announces his decipherment of hieroglyphs.

1988

Kemetic Orthodoxy is founded in the United States.

Key terms

ma'at

Truth, justice and cosmic order, personified as a goddess.

netjeru

The Egyptian word for the gods (singular netjer).

heka

Ritual power or magic, which the gods themselves were thought to use.

ka

A part of a person's spirit that survives death and needs offerings.

Wep Ronpet

The Egyptian new year, whose name means 'opener of the year'.

How it keeps the festivals

Kemetists typically follow the three seasons of the ancient Egyptian year, which were tied to the Nile: inundation (akhet), growing (peret) and harvest (shemu). The new year, Wep Ronpet, was linked to the Nile flood and the reappearance of the star Sirius before dawn.

Festivals such as Wag, Opet and the Mysteries of Osiris at Abydos are marked in different ways by different groups. Because the surviving evidence is uneven, groups often disagree about dates, and many mark them on their own calendars.

See the Wheel of the Year and the glossary.

Where to read

• The Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts
• The Book of the Dead, including Spell 125
• Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris
• Jan Assmann, The Search for God in Ancient Egypt

Cautions

Groups differ in how closely they follow scholarship. Ancient evidence is plentiful, but practice was local and changed over three thousand years, so be careful with any source that claims there was one fixed Egyptian way.