In the past, there have been many names given to the false gods of the Bible as well as referenced to in many religions even till today. Ancient Egyptian deities are the gods and goddesses worshipped in ancient Egypt. The beliefs and rituals surrounding these gods formed the core of ancient Egyptian religion, which emerged sometime in prehistory. Deities represented natural forces and phenomena, and the Egyptians supported and appeased them through offerings and rituals so that these forces would continue to function according to maat, or divine order. After the founding of the Egyptian state around 3100 BC, the authority to perform these tasks was controlled by the pharaoh, who claimed to be the gods' earthly representative and who managed the temples where the rituals were carried out.
The gods' complex characteristics were expressed in myths and in intricate relationships between deities: family ties, loose groups and hierarchies, and combinations of separate gods into one. Deities' diverse appearances in art—as animals, humans, objects, and combinations of different forms—also alluded, through symbolism, to their essential features.
In different eras, various gods were said to hold the highest position in divine society, including the solar deity Ra, the mysterious god Amun, and the mother goddess Isis. The highest deity was usually credited with the creation of the world and often connected with the life-giving power of the sun. Some scholars have argued, based in part on Egyptian writings, that the Egyptians came to recognize a single divine power that lay behind all things and was present in all the other deities. Yet they never abandoned their original polytheistic view of the world, except possibly during the era of Atenism in the 14th century BC, when official religion focused exclusively on the impersonal sun god Aten.
Gods were assumed to be present throughout the world, capable of influencing natural events and the course of human lives. People interacted with them in temples and unofficial shrines, for personal reasons as well as for larger goals of state rites. Egyptians prayed for divine help, used rituals to compel deities to act, and called upon them for advice. Humans' relations with their gods were a fundamental part of Egyptian society. Here is a list of some of the more popular ones (their names & images): Here are 15 major ancient Egyptian gods and goddesses, if this is your interest, that you may care to know about - The names are written above the picture that they represent.
1) Nun – The Primeval God
2) Amun, Ra, and Amun-Ra – The Ancient Egyptian gods of Sun and Wind
3) Hathor – The Cow Goddess
3) Hathor – The Cow Goddess
5) Maat – The Goddess of Order
6) Ptah – The Creator God or often referred to as the beetle god.
The gods Ptah and Sekhmet flank the king, who takes the role of their child, Nefertum. Nefertem was, in Egyptian mythology, originally a lotus flower at the creation of the world, who had arisen from the primal waters. Nefertem represented both the first sunlight and the delightful smell of the Egyptian blue lotus flower, having arisen from the primal waters within an Egyptian blue water-lily, Nymphaea caerulea. Some of the titles of Nefertem were "He Who is Beautiful" and "Water-Lily of the Sun", and a version of the Book of the Dead says: Rise like Nefertem from the blue water lily, to the nostrils of Ra, and come forth upon the horizon each day. It was also believed that Khepri was a god of creation, the movement of the sun, and rebirth. The scarab beetle lays its eggs in a ball of dung. Then, it rolls the ball along the ground until the young beetles are ready to hatch. When the young beetles are ready, they crawl out of the ball. 7) Isis – The Magic Goddess
8) Osiris – The Dead God
9) Horus – The Falcon God
10) Set – The Antagonist God
11) Anubis – The Jackal God
12) Thoth – The Ibis God
13) Taweret – The Hippo Goddess
14) Aten – The ‘Controversial’ God
15) Honorable Mention – Khepri, The Beetle God
There are many reasons given for the many designs of these mystic gods, but it seems that different pharaoh's and their supporters (some of whom had large imaginations and others that had the ability to draw) got together and puffed up their pharaoh's into believing that these various symbols best represented their kingdoms, making it easier for the masses to worship them. In any event, here's what others have said in their hybolical languages.
This information is taken from Wikipedia:
The beings in ancient Egyptian tradition who might be labeled as deities are difficult to count. Egyptian texts list the names of many deities whose nature is unknown and make vague, indirect references to other gods who are not even named. The Egyptologist James P. Allen estimates that more than 1,400 deities are named in Egyptian texts, whereas his colleague Christian Leitz says there are "thousands upon thousands" of gods.
The Egyptian language's terms for these beings were "god", and its feminine form "goddess". Scholars have tried to discern the original nature of the gods by proposing etymologies for these words, but none of these suggestions has gained acceptance, and the terms' origin remains obscure. The hieroglyphs that were used as ideograms and determinatives in writing these words show some of the traits that the Egyptians connected with divinity. The most common of these signs is a flag flying from a pole. Similar objects were placed at the entrances of temples, representing the presence of a deity, throughout ancient Egyptian history. Other such hieroglyphs include a falcon, reminiscent of several early gods who were depicted as falcons, and a seated male or female deity. The feminine form could also be written with an egg as determinative, connecting goddesses with creation and birth, or with a cobra, reflecting the use of the cobra to depict many female deities.
The Egyptians distinguished "gods", "people", but the meanings of the Egyptian and the English terms do not match perfectly. The term "god" may have applied to any being that was in some way outside the sphere of everyday life. Deceased humans were called gods because they were considered to be like the gods, whereas the term was rarely applied to many of Egypt's lesser supernatural beings, which modern scholars often call "demons". Egyptian religious art also depicts places, objects, and concepts in human form. These personified ideas range from deities that were important in myth and ritual to obscure beings, only mentioned once or twice, that may be little more than metaphors.
Confronting these blurred distinctions between gods and other beings, scholars have proposed various definitions of a "deity". One widely accepted definition, suggested by Jan Assmann, says that a deity has a cult, is involved in some aspect of the universe, and is described in mythology or other forms of written tradition. According to a different definition, by Dimitri Meeks, "god" applied to any being that was the focus of ritual. From this perspective, "gods" included the king, who was called a god after his coronation rites, and deceased souls, who entered the divine realm through funeral ceremonies. Likewise, the preeminence of the great gods was maintained by the ritual devotion that was performed for them across Egypt.
The first written evidence of deities in Egypt comes from the Early Dynastic Period (c. 3100–2686 BC). Deities must have emerged sometime in the preceding Pre-dynastic Period (before 3100 BC) and grown out of prehistoric religious beliefs. Pre-dynastic artwork depicts a variety of animal and human figures. Some of these images, such as stars and cattle, are reminiscent of important features of Egyptian religion in later times, but in most cases there is not enough evidence to say whether the images are connected with deities. As Egyptian society grew more sophisticated, clearer signs of religious activity appeared. The earliest known temples appeared in the last centuries of the pre-dynastic era, along with images that resemble the icono-graphies of known deities: the falcon that represents Horus and several other gods, the crossed arrows that stand for Neith, and the enigmatic "Set animal" that represents Set.
Many Egyptologists and anthropologists have suggested theories about how the gods developed in these early times. Gustave Jéquier, for instance, thought the Egyptians first revered primitive fetishes, then deities in animal form, and finally deities in human form, whereas Henri Frankfort argued that the gods must have been envisioned in human form from the beginning. Some of these theories are now regarded as too simplistic, and more current ones, such as Siegfried Morenz' hypothesis that deities emerged as humans began to distinguish themselves from and personify their environment, but this seems difficult to prove.
Pre-dynastic Egypt originally consisted of small, independent villages. Because many deities in later times were strongly tied to particular towns and regions, many scholars have suggested that the pantheon formed as smaller communities became larger states, spreading and inter-mingling the worship of the old local deities. Others have argued that the most important pre-dynastic gods were, like other elements of Egyptian culture, present all across the country despite its political divisions.
The final step in the formation of Egyptian religion was the unification of Egypt, in which rulers from Upper Egypt made themselves pharaohs of the entire country. These sacred kings and their subordinates assumed the right to interact with the gods, and kingship became the unifying focus of the religion.
New deities continued to emerge after this transformation. Some important deities such as Isis and Amun are not known to have appeared until the Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2181 BC). Places and concepts could inspire the creation of a deity to represent them, and deities were sometimes created to serve as opposite-sex counterparts to established gods or goddesses. Kings were said to be divine, although only a few continued to be worshipped long after their deaths. Some non-royal humans were said to have the favor of the gods and were venerated accordingly. This veneration was usually short-lived, but the court architects Imhotep and Amenhotep son of Hapu were regarded as gods centuries after their lifetimes, as were some other officials.
Through contact with neighboring civilizations, the Egyptians also adopted foreign deities. Dedun, who is first mentioned in the Old Kingdom, may have come from Nubia, and Baal, Anat, and Astarte, among others, were adopted from Canaanite religion during the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 BC). In Greek and Roman times, from 332 BC to the early centuries AD, deities from across the Mediterranean world were revered in Egypt, but the native gods remained, and they often absorbed the cults of these newcomers into their own worship.
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