Asiatic War Deities in Late Dynastic and Graeco-Roman Egypt

Shalaby, Noha Moustafa; Said, Mariam Mohamed

doi:10.21608/ijaf.2025.346094.1111

Asiatic War Deities in Late Dynastic and Graeco-Roman Egypt

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Tourism Guidance Department, Faculty of Tourism and Hotel Management, Helwan University

² Ph.D. Researcher, Tourism Guidance Department, Faculty of Tourism and Hotel Management, Helwan University.

10.21608/ijaf.2025.346094.1111

Abstract

Throughout the history of mankind, war has been part of human life. Its detrimental consequences couldn’t have been evaded including physical, psychological, mental, economic, and environmental effects. People in ancient cultures worshipped war deities as they sought protection and victory. The ancient Egyptians had their pantheon that involved war gods and goddesses (e.g., Monthu, Onuris, Sekhmet). To those deities, temples were constructed, and offerings and prayers were made. The names of Asiatic war deities were sporadically attested in different periods of the Egyptian history and were common with the expansion of the Egyptian domains during the New Empire (e.g., Anat, Astarte, Reshep, Mithra/Mithras, and Sopedu). Such foreign deities received almost no resistance in Egypt; contrariwise, some of these deities were elevated to the same level of the Egyptian deities and their cults outlasted the Dynastic Period. This article aims to explore the persistence of these deities during the Late Dynastic and the Graeco-Roman periods in Egypt through iconographic and textual evidence.

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