Ancient Egyptian Gods: A Plain-Language Guide

Ancient Egyptian religion had over 1,500 named deities, but a handful show up constantly on temple walls and in museum collections, and knowing them makes visiting sites far more interesting.

Ra was the sun god and, for most of Egyptian history, the most important deity — believed to sail across the sky by day and through the underworld by night, dying and being reborn every 24 hours. Osiris ruled the underworld and judged the dead; his murder and resurrection myth (by his brother Set, and restoration by his wife Isis) is one of ancient Egypt's central stories. Isis, his wife, became one of the most widely worshipped goddesses in the ancient Mediterranean, associated with magic and motherhood. Horus, their son, was the falcon-headed god of kingship — every living pharaoh was considered his earthly embodiment. Anubis, the jackal-headed god, oversaw mummification and guided souls to judgment.

You'll see all five constantly: Horus and Ra on temple pylons, Anubis in tomb paintings overseeing the weighing of the heart against a feather (the actual ancient Egyptian judgment of the dead), Isis and Osiris on temple walls at Philae and Abydos. A guide pointing these figures out on-site turns a wall of carvings into an actual story.