Who is Anubis really?

[Meresankh]

Geez...Read some egyptian mythology.....

[V-MAN]

Geez...Read some egyptian mythology.....

erm....no....cos it's borning

[Mr Prophet]

anubis is way older and way more powerful than apophis who is also DEAD.

Actually, all mythological evidence - which is all we have to go on - would point to Apophis being way older than Anubis, although certainly less powerful and more dead.

And written down, the Egyptian name is transliterated closer to 'Anpw' than 'Anubis'.

[shinyredpants]

no...anubis and apophis are not one in the same...i'm going to spoil you silly if you dont know this but...

Anubis was the biggest, baddes goa'uld in the galaxy, so the system lords tried to banish him/kill him/do him in...whatever, but since anubis was like fiddling with ancient technology he ascended, and then when the ancients realized this they were like "oh crap no you're not gonna mess with uber powers!" so they de-ascended him *is that a term? whatever* but it didnt work entirely so he was just kinda floating around and stuff until he was able to cradle his "essence" into a body and let it be shielded to not let himself turn into a billion little particles.

apophis however, is the brother? of Ra. Apophis was a big bad evil man after Ra died, and kinda took his place among the system lords *more or less*. apophis died, then came back to life, then died again...and the last time you see him is being chomped up from a bunch of replicators.

[Osiris]

And written down, the Egyptian name is transliterated closer to 'Anpw' than 'Anubis'.

Inpw.

[LostGodAnubis]

Actually, all mythological evidence - which is all we have to go on - would point to Apophis being way older than Anubis, although certainly less powerful and more dead.

And written down, the Egyptian name is transliterated closer to 'Anpw' than 'Anubis'.

That would not be true, depending on the era maybe but some of the oldest has Anubis in the position of Osiris, later taken over by him and Anubis getting posted as his new position. It all depends on the dynasty you want to follow and the era in which people were recording, egyptian mythology changed vastly over time and was constantly updated. It was one of the things that made their faith so unique as opposed to others. Theirs was a faith designed to change with the people.

stargate focuses on one aspect of egyptian mythology, not all of it. Theres a lot of cross over applications for the gods that most people wouldnt know about. Stargate uses generalizations to make it easier

Also, he might be called Anpu, u missed that one lol

Anubis didnt start off in the position he is commonly referred to now, a lot of the gods didnt

[Mr Prophet]

I don't know that I'd call it a faith, and in fact I'm sure they wouldn't have done. I actually have a problem with the phrase 'Egyptian mythology'; it all sounds so meat and monolithic.

Anyway, the Goa'uld have always seemed pretty New Kingdom on their mythology - at least where the PTB have bothered to do any research at all. Of course, the Anubis in Stargate seems to owe more to The Mummy Returns (ladies and gentlemen, due to illness, in this film the part of Satan will be played by Anubis) than to any particular mythological period. It really narks me that at no point has Daniel given the vaguest hint of a mythic spiel on Anubis; not so much as an 'Anubis was a god of the dead whose cult was absorbed into that of Osiris' or a 'yeah; Anubis was a jackal-headed dude'.

[LostGodAnubis]

Fine than, not so much faith, but the fact of the matter is their religion or basis of the afterlife and gods were always changing with the people. the majority of what i said is true, lol

yea...especially since that would make an interesting story line, maybe to how anubis was defeated originally...or what happened

[Mr Prophet]

It's just such a gip. Clearly, Selmak knew all about Anubis, and yet he has never said a thing. What did he do that was so terrible it got him kicked out? What did he do before that? Inquiring minds want to know!

My main complaint in what you said was the claim that the religion - another word they didn't really have - was designed to change. The reason it was so flexible was that it was really a massive agglomeration of local cults which shifted in power and precedence, absorbed each other then schismed again, depending on which deities the pharaoh of the day supported.

[LostGodAnubis]

You need a word to describe it, faith, religion, words like that are just designed to give a name to the collective ideas of what the after life and other such things hold, including the magic of the era.

It was flexible, not just because of each seperate cult, because it flowed from era to era. A lot of it was cult to cult, n a lot of people had different views but the main over haul, such as the main writings from each era still were very flexible. They would adapt anytime a new idea was brought into the fold and replace an existing idea, they didnt just say, hey, this is how it was so this is how it'll be.

Its very hard to explain when u cant use words like religion and faith, when it all reality thats what they had. Anytime u believe in something greater than u, its faith, and religion is simply a belief in the afterlife and of a greater being. Just because they didnt call it that, doesnt mean thats not what it was. Historicaly speaking I shouldnt use those words but the more you study the egyptian history, the egyptian culture including their "religion" n beliefs in magic as well as many other concepts the more you see that it is practically the same thing. They had a different way about thinking of it,no solid "concrete" foundation

The cult to cult idea can explain small geographical notions, or maybe if one got so big and took over the area of another. But from era to era, small cults wouldnt cause so much change

[LostGodAnubis]

But I do get what your saying...if I come across like I dont, I do...its just hard to explain

[Mr Prophet]

Who said it was limited to small cults?

Egypt started off as a string of villages along the Nile, each with its own cults. As power became more centralised, larger centres emerged and their cults absorbed smaller ones, but the gods were all retained to some degree. The names of Osiris in some texts take up...well, whole books, because they include all of the names of the gods he has absorbed. And how many Horuses are there?

Now, the absorbed cults and particularly the larger ones retain their identities, but the writings of period X are dominated by the cult of the current dynasty. Be the PTB Theban or Memphite or foreign Hyksos, and whether they hold Setesh to be evil incarnate or a good bloke who likes a bit of a barney, the good Sobekite folk of Crocodilopolis will be worshipping their sacred crocodiles while their neighbours eight miles downstream are spearing the killer crocs of Sutekh.

Obviously, there are the big gods who established a permanent presence once their cults reached a critical mass. Amun-Re - himself of course a composite - is a case in point; just look what happened when Akhenaten tried to get shot of him.

It was the refusal of the Egyptians - as a whole, over the course of some four millennia - to tell anyone that they can shove their god which created this flexibility. It wasn't so much that you could go your own way - again, c.f. the staying power of the Aten - as that, if you looked hard enough, your way was probably there already.

As to why I don't like faith and particularly religion is that this flexibility reflects more of a workaday attitude than a belief in higher beings. The gods weren't actually much higher than people; bigger, certainly, but as falible and with no greater power than that available to any human who wished to devote himself to the study of heka. If the pharaoh is a god, then of course he could change dogma. But I really take issue with the idea of design. Designed religions lack this flexibility. As you say, it is a matter of worldview and that is something that is emergent, rather than constructed.

[LostGodAnubis]

The reason religion isnt a good way to describe, like you said, it seems to become more of a design as well as other views on things I wont get into. Its given the idea of a religion a bad rep because of how people misconstrue an idea, or faith in something to be the backbone of life, unchangeable...and used...

blah i wont get into a religious debate, it'll take to long lol

I see what ur saying, and I agree. I have all the history n culture n "mythological" backing to know where ur coming from. My point is in their somewhere, I wouldnt have been able to voice it in such a way but I think you summed it up with the refusal to tell anyone to shove their religion

[Cycrow]

Looks like it, he owes me a few beers over this but the ****er won't pay up cos he says it's not been proved otherwise yet

that will prolly be proved soon anyways
if u have skyone, a week on tuesday Threads will be airing, which is about where anubis ascended