This dissertation investigates the origins of apotheosis—the process through which one was divinized—in ancient Egypt. Because apotheosis seems to have originally occurred posthumously, this study focuses on the processes through which the dead, specifically, were endowed with varied supernatural statuses and were marked as metaphysically distinct. These supernatural qualities set these beings apart as saints, demi-gods, and gods. Through this analysis, three categories of "supernatural humans" are observable during the early half of ancient Egyptian history, the Old through Middle Kingdoms (c. 2700-1650 BCE): the “average” dead (known as akh), the distinguished dead, and the deified dead. Specifically, I identify six markers that were used to communicate supernatural, divine status, and two markers that can be used to identify “distinguished,” above-average status. These markers were communicated through iconography, text, and the manipulation of ritual landscapes through the erection of monuments and shrines. This dissertation has four primary goals: (1) to establish a framework for identifying distinction and apotheosis in the archaeological and textual records of the Old through Middle Kingdoms, so that the corpus could be clearly defined, and an evaluative schema could be provided for future research; (2) to collate and present the evidence related to the origins of apotheosis, so that (3) its processes could be identified and understood within its shared societal, cultural, and religious networks of meaning; and to (4) historicize the phenomenon in order to describe the historic contexts in which apotheosis first emerges in an attempt to hypothesize the potential motivations and impetuses for its occurrence.
Troche, Julia Dawn,
"Origins of Apotheosis in Ancient Egypt"
(2015).
Egyptology and Assyriology Theses and Dissertations.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://doi.org/10.7301/Z0WM1BS5
