Panther in ancient Egypt

Good day dear community, first of all I would like to welcome you all to my new contribution and hope you have had a day full of interesting experiences so far! In this article I would like to discuss ancient Egypt and hope you can learn new things.

The ancient Egyptians saw the Panther not as a normal animal and worshipped it as a divine being that was even seen as the personification of different deities and there was a particularly strong connection to the goddess Mafdet. People regarded it as a kind of cat which could be seen in different representations and as can be seen from old inscriptions in temples or other places of worship, it was also depicted in hieroglyphs and it is assumed that a huge cult arose around this animal and it was often used for ritual purposes and the fur was particularly interesting by the ancient Egyptians. The fur was considered at the time a kind of protective symbol which was worn by different people as well as pharaohs and it had a strong religious background which was due to the assumption that even gods appeared dressed in this fur and the tradition has developed that the priests used the fur at ceremonial events and also at burials it was often used and the people saw it as a kind of status symbol. When someone dressed up with this fur there was the view that he could transform into this divine animal and the priests or pharaohs were considered as a kind of medium which would speak the divine words in this disguise and here there were different ways to celebrate this cult and it is suspected that especially the priest had this task and later had replaced the pharaohs who at that time together with their companions worn these fur. Numerous figures of panthers were also created as can be seen in this picture and these were mostly set up near the temple of the pharaohs or other important places and were considered in this context as a symbol of protection and in addition it was also venerated as a mystical animal and the animal was also depicted in different jewellery such as chains. These sculptures were an important expression of power and places where they stood were considered particularly safe and so it also behaved similarly when wearing the jewellery and as a divine being the panther was often associated with the power of heaven which in some representations can even be seen with wings.

Thanks a lot for stopping by and I hope you could learn something new about ancient Egypt! I captured these pictures with my Camera Sony Alpha 6000 plus 55-210 mm lens.