Nephthys, the protective goddess of the dead Presented by Gina Tran

Who is Nephthys? Nephthys is the protective goddess of the dead. She would be help the god of the living and dead, Osiris, and would appear on some coffins. She is called “the lady of the house” and it comes from her name which is also Nebt- het. She would be the lady who is wearing a headdress with her name on it in hieroglyphics. This is Nephthys. This is her name in hieroglyphics.

The family history This is Nut in the stars. This is Geb. Nephthys has four siblings: Horus, Isis, Osiris and Set. She and her siblings were all born from Geb, the earth god and Nut, the sky goddess. Their mother, Nut, wanted to give birth to the five children but the sun god, Ra, wouldn’t allow it because there was only 360 days in the entire year. So, she wanted to get five extra more days to give birth to the children so she gambled with Thoth, the god of knowledge against the moon god, Khonsu, to a  game called Senet. Because of Thoth, she earned five extra days to give birth to the five kids separately on five separate days. Since Nut gave birth to them, Ra was so furious that he separated Geb and Nut from each other so they would never meet again. This is Horus, Isis, Osiris, and Set.

In the future This is Anubis. People believed that gods reincarnated to other people, so that’s what they think. In other Egyptian myths, Nephthys married her brother Set, and gave birth to Anubis, the god of the dead. Even though she didn’t like the chaotic part of Set, she still married him because he was the one who was protecting the sun god, Ra from the evil, darkness and destructive spirit, Apophis from spreading darkness into the world by destroying Ra. However, in later periods, Apophis decided to use Set to help him destroy Ra because Set was obviously the god of chaos. This is Apophis, the chaotic, snake god.

Family problems In those same myths, Osiris and his wife/sister, Isis were having a party because it was Osiris’ birthday. During that party, Set said that he had a present for Osiris because it was Osiris’ birthday but Isis knew that Set would never give any presents to their family because he would only bring chaos. Everyone started to doubt it that it was not a present, especially Isis. Osiris was too distracted to realize that it was not a birthday present because of the golden coffin that was designed with lots of beautiful designs. Osiris fell for Set’s trap and died. Nephthys wanted to help Isis but it was too late, even though she betrayed her own husband for joining sides with Isis. So as Horus grew up, he was strong enough to fight against Set to avenge for the death of his father, Osiris.

Resources to help build this presentation http://www.touregypt.net/nephthys.htm http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/gods/explore/main.html http://ancientegyptonline.co.uk/apep.html Google images

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