I have been reading some books about ancient Egypt for a project of mine and I came across some stuff that I found interesting. I think we all know that Stargate borrowed the names of gods for the Goa’ulds. What I didn’t know was that they also borrowed some more mythology. I’ll be honest, I thought that apart from very basic facts about the “gods” they mostly made this stuff up. So I thought maybe some of you would also find this interesting.

In the movie and also later in the series the topic of the rebellion against Ra comes up. This is an actual ancient Egyptian myth: A long time ago the gods used to live with the humans on earth and the sun god Ra lived among them as their king. However as Ra aged, his power became weaker. This led to the humans mocking him and defying his orders. They refused to pray to him. In anger Ra sent his daughter Hathor (goddess of love) who became Sekhmet (goddess of destruction). Sekhmet began slaughtering all humans. Ra then regretted what he had done, because he had realised that if all humans were killed there would be no one left to pray to him. He prepared beer colored red to look like blood. Sekhmet drank it all and fell asleep, thus humanity was saved. Ra forgave the humans for their betrayal but still decided to ascend to the heavens and rule from there.

I also found it interesting that doorways have an important role in Egyptian mythology. False doors were painted on the walls of tombs and were thought to be a connection to the world of the dead. Obviously they weren’t round, but the idea of building doors to other worlds (the world of the dead, mostly) is prominent in ancient Egyptian culture.

In one episode the eye of Ra is introduced as a powerful weapon. In mythology Ra created humans from his tears. His eye was the embodiment of his power. In some version of the rebellion myth Sekhmet is said to act as “the eye of Ra” when she almost destroyed humanity.

And lastly this is not a myth, but Abydos is the name of a city in Egypt, where some of the oldest temples and objects connected to ancient Egyptian religions were found.

These are just some small fun facts I stumbled upon. Also, there are so many more fun Gods and myths in ancient Egyptian mythology. I understand that the series could not possibly integrate them all, but it would be a lot of fun to have them pop up e.g. in spin-offs. Like Anat, the Goddess of war and sister of Baal, who defended the Pharaoh in battle. She could be a Goa’uld who is a scientist and developed a lot of the weapon technology. Maybe she invented the Zats.