"The relics of ancient Egyptian civilization testify to the Egyptians' perpetual efforts to understand and cope with the world they lived in. Egypt's panoply of gods explained the elements and forces that constituted and governed that world: the earth, sky, and sun; the river Nile and its annual, life-giving inundation of the fields; and the institution of kingship, which rebuffed external enemies, quieted internal disorder, and made peaceful life possible. The institutions and ceremonies of Egyptian religion were the means by which those forces were at once appeased and cajoled into acting for the benefit of the Egyptians themselves, in this life and in the next." (James P. Allen)