Monograph by M. E. Matie (1899-1966) on the Ancient Egyptian mythology was published for the first time in 1940, under the title ‘The Myths of the Ancient Egypt’. In 1956, there was the second edition.
The book consists of two parts. The first part is a review of three central mythological cycles of the Ancient Egypt: the tale on the creation of the world and people, the myth on the creation of the Sun, the myth on the dying and resurrecting god of the ‘productive forces of nature’ Osiris. It is completed with a study of earlier less known issue of the Ancient Egyptian religious drama, the mystery, which was also based on mythological material (first of all, the myth of the death and resurrection of Osiris). The second part of the book contains translations of the main – i.e. the most fully preserved – texts of the Ancient Egyptian myths. The myth of the creation of the world is given in three versions: those of Heliopolis, Memphis, and Herakleopolis. Despite the fact that the translations were published with some omissions (those lines that contained a lot of magic formulas and theological arguments that, in the author’s opinion, were of interest only for a narrow circle of specialists, were not included in the book), this publication still remains rather important and it was unique in the Soviet research literature. The publication is complemented with scientific comments and illustrations. The author noted that the myths of the Ancient Egypt were of exceptional interest not only for studying the history of the Egyptian religion, but also for understanding the religious ideas of the Ancient East, the culture of the Greco-Roman world, and the emergence of Christianity. According to the author, the Ancient Egyptian mythology is no less significant source for studying social and economical relations in the Ancient Egypt.
The research was based on an extensive source base, including written sources, which were not previously translated into Russian: myth records, texts of Pyramids, religious hymns, and monuments of material culture – pieces of the Ancient Egyptian art, household items, and the funeral cult, which allowed the author to a number of important observations on the ways of the origin and evolution of religious ideas in the Ancient Egypt.