Egypt’s watchful sky deities arose where early agriculture demanded intense cooperation.
Evidence
One of the oldest and most significant deities in ancient Egypt was Horus, the sky god, also known as “Horus of Two Eyes.” His head was often depicted as a falcon with sharp eyes, one representing the sun, the other, the moon. Some scholars think that the right eye was also known as the “Eye of Ra,” although these could also have been separate deities. Horus or Ra watched over people in the towns and villages of Egypt, where intense cooperation was needed in one of the earliest agricultural civilizations. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 99
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- XREF: Directly ties Big God emergence to cooperation demands, echoing the reader’s Baumard partner-choice framing.