Altars laden with food offerings appear frequently in Egyptian temple decorations, reflecting the importance of such offerings in temple rituals. It is usually thought that the Egyptian's believed the ka (vital force) of each deity, king, or mortal whose statue stood in a temple consumed and benefited from the vital essence of the offerings (the actual food was divIded amcr.g the temple's clergy). Nevertheless, a question remains: Did the Egyptians believe that their gods actually needed such offerings, or that they were, instead, influenced by the very act of offering?
There is evidence that offerings of meat and fowl were made with greater care than offerings of fruit, bread, and vegetables. The Egyptians believed that animals as well as humans had the potential for life after death. Thus in some—perhaps most—rituals, sacrificial animals had to be identified with the forces of chaos threatening Ma'at, or cosmic order, before being sacrificed.
