The life of the ancient Egyptians was in a great measure controlled by their religious beliefs. In prehistoric times, as has already been explained, each nome, or province, was independent, and was the home of some tribe or tribes. Just as we find the American Indian worshipping the stick that was powerful enough to throw him in the forest, so these primitive people worshipped animals and trees. Each animate object was conceived as possessing a soul or spirit, and this spirit accounted for the qualities or characteristics of the object--were they good or ill. A lion possessed savage tendencies--hence they would worship him and propitiate his spirit, and their attitude was the same toward the crocodile, the ram, the elephant, and many other animals. The date-palm brought them great blessings--therefore they would worship the tree and insure a continuance of these blessings. As time went on, they grew to worship gods, and to the gods these trees and animals, worshipped earlier on their own account, were thought sacred. Each village and town had its own local deity and special objects of worship, while the nome as a whole recognized gods of a more general character. In this way, each province of Upper Egypt--which was older in civilization than the Delta--and various portions of Lower Egypt, developed religions complete and independent of one another. After many hundred years, when all Egypt was united under one government and one king, the priests attempted to comprise these various beliefs into a common faith, to recognize the principal gods of all the nomes in the temples, and to evolve one religious system from the many local systems. This they never succeeded in fully accomplishing. They included in their lists some seventy deities, and harmonized some features of worship, but each locality clung to its ancient deity and several different religions can be traced throughout Egyptian history. Like most primitive people, the Egyptians worshipped the sun. This god revealed himself in many forms, but chiefly as Horus, represented by a falcon, and Re or Ra, represented by the Scarabaeus. Osiris ruled in the kingdom of the dead, and he was thought to be just and good. With his wife, Isis, and his son, Horus, he was worshipped throughout the land, while everywhere Set was regarded as the principle of Evil. Qeb was the god of Earth and Nut, his wife, the queen of the heavens, which in this connection signifies the skies. Their children were Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nebthet (Nephthys). Mat was the goddess of truth and justice. One finds similarities between some of these divinities and the divinities of the Greeks--as for example, Nut reminds one of Hera, and Set was feared as much as Pluto; but it is dangerous to make these comparisons, for the religious conceptions of the two nations were fundamentally different.