The Kushites (the twenty-fifth dynasty) ruled during the Third Intermediate Period. The Kushites understood their culture as descended from the Egyptian culture of antiquity and deliberately attempted to recreate the artistic glories of the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms. The Kushites renovated many temples and monuments and sponsored a massive artistic program of their own.

The ancient Egyptian practice of incubation became popular during the Late Period and may have been practiced in various forms in earlier periods of Egyptian history. Incubation involved an individual spending the night in a temple. The individual expected a God to visit him in his sleep and reveal a prophetic vision.

Hapi was the god of the annual flooding of the Nile, which was itself called the arrival of Hapi. Hapi was also a deity associated with birds and fish. Aker was the god of the earth and the horizon, and Anhur was the god of war and hunting.

Originally, the Memphis Triad consisted of: Ptah (the god of Creation, architecture, and craftsmen), Sekhmet (the goddess of fire, war, and medicine, and Ptah’s wife), and Nefertem (the god of healing and beauty and the son of Ptah and Sekhmet). Together, this family of deities was worshipped as a linked group in the capital city’s temple, with offerings made to each separately and collectively. Around 525 BCE, however, the Triad morphed slightly; the Old Kingdom architect and healer Imhotep, who had been worshipped as an increasingly popular deity after his death, displaced Nefertem as the Triad’s third member. So popular and fixed was this belief that many Egyptians referred to Imhotep as the son of Ptah.

During the Late Period, the ritual marriage of the Gods Hathor and Horus became one of the most important Egyptian festivals. A depiction of Hathor was taken from her temple to the temple of Horus (a journey of dozens of miles). They were then “married” in a ritual celebration.

Animal cults became popular during the Late Period, because many Egyptian deities were zoomorphic (that is, represented as animals). As such, the worship of certain animals, as conduits to the divine, may be understood as a sort of inevitable process.

One of the four varieties of Egyptian writing scripts, Coptic initially emerged during the first century CE. It quickly rose in popularity due to its inclusion of Greek letters and its display of vowels, both of which made Coptic much more user-friendly than past scripts. Although it eventually fell out of use sometime between 1100 and 1500 CE, it is still used today in Christian churches throughout Egypt (this particular faith is otherwise known as Coptic Christianity).

The two earlier varieties of Egyptian script, Hieroglyphics and Hieratic, were each somewhat difficult to reproduce and casually recognize. Accordingly, the third style, known as Demotic, came into use during the eighth century CE. Unlike its two predecessors, Demotic was not pictorial in nature; instead, it was a simple, abbreviated version of Hieratic script that was very easily and swiftly produced and read. It quickly became the favored script for nearly all of Egypt’s literate classes, including scribes, merchants, priests, and other individuals whose professions necessitated their use of written language.

The Books of Breathing became popular in Egypt during the Late Period (probably during the so-called Saite Revival). They are prominent examples of Late Period funerary texts and may be understood as a continuation of the tradition of the earlier Egyptian Book of the Dead and other such funerary texts.

During the Late Period, and other times in Egyptian history (such as the New Kingdom and possibly the Middle Kingdom), formal education was available for a small number of people within Egyptian society. Primarily, formal education was extended to male elites and the sons of government officials. This ensured that only a tiny fraction of the population was literate, never more than one or two percent.