 Many Egyptologists and anthropologists have suggested theories about how the gods developed in these early times . Gustave Jéquier , for instance , thought the Egyptians first revered primitive fetishes , then deities in animal form , and finally deities in human form , whereas Henri Frankfort argued that the gods must have been envisioned in human form from the beginning . Some of these theories are now regarded as too simplistic , and more current ones , such as Siegfried Morenz ' hypothesis that deities emerged as humans began to distinguish themselves from and personify their environment , are difficult to prove . 
