Ancient Egyptian deities purposes. Egyptian texts often refer to deities' true, underlying forms as "mysterious". The Egyptians' visual representations of their gods are therefore not literal. They symbolize specific aspects of each deity's character, functioning much like the ideograms in hieroglyphic writing. For this reason, the funerary god Anubis is commonly shown in Egyptian art as a dog or jackal, a creature whose scavenging habits threaten the preservation of buried mummies, in an effort to counter this threat and employ it for protection. His black coloring alludes to the color of mummified flesh and to the fertile black soil that Egyptians saw as
Timeline of the Egyptian Crisis under the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces armed with Tasers and batons, fired in the air to stop the demonstrators from approaching the Defense Ministry. A Reuters witness said tear gas fumes were wafting outside the area as military helicopters circled overhead. The Health Ministry stated a total of 231 people were wounded in the violence. On 1 August, the first day of Ramadan, Egyptian soldiers clashed with protesters in Tahrir Square, tearing down tents the activists had used for the sit-in and where hundreds of protesters had been sleeping in the square since 8 July. Egyptian forces swinging electrified batons and shouting the battle cry "God