RELS384 Ancient Religions of the Near East

Course work 1
Cosmologies of Ancient Egypt

Heliopolis:
 The God Atum who brought himself into being, also known as Kheprer (he
who brings into being). Deity here originally Atum, but Re increasingly
important and later syncretised as Atum-Re, who then later identified
with Khepri (dung beetle) = regeneration; sun reborn every day.
 Creation myth: Atum emerges from primordial chaos of Nun (either as
child or created by own will).
 He first creates a mound on which to stand (the primeval mound, site of
Heliopolis temple; every temple has a model of this mound and also in
matasbas).
 He took form of a phoenix and alighted on the benben stone (symbol of
the primeval mound, obelisk), associated with the sun god. By doing so, he
brings light to the world: benben stone a central cult object.
 Atum created onto Heliopolis by masturbation and gave life to a pair of
twins known as, Shu and Tefnut.
 He spat out Shu (god of air) and spurted/vomited out Tefnut (god of
moisture) imbued them with his divine essence.
 I conceived in my own heart and there came into being a vast number of
forms of divine beings (the other deities), as the forms of children and the
forms of their children. I was the one who aroused desire with my fist and
copulated with my hand. I spat out from my mouth. I spat out as Shu; I
spurted it out as Tefnut. It was my father Nun who brought them up, with
my Eye following after them since the aeons when then were distant from
me.
 Atum is responsible for creation and is seen as bisexual. As the great
he/she.
 Children of Atum: Shu (air) = Tefnut (moisture) Their children: Geb
(earth) = Nut (Sky) Their children: Osiris = Isis, Nepthys = Seth
 Brother-sister marriage, family of gods
 = the Ennead (nine) of gods
 have a physical human form and sexuality.
 Atum created animals, vegetation and human kind which was created
from his tears from an Eye that was angry with him for creating the
glorious Eye (being the sun), he compensated and put the Eye on the
middle of his head.
The texts came from pyramids, found on two different tombs of rulers, Dynasty
VI. These spells are to protect the tombs ‘lest anything of harm befall him
throughout the course of eternity’.
Shu: Wears feathers to depict air/light, sometimes is shown supporting the sky
with his hands.
Tefnut: Tef (to spit, be wet), Shu’s sister/consort. Wears solar disk with serpent
around it, lioness headed and carries sceptre.
Their children: Shu supports Nut (sky), Geb = Earth, as depicted in the picture
below.

In the Heliopolitan system the sun god is the creator. He is Khepri (or Kheprer),
the rising sun who "comes into being" and "brings into being"; he is Rey, the sun
high in the sky; and he is Atum "the completing one" or the setting sun. Khepri
(Kheprer) is depicted as a scarab beetle pushing the sun disk (since this beetle
had been observed pushing its eggs over the ground in balls of cattle dung).

Atum, it is related, was the first god to emerge from Nun (the
Primordial Waters, the Watery Abyss, the Deep). Finding nowhere
to stand he created a hill amidst the waters. This was the site of the
temple of Heliopolis, though other cities (such as Hermopolis,
Thebes, and Memphis) claimed that the primeval hill (the benben)
lay beneath their particular temple.

Atum brought two more gods into being, namely Shu (god of the
atmosphere) and Tefnut (who became the consort of Shu). Atum
produced Shu and Tefnut through sexual generation, but as he had
no female counterpart he had to give them birth from his own body,
by means of spurting and spitting. From the union of Shu and
Tefnut came Geb (earth) and Nut (sky-goddess). Geb and Nut in
turn gave birth to Isis and Osiris, Nephthys and Seth (or Set).
Together with Atum-Rey-Khepri these four pairs make up a group
of nine known as the Ennead of Heliopolis (as distinct from the
Ogdoad of Hermopolis, a cluster of eight divine beings). As
offspring of Isis and Osiris came Horus, the archetype of the
pharaohs.
The myth of the separation of sky (Nut) and earth (Geb) by the air
(Shu, his name possibly representing the rushing wind) is also
found in the selected texts presented above. The Egyptian system
was unusual in making the earth masculine and the sky feminine.
Egyptian mythology has a battle between the king of the gods (here
Rey) and a primeval monster. The Egyptian monster is Apep
(Apophis is the Greek form of the name), sometimes portrayed as a
crocodile but more often as a coiling serpent. Apep lay underneath
the earth and sought to destroy Rey, the sun, as he made his
underworld journey from west to east every night. However, Rey
always defeated his foe Apep and emerged victorious on the
eastern horizon at every break of day.
This myth has been preserved in a late text (from the fourth
century B.C.E.), The Book of the Overthrowing of Apophis. It is
found in a collection of ritual writings held in the British Museum
(Bremner-Rhind Papyrus). Being the enemy of Rey, Apep is also a
foe of the Pharaoh; and indeed he represents all the hostile forces
that threaten the safety and welfare of the Egyptian people.
Therefore elaborate spells and rituals had to be directed against
Apep every day. The language of the book is that of two thousand
years before the date of the papyrus itself, and it contains a version
of the Heliopolitan story of creation which must have been at least
three thousand years old by that time.

In the selections from the Pyramid Texts there is mention of the

ben bird and the ben stone. In the temple of Heliopolis there was a
sacred stone which was associated with a wondrous bird. This ben
(or bennu) bird was eventually taken to be the phoenix. The sun
god is thus imagined as rising out of Nun in the form of a bird and
alighting on the benben, the pyramidal top of an obelisk; the
stone's gilded surfaces were positioned so as to catch and reflect
the rays of the morning sun.

Another motif which needs explanation is the Eye of Rey. On one

occasion it wept, and its tears (remyt) became humankind (remet).
Another time it wandered from its socket and returned to find that
it had been replaced by a substitute. Rey decided to place it in a
higher position, on his forehead, as the uraeus serpent, to rule the
whole world. This is why the Pharaoh also wore it on his brow, to
symbolize his universal rule and his descent from the sun god.