ANCIENT EGYPTIAN COSMOGONIC MYTHS

Conf.univ.dr. Renata TATOMIR∗

Rezumat: Pentru vechii egipteni fiecare acțiune, oricât ar fi

fost de mundană, era, într-un anume sens, un act cu corespon-
dențe cosmice: de la muncile agricole - aratul, semănatul,
culesul – până la fabricatul berii, realizarea carafelor pentru
bere, și până la construirea de ambarcațiuni, purtatul
războaielor, jocuri – absolut toate erau înțelese ca având
semnificații simbolice pământene pentru activitățile divine.
În Egipt, ceea ce noi, acum, numim religie, era într-o măsură
atât de mare acceptată drept o abordare universală și
universalistă, încât nici măcar nu avea nevoie de o denumire.
Egiptenii nu percepeau nicio diferență între sacru și profan.
Vechile mituri cosmogonice egiptene aveau drept fundament
principii științifice și filosofice coerente. Cunoaștera cosmo-
gonică a Egiptului antic era exprimată sub forma narațiunii, o
modalitate superioară de a exprima deopotrivă concepte fizice
și metafizice.
Cuvinte-cheie: egiptenii antici, ben-ben, cosmogonie, Esna,
Heliopolis, Hermoupolis, Iunu, mit, Theba.

Introduction
The Greek historian Herodotus (ca. 440 BC) stated on the
ancient Egyptians „They are religious to excess, far beyond any
other race of men”1.
Of course, taking into account the ethnic origin of the
author, the reference to religion may be understood using the

∗
Universitatea Hyperion din Bucureşti.
1
Herodotus, The History of Herodotus, Translated by George
Rawlinson, Book II, 37, The Internet Classics Archive, 1994-2017, http://
classics.mit.edu/Herodotus/history.2.ii.html

7
Greek (and Indo – European) paradigm of thought, because in
ancient Egyptian language the term „religion” did not exist.
Still, they applied the noticed unexplained (and thus transferred
to the supernatural/metaphysical field, i.e., those natural
procesess and phenomena which they had not yet been able to
explain scientifically) in their daily life. The scenes of daily
activities, found inside Egyptian tombs, show a strong perpetual
correlation between the Earth and Heaven(s). The scenes
provide graphical representation of all manner of activities:
hunting, fishing, agriculture, law courts, and all kinds of arts and
crafts. Portraying these daily activities, in the presence of the
nTrw/neteru (gods) or with their assistance, signifies their
cosmic correspondence2. Hence, every action, no matter how
mundane, was in some sense a cosmic correspondence act:
plowing, sowing, reaping, brewing, the sizing of a beer mug,
building ships, waging wars, playing games – all were viewed as
earthly symbols for divine activities.
In Egypt, what we now call „religion”, was so widely
acknowledged that it did not even need a name. Moreover, for
them, there was no perceived difference between sacred and
mundane3.
Ancient Egyptian cosmogonic myths were based on
coherent philosophical and scientific principles. The
cosmological knowledge of Ancient Egypt was expressed in the
story form, a superior means for expressing both physical and
metaphysical concepts. It is well-known the fact that stories are
better than exposition for explaining the behavior of things,
because the relationships of parts to each other and to the whole

2
Gadalla, Moustafa 2001 and 2003, Egyptian Cosmology The Animated
Universe Second Edition, Revised, Tehuti Research Foundation International
Head Office: Greensboro, NC, U.S.A., p. 19.
3
Ibidem, p. 20.

8
are better maintained by the mind. Thus, the Egyptian sagas
transformed common factual nouns and adjectives into proper
but conceptual nouns. These were, in addition, personified so
that they could be woven into narratives4.
Although science has not yet been constituted as an
organized system, the ancient Egyptians had already a scientific
and organic conceptual structure of observing reality. For them
the universe was animated, on the pattern of the terrestrial
environment. In the animated world of Ancient Egypt, numbers
did not simply designated quantities but instead were considered
to be quintesential expressions/paradigms of the physical
principles/laws in nature. The Egyptians called these energetic
principles nTrw/neteru, concept which to modern scholars was
and stil is tantamount to the word „gods”. As Gadalla has
already suggested, for Egyptians, numbers were not just odd and
even – they were male and female. Every part of the universe
was a male or a female5.
Creation myths
The ancient Egyptians composed several different creation
texts/myths or cosmogonies that related how they imagined the
cosmos to have emerged from chaos in the grand, mythical
„time before time”. Synthetically, a cosmogony is a story of
how the world came to exist6.
The Heliopolis Creation Myth
The earliest of all creation accounts is associated with
the god Atum at Wn/Iunu (Heliopolis in Greek, the biblical On),
which scholars call the Heliopolitan Cosmogony. It was
developed by the priests of the Heliopolitan cult of the
4
Ibidem, p. 22.
5
Ibidem, p. 28.
6
McCoy, Daniel 2014-2017, Egyptian Mythology, http://egyptianmy
thology. org/stories/creation-myths/

9
sun-god Ra. This myth describes the genealogy of the Ennead
(in Greek) or pesedjet/psD.t (in Egyptian), the group of nine
gods according to a family tree (actually, Ennead is a general
term, expressing the main gods of a locality, not necessarily nine
in number), that is, Atum self-engendered Shu and Tefnut, who
gave birth to Geb and Nut, who gave birth to Osiris, Isis,
Set and Nephthys. Enneads existed since earliest times. On the
Palermo Stone Sahure is recorded as having made a monument
for an ennead in his 6th year: „The king of Upper and Lower
Egypt [Sahure; he made it as his monument for]: The Divine
Ennead //////”. Egypt, having been created by the gods and
protected by them, anyone rising against her was the enemy of
all the gods7.
Since the time of the gods, say they, Egypt has been the only
daughter of Re; his son is he who sits upon the throne of Shu. No
one can make a design to invade her people, for the eye of every
god is behind him who would violate her; it (the eye) captures
the rear of her foes. [//////] A great wonder has happened for
Egypt, the power of which has made the invader a living
prisoner. The divine king [exults (?)] over his enemies, in the
presence of Re. Meyey, the evil-doer, whom the god, the lord
who is in Memphis, has overthrown, he has been judged with
him in Heliopolis, and the divine ennead declared him guilty of
his crimes8.
In this version of creation, the universe is originally an
infinite, dark, watery expanse called Nun or Nuu. Within this
watery expanse, the god Atum essentially creates himself, and
looks about for a place to stand. One tradition states that Atum
stood on Mehetweret, a goddess in the form of a cow
representing a solid emerging from the waters. According to

7
Breasted, J. H. Ancient Records of Egypt, Part One, § 160.
8
Ibidem, Part Three, § 612.

10
another tradition Atum stood on the primeval hill located at
Iunu, an image deriving from the emergence of land after the
annual Nile flood recedes. After finding a place to stand, Atum
masturbates with his hand (personified as the goddess Iusaas,
“she who comes and grows”), and from his semen produces the
first pair of gods, Shu (male) and Tefnut (female). The name
Shu means void or emptiness. The meaning of Tefnut is
uncertain; one tradition may associate her with moisture. The
Heliopolis creation myth – so named because, as far as we
know, it was first recorded in the city of Heliopolis – was in
many ways the original or prototypical Egyptian cosmogony.
All later Egyptian creation narratives were based on it and/or the
vast oral traditions from which it grew.
In the beginning…
Before there was form, there was only formlessness.
Nothing existed except the chaos of Nun, the endless, pitch-
black waters.
In fact, one should say that every Egyptian creation text
begins with the same basic belief that before the beginning of
things, there was a liquidy primeval abyss – everywhere,
endless, and without boundaries or directions. Egyptians called
this cosmic ocean/ watery chaos, Nu/Ny/Nun – the unpolarized
state of matter. Scientists agree with the Ancient Egyptian
description of the origin of the universe as being an abyss.
Scientists refer to this abyss as neutron soup, where there are
neither electrons nor protons, and only neutrons forming one
huge extremely dense nucleus. Such chaos, in the pre-creation
state, was caused by the compression of matter, i.e. atoms did
not exist in their normal states, but were squeezed so closely
together, that many atomic nuclei were crowded into a space
previously occupied by a single normal atom. Under such
conditions, the electrons of these atoms were squeezed out of

11
their orbits and move about freely (a degenerate state). Nu/Ny/
Nun may be called the „Subjective Being”, the symbol of the
unformed, undefined, undifferentiated energy/matter, inert or
inactive, the uncreated state before the creation; it cannot be the
cause of its transformation9.
Then, a small, pyramid-shaped hillock of silt, the
benben or tatenen, peeked out of this unfathomable abyss. At
the same time, from within Nun arose the self-generated sun
god Atum, whose name meant both „Everything” and „Nothing”
– or, in the words of one Egyptologist, “the All in its condition
of not-yet”10.
Atum was a hemaphroditic deity who combined all
masculinity and all femininity within his own being. Like the
sun coming up over the horizon, he stood atop the benben and
released the seed of life from within himself – by spitting,
sneezing, or masturbating, with his hand corresponding to a
female procreative power.
From this effort came his two children, the air god Shu and
the obscure goddess Tefnut. Shu and Tefnut then gave birth to
two children of their own: the earth god Geb and the sky
goddess Nut. Geb and Nut shared a passionate love for each
other, and had four children: Osiris, the ruler of the dead; Isis,
the goddess of sovereignty; Seth, the usurper of the throne and
later guardian of the sun god; and Nephthys, the consort of Seth
and helper to Isis.
Shu disapproved of the relationship between Geb and Nut.
Like an overprotective father, he set out to separate them, which
he accomplished by lifting Nut far above Geb and holding her
aloft so that Geb couldn’t reach her. In this way the earth and the

9
Gadalla 2001, 35.
10
Assmann, Jan 2001, The Search for God in Ancient Egypt, Trans.
David Lorton, Cornell University Press, Ch. 5. McCoy, ibidem.

12
sky were severed from each other, and the air became located
between them. The lovesick Geb then wept so much that his
tears formed the oceans11.
These nine deities have often been referred to as the
Ennead („group of nine”). The first five – Atum, Shu, Tefnut,
Geb, and Nut – were the divine animating forces of the most
vital elements of the „natural” order, while the remaining four –
Osiris, Isis, Seth, and Nephthys – corresponded to the political
order. For the ancient Egyptians, then, the „natural” and political
orders came into being at the same time, and were barely
distinguishable facets of the same overarching cosmic order.
This procreative process continued until everything in the
world, and all of the gods and goddesses who corresponded to
them, had come into being.
Egyptians considered that the creation of the universe was
not a physical event (as our modern Big Bang model) that just
happened. It was an orderly event that was pre-planned and
executed according to an orderly Law of the neteru that governs
both the physical and metaphysical/invisible/hidden worlds. So,
we read in the Book of Knowing the Creations of Ra and
Overcoming Apep (Apophis), known as the Bremner-Rhind
Papyrus:
„I had not yet found a place upon which I could stand. I
conceived the Divine Plan of Law or Order (Maa) to make all
forms. I was alone, I had not yet emitted Shu, nor had I yet
emitted Tefnut, nor existed any other who could act together
with me. Ma-at is the netert (goddess) that personifies the

11
Holland, Glenn S. 2009, Gods in the Desert: Religions of the Ancient
Near East, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Ch. 2; Wilson, John A. 1946,
Egypt. In: The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man: An Essay on Speculative
Thought in the Ancient Near East, The University of Chicago, Ch. 2.

13
principle of cosmic order. The concept by which not only men,
but also the neteru (gods) themselves were governed and
without which the neteru (gods) are functionless”12.
The Heliopolis creation narrative wasn’t a one-off event.
The Egyptians perceived numerous happenings in their lives to
be recapitulations of, and manifestations of, this pattern-defining
story. When the Nun-like floodwaters of the Nile began to
recede, the first land to appear was a few hillocks of silt like
the benben. This newly-emerged land was extremely fertile – the
perfect environment for new life to flourish13. Whenever the
sun, the original, self-begotten creative force, rose in the
morning, he was reborn, and the land was revitalized along with
him14. And this creation narrative was also felt to recur in some
form whenever the dead were reborn into eternal life15.
Since the other ancient Egyptian creation myths were
embellishments upon, or slight revisions of, the Heliopolis
creation myth, the same can surely be said of them as well.
The Hermopolis Creation Myth
The Hermopolis creation narrative (also named after its city
of origin) accepted the broad outlines of the Heliopolis creation
narrative, but added some new elements to the mix.
An additional group of deities was introduced as an
intermediary between primeval chaos and the proper cosmic
forces of the Ennead. These new deities were the Ogdoad
(„group of eight”) or Khmwnw, or „Heh” gods. The Ogdoad
12
Gadalla, p. 36.
13
Ibidem.
14
Tobin, Vincent Arieh 2002, „Creation Myths”. In The Ancient Gods
Speak: A Guide to Egyptian Religion, Eds. Donald B. Redford, Erik
Hornung, Oxford University Press.
15
Hornung, Erik. 1982, Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One
and the Many, Trans. John Baines. Cornell University Press, Ch. 6.

14
was comprised of four male-female pairs that corresponded to
particular attributes of chaos. But by having names and roles,
the deities of the Ogdoad possessed a modicum of form that
distinguished them from true chaos, paving the way for the gods
of the cosmos to come into being16.
The absence of matter before creation coud be expressed as
four male and female pairs (the female with the regular ending –
et in each case), perhaps male and female to cover both halves
of human experience, and four to cover the four cardinal points:
Nun and Nunet – from the word nnw 'watery expanse', the lack
of solidity; Heh and Hehet – from the word HH 'unending time',
infinite – the lack of time; Kek and Keket – from the word kkw
'darkness', the lack of light; Tenem and Tenemet – from the
word tnm 'to wander', lack of direction. Those are the four pairs
in the earliest surviving reference to the Eight existing before
creation (a funeral ritual excerpt, Coffin Text 76); in later
versions Tenem and Tenemet are often replaced by Amun and
Amunet, from the word imn 'hidden', encapsulating the lack of
sight.
In Upper Egypt province 15, Thoth, god of knowledge and
writing, was the main deity of the city Khemenu (a name
meaning 'Eight') – as he was equated by the ancient Greeks with
their god Hermes, the city was called Hermopolis 'city of
Hermes' in Greek records. Since the city is called 'Eight', it has
been seen as the place where this part of the Ancient Egyptian
creation myths was developed; in Egyptological books, the
references to the Eight forces existing before creation are often
called the Hermopolitan Theology. There are two problems with
the use of this term: (1) it is not known where or when the
references to the Eight were developed; (2) the references to the
16
Tobin 2002, Ibidem.

15
Eight are not one creation myth to be set against others, but an
early stage in the story of creation. The story continues with the
emergence of Ra and the first generations down to Osiris and
Horus.
The Ogdoad consisted of Nun and Naunet, the primordial
waters; Huh and Hauhet, formlessness; Kuk and Kauket,
darkness; and Amun and Amaunet, hiddenness17. The males –
Nun, Huh, Kuk, and Amun – were depicted with the heads of
frogs, and the females – Naunet, Hauhet, Kauket, and Amaunet
– were depicted with the heads of snakes18.
Different versions of the Hermopolis creation myth assigned
different positions to the main creator god – Atum, Amun, Ra,
or Hermopolis’s patron god, Thoth – within this sequence of
events. In some texts, the creator god emerged from a lotus
blossom and proceeded to create the Ogdoad, and then the
Ennead. In other cases, the Ogdoad themselves produced an egg
from which the creator god hatched, which made him a part of
the process of creation rather than its instigator19.
Egyptians reasoned that one could explain creation not from
within creation, but only from outside it. The Creator was not
one and the same with the created universe. In the Egyptian
papyrus known as the Leiden Papyrus, the neter (god), Amen/
Amon/Amun (which means hidden), represents the hidden or
occult force20 (or, in terms of modern physics, rather a kind of
wave field) underlying creation. He was said to be the Breath of
Life. As a particular type of manifested creation, he was the
reason why the universe could be defined.

17
Wilson 1946, Ibidem, pp. 31-61.
18
Tobin, Ibidem, McCoy 2014-2017.
19
Ibidem, Holland 2009.
20
Gadalla 2001, Ibidem, p. 27.

16
 Creation
Creation is the sorting out (giving definition to / bringing
order to) all the chaos (the undifferentiated but interconvertible
triadic complex energy – matter – consciousness) of the
primeval state. All of the Ancient Egyptian accounts of creation
exhibited this with welldefined, clearly demarcated stages. The
first stage was the self-creation of the Supreme Being as creator
and Being, i.e. the passage from unmanifested state of the
amorphic (liquid) unawareness of oneself of the chaos of
Nu/Ny/ Nun to thestate of awareness called Atum.
In simple human terms, this is equivalent to the moment that
one passes from sleeping (unconscious state, subjective being)
to being aware of oneself (gaining consciousness, objective
being). It is like standing on solid ground – and that is the visual
expression of the benben/pyramid which peeked out of this
unfathomable abyss. This stage of creation was represented by
the Egyptian sages as Atum rising out of Nu/Ny/Nun.
In the Unas (so-called Pyramid) Texts, there is the following
invocation:
Salutation to thee, Atum, Salutation to thee, he who comes
into being by himself! Thou art high in this thy name High
Mound, Thou comest into being in this thy name Khepri
(Becoming One) [§1587]21.
After taking part in the creation of the cosmos, the deities of
the Ogdoad died and went down to the underworld, that last
refuge of chaos within the created order. But even from the
underworld, they continued to play a role in sustaining the
cosmos. From them came the Nile floods that enabled

21
Gadalla, ibidem.

17
agriculture to flourish along that great river, and from them the
sun rose in the morning, making any and all life possible22.
The Hermopolitan Ogdoad
In ancient Egyptian pre-scientific mind, the absence of
matter before creation was conceived as four male and female
pairs (the female with the regular ending-et in each case),
perhaps male and female to cover both halves of human
experience, and four to cover the four cardinal points:
− Nun and Nunet – from the word nnw 'watery expanse',
the lack of solidity
− Heh and Hehet – from the word HH 'unending time',
infinite – the lack of time
− Kek and Keket – from the word kkw 'darkness', the lack
of light
− Tenem and Tenemet – from the word tnm 'to wander',
lack of direction.
Those are the four pairs in the earliest surviving reference to
the Eight existing before creation (a funeral ritual excerpt,
Coffin Text 76); in later versions Tenem and Tenemet are often
replaced by Amun and Amunet, from the word imn 'hidden',
encapsulating the lack of sight. A group of eight Gods – four
Gods and four Goddesses – who feature in a cosmogony
originating from the city of Hmwnw (Khemennu), lit. ‘Eight
City’, known to the Greeks as Hermopolis. They represent a
stage of the cosmos prior to the appearance of the land and the
light, and in addition to being referred to as ‘the Eight’, are also
known as the Hehu, or ‘infinites’, often translated ‘Chaos-
Gods’. They are: Nun and Naunet, ‘the Abyss’; Heh and Hauhet,
‘Infinity/Formlessness’; Kek and Kauket,‘Darkness’; Amun and

22
Tobin, ibidem.

18
Amaunet, ‘Hiddenness’. Occasionally Tenem and Tenemuit are
substituted for Amun and Amaunet, the latter being increasingly
distinguished from the rest of the Ogdoad as Amun rose to
prominence as a God of national significance. ‘Tenem’, coming
from a root meaning to go astray or become lost, is sometimes
translated ‘Gloom’, but is perhaps better understood, in accord
with the generally privative character of the members of the
Ogdoad, as ‘the Nowhere’23.
Other substitutions in the membership of the Hehu for
Amun and Amaunet are Gereh and Gerhet, ‘Night/Cessation’,
and Niau and Niaut, ‘Emptiness’. The four Gods in the Ogdoad
are represented with frogs’ heads, the four Goddesses with
snakes’ heads24.
From that one must understand that the Egyptians conceived
the universe as a whole, constisted of dual polarized pairs held
together by a law that is based on the balanced dual nature of all
things (wholes, units). Sample Egyptian applications of the
universal dual nature include:
• The pre-creation state consisted of four pairs of primeval
dual-gendered twins.
• The universe was seen in terms of a dualism between
Ma-at – Truth and Order – and disorder; the dual principle in the
creation state was expressed in the pair of Shu and Tefnut. The
pair of husband and wife is the characteristic Egyptian way of
expressing duality and polarity. This dual nature was manifested
in Ancient Egyptian texts and traditions, since its recovered

23
Allen, James P. 1988, Genesis in Egypt: The Philosophy of Ancient
Egyptian Creation Accounts, New Haven, Conn., Yale Egyptological
Seminar, p. 20.
24
McCoy 2014-2017, ibidem.

19
archeological findings. The most ancient texts of the Old
Kingdom, namely the Pyramid Texts §1652, express the dual
nature:
„…and though didst spit out as Shu, and didst spit out as
Tefnut”25.
• Neheb Kau – meaning the provider of forms/attributes –
was the name given to the serpent representing the primordial
serpent in Ancient Egypt. Neheb Kau is depicted as a two-
headed serpent, indicative of the dual spiral nature of the
universe.
• The Egyptian Pharaoh was always referred to as the Lord
of the Two Lands. Western academia cavalierly stated that the
Two Lands are Upper and Lower Egypt. There is not a single
Ancient Egyptian reference to confirm their notion, or even to
define such a frontier between Upper and Lower Egypt.
Throughout Ancient Egyptian temples, you will find numerous
symbolic representations relating to the ceremony of Uniting the
Two Lands, where two neteru are shown tying the papyrus and
lotus plants. Neither plant is native to any specific area in Egypt.
The most common representation shows the twin neteru, Hapi
(a mirror-image of each other), each as unisex with one breast26.
• The perpetual cycle of existence – the cycle of life and
death – is symbolized by Ra (Re) and Ausar (Osiris). Ra is the
living neter who descends into death to become Ausar – the
neter of the dead. Ausar ascends and comes to life again as Ra.
The creation is continuous: it is a flow of life progressing
towards death. But out of death, a new Ra is to be born,
sprouting new life. Ra is the cosmic principle of energy that
moves toward death, and Ausar represents the process of rebirth.

25
Gadalla, p. 40.
26
Gadalla, p. 40 seq.

20
Thus, the terms of life and death become interchangeable: life
means slow dying, death means resurrection to new life. The
dead person in death is identified with Ausar, but he will come
to life again, and be identified with Ra. The perpetual cycle of
Ausar and Ra dominates the Ancient Egyptian texts, such as:
• In The Book of the Coming Forth By Light, both Ausar
and Ra live, die, and are born again. In the Netherworld, the
souls of Ausar and Ra meet [see illustration from the Papyrus of
Ani, on the next page], and are united to form an entity,
described so eloquently: I am His Two Souls in his Twins.
• One of the Egyptian King’s title was Lord of the Diadem
of the Vulture and of the Serpent. The diadem is the earthly
symbol of the divine man, the King. The diadem consists of the
serpent (symbol of the divine intellectual function), and the
vulture (symbol of the reconciliation function). The serpent
represents intellect, the faculty by which man can break down
the whole into its constituent parts, just like a serpent that
swallows its prey in whole, and then digests it by breaking it
down into digestible parts. The divine man must be able both to
distinguish and to reconcile. Since these dual powers reside in
man’s brain, the form of the serpent’s body (in the diadem)
follows the actual physiological sutures of the brain, in which
these particularly human faculties are seated. This dual function
of the brain is vivid in its two sides27.
The original cosmogony involving the Ogdoad is unclear in
its details, but as Siegfried Morenz has remarked, it appears to
represent a system „concerned with cosmic matter, not with
organic life”, and he notes that „the stress laid on the physical
qualities of the primeval substance” in the Hermopolitan

27
Ibidem, pp. 40-45.

21
cosmogony „testifies to the existence of a scientific spirit”28.
Whether the qualities which the Hermopolitan cosmogony
attributes to the primeval substance are ‘physical’ may be
questioned; but clearly this cosmogony emphasized the nature of
substance rather than other possible creative principles. The
principal stages in the cosmogony involving the Ogdoad are
typical of all Egyptian cosmogonies: the appearance of solidity
amidst the watery abyss, in the form of a primeval mound of
earth, followed by the coming forth of light. In the purest form
of the Hermopolitan cosmogony, which may have existed at an
early period or only developed later with the progress of
speculative thought, the Gods and Goddesses of the Ogdoad are
themselves the agents of cosmogenesis: „They step upon the
primeval mound and create light,” as „fathers and mothers who
made the light”, indeed, „as the radiance of their hearts”29; they
are the „fathers and mothers who came into being in the
beginning, who gave birth to the sun, who created Atum”30.
Appropriations of the Hermopolitan cosmogony, however,
generally treat the members of the Ogdoad as more akin to the
material of cosmogenesis than its agents, in accord with their
manifest attributes of indefiniteness and inertness. A catalyst of
some kind is thus posited for whatever coagulation or reaction
among the Ogdoad leads to the next stage in the creation,
culminating in the advent of light at a mythical place known as
the Isle of Flames, Iu-Neserser. Among the figures conceived as
catalysts or first movers in relation to the Ogdoad are the

28
Morenz, Siegfried 1973, Egyptian Religion, Tr. by Ann E. Keep, Ithaca,
NY, Cornell University Press, p. 175; Edward P. Butler, „Hermopolitan
Ogdoad”, Henadology. Philosophy and Theology, https://henadology.
wordpress.com/theology/netjeru/hermopolitan-ogdoad/
29
Sethe, K. 1929, Amun und die acht Urgötter von Hermopolis, Berlin,
W. de Gruyter, § 96, p. 100.
30
Ibidem.

22
serpents Kematef (‘he who has completed his time’) and Irta
(‘earth-maker’), who are generally taken as forms of Amun, as
well as a number of major deities, especially Amun
(transcending his own membership in the Ogdoad),
Ptah, Tatenen, Atum, and Re.
The role of the Ogdoad as transitional creators or ‘proto-
demiurges’ is often expressed in the symbolism of a primordial
egg or lotus which is their proximate creation, an intermediate
creation or matrix of transformation, a vessel in which the
subsequent stages of cosmogenesis can, as it were, incubate. The
lotus or egg may be created by the Ogdoad, or merely fertilized
by them, or it may simply embody the moment at which they
come to be in a determinate place, this determinacy being in
itself a stage in the cosmogenesis. A version of the cosmogony
from Karnak emphasizing Amun, for instance, states that „The
land was yet in the depths of the waves. Amun gained a foothold
upon it and it dissipated all the torpor that possessed him, when
he installed himself upon its surface”31. The removal of Amun’s
‘torpor’ or inertness is synonymous with his activation, and the
unleashing of the creative potencies which were, so to speak,
adrift in the abyss. The difference between the lotus and the egg
as symbols of this primordial creative matrix seems to be that
the egg represents a substantial precondition for the existence of
what comes from it in a way which renders the egg an
ambivalent symbol; hence in CT spell 7632, Shu affirms his own
self-sufficiency by stating „I was not built up in the womb, I was
not knit together in the egg”. By contrast, the pharaoh is
frequently depicted offering to the Gods images of the lotus
31
Sauneron, Serge and Jean Yoyotte, 1959 “La Naissance du Monde
selon l’Égypte Ancienne”, pp. 17-91, La Naissance du Monde, Paris, Éditions
du Seuil, p. 71.
32
Faulkner, R. O. 1973-1978, The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts, 3 vols.
Warminster, Aris & Phillips Ltd. [CT].

23
wrought of precious metals and gems, and many of the surviving
references to the Ogdoad occur specifically in the context of
such scenes. The Ogdoad do not necessarily represent in
themselves a problematic predetermination of divine autonomy
due to their negative character; at any rate, it is a commonplace
of Egyptian theology that deities recapitulate the conditions of
their own emergence. The lotus in some sense expresses this
very capacity, as in one text depicting the offering of the lotus,
which is said to have „sprung forth from the body” of the
Ogdoad and to be „the sum of the ancestors”33.
Since the cosmogony involving the Ogdoad originated in
Hermopolis, a prominent role was probably accorded to
Thoth in early versions of the cosmogony. In Upper Egypt
province 15, Thoth, god of knowledge and writing, was the main
deity of the city Khmwnw – as he was equated by the ancient
Greeks with their god Hermes, the city was called Hermopolis
'city of Hermes' in Greek records. Since the city is called 'Eight',
it has been seen as the place where this part of the Ancient
Egyptian creation myths was developed. There are two problems
with the use of this term: (1) it is not known where or when the
references to the Eight were developed; (2) the references to the
Eight are not one creation myth to be set against others, but an
early stage in the story of creation. A text from Edfu (I, 289)
seems to preserve elements of such a version. It states that the
Ogdoad, „the august ones who came into being before the Gods
… were engendered in the Nun, and born in the flood”34. A
second stage of the creation involves the emergence of the
radiant lotus and the activity of Shu, from whose thought Thoth
is begotten in the form of an ibis. It is said of Thoth that „his

33
Sauneron and Yoyotte, ibidem, p. 59.
34
Borghouts, J. F. 1978, Ancient Egyptian Magical Texts, Leiden,
E. J. Brill.

24
work is to create life”, and the notion of a transition to a new
level of cosmic organization perhaps underlies what follows, in
which it is said that „the God completed his first creative plan,
and did not let it be known. He buried the Ancestors [the
Ogdoad] after the completion of their span of life. He ferried
over with them to the western district of Djême, the netherworld
of Kematef. And Shu crosses over to them bearing offerings
every day”. Inasmuch as the members of the Ogdoad preexist
the first real event in the cosmos, namely the advent of light,
they could be regarded from a viewpoint within the constituted
cosmos as being, in a peculiar sense, deceased, and they did
indeed possess a necropolis cult at Djême (Medinet Habu) along
with Kematef. The notion that the members of the Ogdoad were
in some sense ‘deceased’ expresses their incorporation into the
framework of the evolved cosmos as passive or inert elements:
thus another text from Edfu (II, 51) states of the Ogdoad that “[t]
heir time on earth was completed [kem, as in ‘Kematef’], and
their Ba [soul or manifestation] flew heavenwards … His
majesty [Re] gave command that their bodies should be interred
in the place where they were. „Shu, however, „crosses over” to
the Ogdoad, maintaining a link to the primordial stages of the
formation of the cosmos35.
PT utterance 301 refers to two of the pairs, Nun and Naunet
and Amun and Amaunet, as “protectors of the Gods, who
protect the Gods with their shadow,” i.e. rendering the Gods
ineffable through their formlessness36. In CT spells 76 and 78-80
the Ogdoad is said to have been created by Shu. This could be
justified, among other ways, with recourse to the sense of Shu’s
name, ‘Void’. In these spells the Gods of the Ogdoad seem to

35
Ibidem.
36
Faulkner, R. O. 1969, The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts, Oxford,
Oxford University Press. [PT].

25
have been produced from the state of formlessness in which
Atum, Shu and Tefnut existed at the beginning of the cosmos by
giving names, and thus order, to the attributes of this state. The
first stage in cosmogenesis, therefore, according to this version,
is the acquisition of personality and intention by the primeval
matter. The Ogdoad is sometimes seen playing an active role in
cosmic maintenance, helping Shu to support the heavens,
visualized as a great cow each of whose legs – the ‘pillars of
heaven’ or cardinal points – has two of the Hehu supporting it.
Sometimes, inasmuch as they represent a phase of the cosmos
prior to the existence of form, they embody hostile forces of
dissolution. Thus in the Book of Gates, some would interpret as
the Ogdoad the „children of weakness” who are the allies
of Apophis, in accord with an unambiguous reference to the
„Hermopolitans” under this name in a commentary on CT spell
335/BD spell 1737. In CT spells 493 and 494, spells to permit a
person’s soul to go out from or come into the netherworld as
they wish, reference is made to „trappers who take away souls
and constrain shades, who [i.e., the trapped souls] are put in the
slaughterhouse of the Hehu”. In CT 494, it is said that Sia, the
God personifying perception, „goes up into the shrine, for he has
heard the sound of my soul saving itself from the trappers”,
indicating that the achievement of perception is conterminous
with avoiding the slaughterhouse of the ‘infinites’, that is, the
abyss of formlessness. In CT spell 107, „Recitation for going out
into the day”, the Hehu and Nun (God of the precosmic abyss)
are together asked to make for the operator a way to „go forth
and see men, and that the plebs may worship me”. The Hehu
and Nun are invoked here specifically as powers of
formlessness, as can be seen from the spell’s opening formula,

37
Allen, Ibidem, p. 70, n. 118.

26
which identifies the operator with natural symbols of vigor but
also turmoil: „The crocodile and the pig have slept, the pig has
passed by. Do they perish? Then I perish”. The operator’s
rhetorical question – these forces will not perish, for one thing
because they disrupt other things and cause them to perish –
signals his/her appropriation of the durability of chaotic forces
ordinarily thought of as hostile, an example of the tactical
inversions typical of Egyptian magical practice38. Sometimes the
Ogdoad are conceived as having presided over the cosmos
during a ‘Golden Age’ in which order (Ma’At) „came from the
heavens and was united with those who were on the earth” and
there was no evil, scarcity, or suffering39. This could, however,
express an anticosmic sentiment sometimes found in Egyptian
thought, as for instance in BD spell 175, in which Atum
complains to Thoth of the „turmoil” and „carnage” committed
by ‘the children of Nut’ – that is, Gods such as Osiris, Isis
and Seth who are associated with the most complex aspects of
the cosmos, a complexity which, because it entails a mixture
of good and evil, can appear from a certain perspective simply
as evil.
A spell (no. 53 in Borghouts) to treat two unidentified
maladies (for one of which epilepsy has been suggested as an
identification, see Borghouts40) calls upon the members of the
Ogdoad as „you eight Gods there who came forth from Nun and
who have no clothes, who have no hair – as for their true name,
it is a fact that it is not known”, followed by certain
untranslatable hieroglyphs perhaps expressing the inscrutable
name. The Ogdoad’s lack of clothes and hair here symbolize
their formlessness. Another spell (no. 126 in Borghouts) called a

38
Faulkner, Ibidem.
39
Sauneron and Yoyotte 1959, p. 54.
40
Borghouts, Ibidem, p. 104, n. 127.

27
„water song” invokes the Ogdoad to repel hazards (e.g.,
crocodiles) from a boat. A clay egg is fashioned, to be thrown
upon the water from the boat’s prow if anything surfaces, the
egg having been charged as „the egg-shells of the Ogdoad
Gods”. The mechanism in the spell is thus a correspondence
between the watery abyss of Nun and the earthly waters; since
that which emerged from the mysterious waters of Nun was
beneficent, the egg ensures that what emerges from the river will
be harmless. Another spell against „lions on the desert-plateau,
crocodiles in the river and all snakes that bite in their holes” (no.
125 in Borghouts) is to be recited „over an image of Amun with
four faces on one neck, drawn on the ground, a crocodile below
its feet and the Ogdoad at his right and his left side, adoring
him”.
The story continues with the emergence of Ra and the first
generations down to Osiris and Horus.The principal creator god
in Ancient Egyptian religion is the sun-god; in the Egyptian
language, the word for sun is Ra, and this was one name for the
sun-god, but he was also regularly called Atum, from the word
tm 'complete'. The name Atum seems intended to evoke all
matter as concentrated in the creator, before creation emerged.
Creation is a process of unfurling, with the undivided All
gradually fissioning into separable entities.
Atum already exists at least in potential within the primeval
nothingness before creation. In some religious compositions, it
is stated that his first offshoots were also already present. These
are in the terms of human society his 'son' and 'daughter'; the
male has the name Shu, from Sw 'to be dry', and the female is
called Tefnet, from a rare word tfn 'to corrode' (so, in opposition
to Sw, to be moist). The Coffin Texts also equate Shu with the
grammatically masculine Egyptian word for life, Ankh, and
Tefnet with the grammatically feminine Egyptian word for What
is Right, Maat. In other writings, the crucial element that enables

28
the creator to emerge is the female contribution – in different
guises this can be not only Tefnet or Maat, but Hathor or the
deified principle Iusaas (a name meaning 'she grows as she
arrives').
The emergence of the creator is given various verbal and
visual expression, predominantly associated with the new land
emerging from the annual flood:
– a heron alights on the first dry ground – this heron may be
called bnw, the Egyptian equivalent and perhaps origin of the
classical Greek phoenix
– a lotus flower emerges out of the water – in the New
Kingdom (about 1550-1069 BC) and later, this motif is assigned
to Nefertem, god of scented oils, lotus at the nose of Ra.
– the mound itself offers the original sacred ground –
temples are said to be sited on the primeval mound of the first
time of creation41.
The Coffin Text Creation Myth
The „Coffin Texts” – funerary writings from the late third
millennium BC – contain one particular piece that adds an
additional layer of meaning to ancient Egyptian creation
narratives. Most such stories, as we’ve seen, tended to focus on
the acts and the processes of creation, and they contained few
explicit references to the intentions of the creator god. The so-
called „Spell 1130” from the Coffin Texts is concerned with
precisely this otherwise often overlooked aspect of creation42.
„Spell 1130” takes the form of a speech delivered by the
creator god. We don’t know which particular creator god was

41
Gods and goddesses in Ancient Egypt: creation, University College
London, 2002, http://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt/ religion/
deitiescreation.html
42
Faulkner 1973-1978.

29
envisioned as having orated its words, and the question is really
beside the point.
The key passage reads:
I relate to you the four good deeds which my own heart did
for me … in order to silence evil. I did four good deeds within
the portal of the horizon.
I made the four winds that every man might breathe thereof
like his fellow in his time. That is the first of the deeds.
I made the great floodwaters that the poor man might have
rights in them like the great man. That is the second of the
deeds.
I made every man like his fellow. I did not command that
they might do evil, but it was their hearts that violated what I
had said. That is the third of the deeds.
I made that their hearts should cease from forgetting the
west, in order that divine offerings might be made to the gods of
the provinces. That is the fourth of the deeds43.
Humankind was created to be just, pious, and egalitarian,
and the world was created in such a way that would have
enabled them to live thusly, but they turned away from those
ideals of their own volition. (See the story of The Fall of
Humankind.) This was in line with the communitarian,
traditionalist bent of ancient Egyptian ethics as a whole.
(See Maat – Morality and Cosmic Order). One’s lot in the
afterlife was thought to be particularly closely connected to
one’s morality and piety in this life. This is why the creator god
here proclaims that „their hearts should cease from forgetting
the west”; people should remember that they are mortal, and
should act accordingly44.

43
Wilson 1946, pp. 31-61, Ch. 4.
44
Assmann 2001, Ch. 8.

30
 The Memphis Creation Myth (a.k.a. the „Memphite
Theology”)
The Memphis creation myth – or, as scholars typically call
it, the „Memphite Theology” – was another variation on the
Heliopolis creation myth, the classic ancient Egyptian
cosmogony. The text was composed in about 700 BC, making it
by far the latest of these cosmogonies45. It was written in
Memphis, and had the clear ambition of exalting Ptah, the
patron god of that city, as the primary creative force and the
greatest of the gods46.
But it attempted to do this not by overturning the previous
religious modes and their high gods, but rather by subsuming
those more venerable traditions into its own, allegedly fuller
framework.
According to this cosmogony, Ptah came into being before
the Ennead. He was identified with the first hillock of dry land
to emerge from the abysmal waters, upon which Atum had
stood. This was interpreted to mean that the tatenen or benben,
and therefore Ptah, played a foundational role in establishing
Atum’s own being.
Ptah then created Atum and the other deities of the Ennead.
He accomplished this by first conceiving them in his
imagination with the aid of Sia, „divine knowledge”, and then
articulating these images verbally through Hu, „divine
utterance”. When Ptah had spoken the names of the gods, the
rest of the totality of their being came into existence at once by
means of Heka, „divine energy”47.

45
Wilson, Ibidem, Ch. 2.
46
Assmann, Jan 2004, The Mind of Egypt: History and Meaning in the
Time of the Pharaohs, Trans. Andrew Jenkins, Harvard University Press, Ch. 23.
47
Holland 2009, Ch. 2.

31
 After this, creation proceeded in more or less the same way
as it did in the Heliopolis version, except that it was Ptah alone
who established Egypt’s cities and the traditional forms of
worship48.
In addition to Ptah being the principal creator god, the
Memphis cosmogony was distinguished from that of Heliopolis
by the means the creator god used to set the creation of the
cosmos in motion. Atum had created with his bodily fluids, but
Ptah had done so with the power of the spoken word.
This was in keeping with the ancient Egyptian view of the
power of language: the word for something, and the hieroglyph
that corresponded to it, were thought to express the very essence
of the thing. They were not mere after-the-fact signifiers; in an
important sense, the signifier was even more real than that
which it signified. The signified was a mere after-the-fact
manifestation of the signifier (much as in Plato’s theory of the
Forms, for those of you who are familiar with Plato). Thus, Ptah
could create something simply by speaking its name49.
The Creation of Humankind
You may have noticed that the above summaries haven’t
even mentioned an episode in which our own species was
created. And there’s a reason for that.
In the creation narratives most of us are used to hearing –
especially the Judeo-Christian and pseudo-Darwinian ones – the
arrival of humankind is the culmination of the entire process,
and is accompanied by great fanfare. This is a corollary of the
view that humans are a species decisively set apart from all of
the others by some special attribute or another.
The ancient Egyptians didn’t see it that way. To them,
humankind was seamlessly integrated into the wider cosmic
48
Tobin 2002.
49
Assmann 2003, Ch. 23.

32
order rather than being set apart. So when the rest of the cosmic
order came into being, humankind would have naturally come
into being along with it. Even going out of one’s way to mention
the creation of humankind would have been superfluous50.
Thus, it should be unsurprising that when ancient Egyptian
cosmogonies mentioned the creation of humankind at all, it was
only in passing – no more than an afterthought, really.
For example, one ancient Egyptian text contained a brief
allusion to humankind being fashioned on the wheel of the
potter god Khnum. In the Heliopolis creation myth, Shu and
Tefnut became momentarily lost in the primeval abyss, and
when Atum found them, he shed a tear of joy at their recovery.
From this tear came humankind.
In the words of Egyptologist Vincent Arieh Tobin,
The Heliopolitan creation myth thus assigns to humanity a
certain divine origin, but at the same time the creation of
humanity does not appear as a purposeful act. Human beings
were little more than the accidental product of a specific
emotion of the creator deity, and hence their place within the
created order was certainly not intended to be the ‘crown of
creation’ one sees in, for example, the Old Testament account of
creation51.
The Egyptian triad
The physical and metaphysical role of Three was recognized
in Ancient Egypt; for each unity is a triple power and a double
nature. This was eloquently illustrated in the Ancient Egyptian
texts and traditions, whereby the self-created neter (god), Atum,
spat out Shu and Tefnut, then placed his arms around them, and
his ka entered into them, to become One again. It is the Three
that are Two that are One. This action generated the First
50
Wilson, Ibidem, pp. 31-61, Ch. 2.
51
Tobin 2002.

33
Trinity, the first building block. This is made clear in the
Ancient Egyptian papyrus known as the Bremner-Rhind
Papyrus, After having become one neter (god), there were [now]
three neteru (gods) in me [i.e. Atum, Shu, and Tefnut]. In the
Ancient Egyptian texts, Shu and Tefnut are described as the
ancestors of all the neteru (gods/goddesses) who begat all beings
in the universe52.
Esna Cosmogony
The final cosmogony to be discussed merits mention
because, unlike the other creation accounts examined so far, the
creator in the Esna Cosmogony is not a god, but the goddess
Neith. This cosmogony is found on the walls of the Temple of
Khnum at Esna and dates to the period of the Roman emperor
Trajan (98-117 C.E.). This creation story borrows significantly
from earlier accounts. Neith is the first being to emerge from
Nun. She changes herself into a cow, and then a lates -fish, also
known as Lake Victoria perch. These images derive from the
cult of Neith. She was worshipped in the form of a cow and
lates-fish at Esna. Neith creates a place for herself to stand, and
then turns herself back into a cow. She pronounces thirty names,
which become thirty gods to help her in the process of creation.
These gods are said to be hemen („ignorant”), and they then
transform themselves into the hemen („Hermopolitan”) Ogdoad.
The story thus rests on a word play between two words that
sounded similar but had different meanings. Neith then creates
the sun-god through producing an excrescence from her body
and placing it in an egg, which hatches as Re, the sun, who
promptly takes the name of Amun. Amun then continues the act
of creation through emanations from his body, creating

52
Gadalla 2001, p. 46.

34
the netjeru („gods”) from his saliva, and remetj („mankind”)
from his remt (“tears”).
This explanation demonstrates the Egyptian belief that puns
reveal some basic, underlying pre-scientific truths.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources
[1] Faulkner, R. O., 1969, The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts, Oxford,
Oxford University Press. [PT].
[2] Faulkner, R. O., 1973-1978, The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts, 3 vols.
Warminster, Aris & Phillips Ltd. [CT].
[3] Herodotus, The History of Herodotus, Translated by George
Rawlinson, Book II, 37, The Internet Classics Archive, 1994-2017,
http:// classics. mit.edu/Herodotus/history.2.ii.html
Secondary Sources
[4] Allen, James P., 1988, Genesis in Egypt: The Philosophy of Ancient
Egyptian Creation Accounts, New Haven, Conn., Yale Egyptological
Seminar.
[5] Anthes, Rudolf, 1961, “Mythology in ancient Egypt”, in Mythologies
of the Ancient World, Ed. Samuel Noah Kramer, Garden City, N. Y.,
Anchor Books, pp. 15-92.
[6] Assmann, Jan, 2001, The Search for God in Ancient Egypt, Trans.
David Lorton, Cornell University Press.
[7] Assmann, Jan, 2003, The Mind of Egypt: History and Meaning in the
Time of the Pharaohs, Harvard University Press.
[8] Borghouts, J. F., 1978, Ancient Egyptian Magical Texts, Leiden, E. J.
Brill.
[9] Butler, Edward P. „Hermopolitan Ogdoad”, Henadology. Philosophy
and Theology, https://henadology.wordpress.com/theology/ netjeru/
hermopolitan-ogdoad/
[10] Gadalla, Moustafa, 2001 and 2003, Egyptian Cosmology The
Animated Universe Second Edition, Revised, Tehuti Research
Foundation International Head Office: Greensboro, NC, U.S.A.

35
[11] Gods and goddesses in Ancient Egypt: creation, University College
London, 2002, http://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt/
religion/deitiescreation.html
[12] Holland, Glenn S. 2009, Gods in the Desert: Religions of the Ancient
Near East, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
[13] Hornung, Erik, 1982, Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One
and the Many, Trans. John Baines, Cornell University Press.
[14] Lesko, Leonard, 1991, „Ancient Egyptian Cosmogonies and
Cosmology”, in Religion in Ancient Egypt: Gods, Myths, and
Personal Practice, Ed. Byron Shafer, Ithaca, N. Y., Cornell University
Press, pp. 88-122.
[15] McCoy, Daniel, 2014-2017, Egyptian Mythology, http://egyptian
mythology. org/stories/creation-myths/
[16] Morenz, Siegfried, 1973, Egyptian Religion, Tr. by Ann E. Keep,
Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press.
[17] Sauneron, Serge and Jean Yoyotte, 1959 „La Naissance du Monde
selon l’Égypte Ancienne”, pp. 17-91, La Naissance du Monde, Paris,
Éditions du Seuil.
[18] Sethe, Kurt, 1929, Amun und die acht Urgötter von Hermopolis,
Berlin, W. de Gruyter.
[19] Tobin, Vincent Arieh, 2002, „Creation Myths”. In The Ancient Gods
Speak: A Guide to Egyptian Religion, Eds. Donald B. Redford, Erik
Hornung, Oxford University Press.
[20] Wilson, John, 1946, „Egypt”, in The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient
Man, Ed. Henri Frankfort, Chicago, University of Chicago Press,
pp. 31-61.

36