The Ancient Egyptian Creation Story

Projeda (Brandon West)
October 7, 2019

The Ancient Egyptian creation story is one of the oldest known to us, predating the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible codified maybe c.650 BCE) by more than two thousand years. There are certain similarities – though important distinctions also – between the traditions of Mesopotamia (which are ancestral to the Biblical narrative) and those of Egypt.

There are similarities in qualities and attributes of the deities comprising both pantheons, as well as similarities in the conception of how creation first began. It is also possible that they stem from a common source, an original doctrine, that was perhaps transmitted along with other arts of civilization such as agriculture, the knowledge of which we know to have moved south from Anatolia. Thanks to the invention of writing which probably occurred first in Mesopotamia and traveled west into Egypt, we have documentation of the Egyptian creation story in its early forms, as well as its various phases and alterations throughout Egypt’s long history.

There are a number of versions to the Egyptian creation story as Egyptian culture persisted in a continuous unbroken chain for more than 3000 years. It was enriched and embroidered with new details as it evolved over centuries and millennia, an inevitability for any tradition important enough to persist through multiple phases of human culture.

Though what we see in many cases with regard to ancient traditions is that generally speaking it is often the superficial details of a story that change, while the major themes remained intact. You can redecorate a house with new blinds, paints, and pictures upon the wall, though the foundation and core structure are more likely to remain intact as they are much more difficult to change.

To include all the ever-changing details of the Egyptian creation story – or any ancient myth for that matter – is not possible. Moreover, it would be confusing and nonsensical. So remember that I have taken certain liberties in choosing which details to include, and which not to include. I have generally stressed the original narrative, those details that are the oldest, because if there is a more ancient doctrine, it is the original account which will best reflect it while later embellishments will only occlude and distort that truth.

Moreover, some of my interpretation of what various elements are may differ from the normal interpretation. This is because I believe that within this tradition we can detect a common chord that originated in the most distant times, well before the Egyptians had developed their own written language, well before they even built their temples, tombs, and pyramids.

Egyptian Creation Story :: Before Creation :: The Ogdoad

The ancient Egyptian creation story begins at a true beginning, before there was anything at all. They addressed the start of creation itself, it seems, describing what was before, and the process by which the Sun, Earth and Sky, Air and Moisture, all came into being.

What seems to be described are the conditions of space or reality before the Sun was born to radiate its light and fertilize its region of the galaxy with the energy and material that are the seeds of life, before there was air and water, before there was Earth to stand upon and so differentiate the Sky.

More than 5000 years ago the mysterious Egyptians had already intuited that before all of these facets of creation there existed dark, empty, formless, directionless and eternal void, and that within that void there was what they called a watery expanse. These are literally their own words for the state of being of the cosmos before the world we know was created.

The ancient Egyptians described these conditions with 4 pairs of male-female principles, numbering eight in total, that we know of as the Ogdoad. The term Ogdoad is the Greek transliteration (ὀγδοάς) of the original Egyptian term ḫmnyw (which might be pronounced something like “homniiou” with an Arabic or Hebraic rough h sound, though Ancient Egyptians did not include the vowels).

Both the Greek and Egyptian words mean “The Eight” or “Eightfold.” The Ogdoad to the Egyptian mind were 8 principles or characteristics whom they personified as deities. However, the meanings are literally what gave the deities their names, thus I prefer not to look at them as gods (even if the Egyptians themselves did) because that might mislead the reader from what was originally meant, which is more important than the superficial appearance of the personified imagery.

The Ogdoad consisted of 4 male-female pairs with each pair standing for a concept, subtly representing with wordplay their understanding of a polarity to all things. Each pair together described the conditions before creation which were primordial sky-water, eternity (unending time), darkness and a lack of direction. Their names being:

Nun & Nunet were the first pair, and the most well known. Their names mean something like “watery expanse” or “watery abyss” (seemingly identical to the Sumerian concept of Abzu, “watery deep” which features prominently in the Mesopotamian creation story, the Enuma Elish, or to the Ginnungagap of Norse/Germanic mythology with a similar meaning of “yawning void”). Interestingly, the names Nun & Nunet are both written with the hieroglyph determinative for “sky” and “water” which gives the Egyptian concept of a watery expanse the distinct classification of sky-water. A common interpretation of Nun & Nunet are the primordial waters.
Hok & Hoket: were the male-female pair that represented the concept of unending time. They therefore suggest two distinct yet related concepts, that of eternity and perhaps infinity as well. Though infinity is not the same thing as eternity, the former dealing with unending space while the latter deals with unending time, so infinity is therefore an implied meaning.
Kuk & Kuket together represented darkness, because the primordial watery expanse existed in a state where there was no light. We can infer from this also that in the ancient Egyptian understanding, these 8 pairs of the Odgoad existed before the Sun, since there is no light.
Tenem & Tenemet whose names stem from the word tnm which means “to wander” [7] giving us the impression of wandering aimlessly or without direction, thus having no definite direction. This last pair is the most variable of the eight-fold Ogdoad, not just in names (which tended to change with the times) but in the implied concept as well, which varied from night, to invisibility, formlessness, and void. Amun & Amunet where the pair that represented invisibility more than a millennium after the original Ogdoad when Amun became and important deity.

These 8 concepts and corresponding deities are the Ogdoad, literally “the Eight”, who are the basis of Heliopolitan cosmology, which were the specific religious beliefs and traditions taught at Heliopolis. All of the names have a number of spellings, and there are a handful of other female-male pairs which can be found in the records of various periods. Though these four pairs are the oldest, the true Ogdoad if you will. The female names can be distinguished because all female names end with a “t” in the ancient Egyptian language.

I believe that the best way to understand the Ogdoad is that the priests of Heliopolis taught that these eight principles (“deities”) describe the primordial and unshaped space that existed before creation. Maybe we can best understand the Ogdoad as saying that within this space, there was Nun & Nunet (watery expanse), that this space was Hok & Hoket (eternal and perhaps infinite) that it was devoid of light thus permeated by Kuk & Kuket (darkness), and that this primordial space was also Tenem & Tenemet (directionless).

All in all this is a remarkably accurate description of the conditions that existed before the birth of the Sun and our solar system. Indeed a watery expanse, literally primordial sky-water, existed in the form of a stellar nebula, which is literally a space-cloud. Which existed in eternal, directionless, and dark void.

The qualities, principles, and deities of the Ogdoad in this way set the stage for the beginning of creation, the birth of the Sun, the formation of air, water, earth, and sky, ultimately leading to the birth of the great gods of ancient Egypt who organized the world, created humanity, and in the end bequeathed the rule of this planet to humanity. Thus the stage is set for the Egyptian creation story to begin in earnest.

The Egyptian Creation Story

In the infinite vastness of space the watery expanse of Nun & Nunet began to move. Nun & Nunet came together, forming themselves into a mass. They collapsed and condensed more of their watery expanse of sky-water into a mound called the Ben-Ben, the primordial mound.

As this mound came into being, and as the mists from this creative activity cleared, the great god Atum was seen standing proudly on top, radiating power as the first god, the one who created himself.

Atum’s name stems from the word that means complete, so Atum was the first complete being that contained all within himself, and from him all else was born. The later Egyptians amended the Egyptian creation story with the detail that after Nun-Nunet formed into the Ben-Ben, the mound itself blossomed as a lotus flower whose petals opened to reveal Ra shining as the Sun shines, cloaked in radiant majesty.

In early times the Egyptians called this deity Atum, though in the Old Kingdom this turned to Amun and later to Ra, even being combined into Amun-Ra and Ra-Horakhty. I believe that all of these various names are meant to refer to a single deity, a single character or divine principle as it were. Though I am uncertain of this, since over time the character attributed to each varied also.

An artists impression of 3 Exoplanets orbiting a Red Dwarf Star | NASA | Public Domain

Yet even still they were all the solar deity, the deity of the Sun, or the Sun god. They each are literally different names for the Sun, in addition to their personified forms as deities. Atum was the setting sun, Ra/Re was the Sun at noon, Ra-Horakhty was the rising sun, and the Aten was the solar disc itself.

The Ben-Ben was an important concept to the Egyptians, so much so that to their mind, they symbolically erected all of their great temples on the Ben-Ben, on some mound which to them symbolized the idea of the Ben-Ben which affirmed the basis of both Hermopolitan and Heliopolitan Theology, symbolizing the birth of one of their chief deities, Atum or Amun-Ra.

The Children of Atum

For numberless eons Atum hung in the void, the infinite, eternal, direction-less, darkness. For a time Atum was content to radiate into space all that he was, content simply in the light and majesty of his own being. After all, he alone in all of creation was complete. There was nothing that he needed, and with his far-seeing eyes and vast mind, he contemplated in peace the mysteries of existence and of the universe.

However, in time he grew to be lonely. He desired companionship, and began to covet other beings to share the experience of this Universe. Furthermore, in the depths of his mind he conceived of much more distant possibilities, a chain of events that would eventually lead to a world, a planet, and a succession of species leading ultimately towards one in specific that would understand and venerate him. All of this he saw in his cosmic meditation. Inspired by these thoughts, Atum, the complete solar god who created himself, bent his entire mind and will towards the knowledge and understanding he required to create another.

To achieve this, some say that Atum mated with his Shadow. With his secret arts Atum first created air, whom the ancient Egyptians called Shu (which was literally the Ancient Egyptian word for air). Atum either ejaculated or spat out Shu. The next to be expelled from his body was moisture, whom the ancient Egyptians referred to as the goddess Tefnut, whose name means “to corrode.” [7]

Egyptologists generally interpret this as moisture, the interpretation being guided by the term Shu which as we know means “air,” and given that we know the ancient Egyptians tend to understand things as counterparts, moisture or the concept of wetness is a fair counterpart for air which to the Egyptians would certainly have been dry. Furthermore moisture certainly does corrode.

As the ancient tradition states, Atum created Shu and Tefnut, the god of air and the goddess of moisture, spitting them out from his own being. Shu and Tefnut spent a time happy together with Atum. Though as time wore on, they gradually began to wander, moving further and further from Atum, eventually leaving him alone on their own journey.

Though in their isolation, Shu and Tefnut were not idle. Shu and Tefnut as personified deities were considered to be siblings. As is the norm with Egyptian divinity (and royalty) the siblings procreated together, giving birth to two more deities who were the third generation from Atum. Again a male-female pair, they were known as Geb (the Earth) and Nut (the Sky). So a distance from Atum, Shu and Tefnut (air and moisture) together combined to form the Earth and the Sky. Nut is commonly depicted on tombs, arching naked over the sky with stars spangled across her body. Nut is she who swallows the Sun in the evening, and then gives birth to it in the morning.

Like their parents, the siblings Geb and Nut fell deeply in love. They were inseparable. Some accounts say that Atum found their behavior to be unacceptable, so he pulled Nut away from the Geb high in the heavens were he couldn’t reach her. (Though what does he know, given that he mater with his own shadow? Moreover, we know that the ancient Egyptians saw no moral quandary to maintaining the bloodline by choosing a mate within ones family.) Another version of the tale has Shu becoming jealous of Geb wanting Nut for himself, so he snuck between Geb and Nut, which is how the atmosphere was formed and the Earth was surrounded by air.

Whatever the cause, the result was the same. The two lovers were forbidden for eternity to touch one another. Yet no matter what schemes were contrived against them, their longing for one another could not be tempered, and even today their love remains unbroken.

However, Nut was already pregnant by Geb, and all alone high up in the heavens where she was isolated, she gave birth to for deities: Osiris and Isis, Set and Nephthys. Osiris was the god of knowledge, civilization, truth and justice. Later he was Lord of the Dead, literally known as Lord of the Westerners. Isis was the goddess of magic, whose power lay in healing because she knew the names of all things and had power over them. They were brother and sister, husband and wife.

Nephthys was the goddess most often associated with mourning. She was the sister-wife of Set, therefore she was on the forefront of his own imbalance and fiery nature. She was also repentant of Set’s deeds concerning Isis and Osiris, and acted to protect them both and work for good, as best she could, behind the back of her husband and brother. As Osiris was Lord of the Dead she was seen as a protector and custodian of the dead. She was also seen as a goddess of the home, of mothers, and of childbirth.

Set was the god that was a counterpart of Osiris. While Osiris represented order and righteousness, truth, and upheld Maat, Set was often the opposite of this. He was not evil, nor was he reviled by the Egyptians. He was great and powerful in his way, though he was a conniving trickster who, in his envy, sense of inferiority, and desire for power, often upset the balance. Though one gets the sense that this is an inevitability of nature, part of his character. Very close with how Loki is portrayed relative to Thor in Nordic mythology.

These four are the quintessential deities of Egyptian civilization. The most well-known, most depicted, and most loved. Including Ra in all his forms (Amun, Atum, etc). These four along with Horus the Elder (as opposed to Horus the Younger, the illustrious son of Isis and Osiris) are the 5 Egyptian gods most often recognized as the earliest, or at least most familiar representations of older deities. [2]

As Osiris was judicious and centered on truth, a being devoted to civilization and to upholding Maat, perhaps a concept of cosmic justice, rightness, truth, balance, and harmony, he was given rule of the world by Atum, who then left to take care of his own affairs. For a time he ruled in peace though, alas, it was not to last. Though that is a story for another time.

The Creation of Humanity

As time passed, Atum became concerned because his children had been gone for a long time, even by his standards. Desiring to find them and enjoy in their company once again, he removed his eye sending it magically to search for his two children, Shu and Tefnut.

While his eye was gone, Atum sat alone on the Ben-Ben in the midst of chaos, contemplating eternity. Though remember that in secret, hidden from Atum, Shu and Tefnut had given birth to two new deities, Geb and Nut, and set in motion a whole chain of events resulting in the birth of another generation of deities, and much more.

Thus when Shu and Tefnut returned with the eye of Atum, and were able to show him all that had been created, an entire world, he shed great tears in his gladness. (This eye later became associated with the Eye of Ra, which was also called the Ugjat eye, or the All-Seeing Eye)

The tears of the great Atum fell onto the fertile earth (some tradition say it fell on the Ben-Ben, though let’s say it fell on Geb) giving birth to men and women. So to the ancient Egyptians, they all viewed themselves as children of Atum, born from his tears. As such, he was in a way one of the gods they probably would have worshiped fundamentally and therefore with due reverence.

And so the world came into being, in the shadow of the God Atum. Amun.

The Ancient Egyptian Creation Story

Egyptian Creation Story :: Before Creation :: The Ogdoad

The Egyptian Creation Story

The Children of Atum

The Creation of Humanity

Further Reading

MLA

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