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    Khempri

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    Erdem Ğ. Çalışkan
    This document provides an overview of the Heliopolitan creation myth from ancient Egyptian religion. It describes how Atum created the first gods Shu and Tefnut through masturbation or sneezing. Shu and Tefnut then gave birth to Geb and Nut, who defined the physical structure of the world. Their children were the gods Osiris, Isis, Seth and Nephthys, who embodied the primary forces of life. Together these nine gods were known as the Ennead. The document explains how the Ennead represented the sum of all created elements and forces. It concludes that the Heliopolitan creation myth viewed creation as happening all at once, rather than step-by-step

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    Khempri

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    Erdem Ğ. Çalışkan
    42 views2 pages
    This document provides an overview of the Heliopolitan creation myth from ancient Egyptian religion. It describes how Atum created the first gods Shu and Tefnut through masturbation or sneezing. Shu and Tefnut then gave birth to Geb and Nut, who defined the physical structure of the world. Their children were the gods Osiris, Isis, Seth and Nephthys, who embodied the primary forces of life. Together these nine gods were known as the Ennead. The document explains how the Ennead represented the sum of all created elements and forces. It concludes that the Heliopolitan creation myth viewed creation as happening all at once, rather than step-by-step

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    This document provides an overview of the Heliopolitan creation myth from ancient Egyptian religion. It describes how Atum created the first gods Shu and Tefnut through masturbation or sneezing. Shu and Tefnut then gave birth to Geb and Nut, who defined the physical structure of the world. Their children were the gods Osiris, Isis, Seth and Nephthys, who embodied the primary forces of life. Together these nine gods were known as the Ennead. The document explains how the Ennead represented the sum of all created elements and forces. It concludes that the Heliopolitan creation myth viewed creation as happening all at once, rather than step-by-step

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    42 views2 pages

    Khempri

    Uploaded by

    Erdem Ğ. Çalışkan
    This document provides an overview of the Heliopolitan creation myth from ancient Egyptian religion. It describes how Atum created the first gods Shu and Tefnut through masturbation or sneezing. Shu and Tefnut then gave birth to Geb and Nut, who defined the physical structure of the world. Their children were the gods Osiris, Isis, Seth and Nephthys, who embodied the primary forces of life. Together these nine gods were known as the Ennead. The document explains how the Ennead represented the sum of all created elements and forces. It concludes that the Heliopolitan creation myth viewed creation as happening all at once, rather than step-by-step

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    of 2

    148 12.

    NONVERBAL CLAUSES

    The first act of creation involves the birth of two “children” from Atum: Shu ( šw) and
    Tefnut ( tfnwt, also tfnt). To explain how Atum could “give birth” to Shu and Tefnut
    by himself, the texts use the metaphors of masturbation or “sneezing” and “spitting,” the latter
    based on a play on words (jšš “sneeze” = šw “Shu,” tf “spit” = tfnt “Tefnut”). Shu is the atmosphere;
    his creation produced a dry ( šw), empty ( šw) space in the midst of the universal ocean,
    within which all life exists (Essay 2). Tefnut is the female counterpart of Shu; her role in the crea-
    tion is essentially to serve as mother of the succeeding generations.
    The creation of a void within the waters produced of necessity a bottom and a top where
    none had existed before. These are Geb ( gbb or gbw), the earth, and Nut ( nwt), the sky,
    the children of Shu and Tefnut. Together they define the physical structure and limits of the created
    world. In one text Shu says:
    I have lifted my daughter Nut atop me,
    that I might give her to my father Atum in his utmost extent.
    I have put Geb under my feet,
    and that god is knotting together the land for my father Atum (CT 76).
    The creation of the world’s physical structure produced a place within which life could exist. The
    children of Geb and Nut are the primary forces of life: Osiris ( jsjrt, also and, after the
    Middle Kingdom, ), the power of birth and regeneration; Isis ( jst), the principle of
    motherhood; Seth (originally stš; by the Middle Kingdom stõ; in the New Kingdom
    often swtã; also written with the Seth-animal, or , as ideogram or determinative), the
    force of male sexuality; and Nephthys ( , nbt-œwt), the female counterpart of Seth.
    Together, Atum and his eight descendants are known as the Ennead, a Greek word meaning
    “group of nine.” This is a direct translation of the Egyptian term psÿt “group of nine.” The
    Egyptians understood this term figuratively as well as literally. When the gods of the Ennead are
    named, they occasionally amount to more than nine gods. This is apparently because the Ennead
    itself represents the sum of all the elements and forces of the created world. In early religious texts,
    the word psÿt “Ennead” is written , and it has been suggested that the term was seen not
    just as nine gods ( × 9) but also as a “plural of plurals” ( × 3), or an infinite number.
    The Ennead was worshipped particularly in Heliopolis, often in the form of jtmw œnë psÿt.f
    “Atum and his Ennead.” The “tenth god” implicit in this phrase is Horus ( œrw), the son of Isis
    and Osiris. Horus was the power of kingship. To the Egyptians this was as much a force of nature
    as those embodied in the other gods. It was manifest in two phenomena: the sun, the most power-
    ful force in nature; and the pharaoh, the most powerful force in human society. Horus’s role as the
    king of nature is probably the origin of his name: œrw seems to mean “the one above” or “the one
    far off ” and is occasionally written , like the verb œr(j) “to be far off.” This is appar-
    ently a reference to the sun, which is “above” and “far off ” in the sky, like the falcon with which
    Horus is regularly associated (and with which his name is usually written).
    The birth of the sun is actually the culmination of creation in the Heliopolitan system, as it is
    in the early myth of the primeval mound (see Essay 11). The sun’s first rising into the newly
    created world-space marks the end of creation and the beginning of the eternal cycle of life,
    which the sun regulates (as king of nature) and makes possible through his heat and light. The He-
    12. NONVERBAL CLAUSES 149

    liopolitan accounts therefore concentrate not only on Atum’s “evolution” but also on the sun’s role
    in the creation. As an element of nature, the sun is known simply as rë “Sun” (usually tran-
    scribed “Re” or “Ra”). As the newly-risen sun, he is often called ãpr(j) “Khepri” (literally,
    “Evolver”); the beetle used to write this name is the source of the common depiction of the sun-
    god as a scarab. The sun at dawn is also known as œrw-æãtj “Harakhti” (literally, “Horus of
    12
    the Akhet”) or, combined with Re, as “Re-Harakhti” (sometimes written ). Since the sun is
    the culmination of Atum’s “evolution” into the world, the two gods are occasionally combined in
    the form rë-(j)tm(w) “Re-Atum.” Atum himself was often worshipped as the setting sun, ap-
    parently through association of his great age (as “oldest” of the gods) with the “old age” of the sun
    at this point in its daily cycle.
    The Heliopolitan account of creation explained not only the origin of the world’s structure, ele-
    ments, and forces but also how its diversity evolved from a single source. Atum’s generation of Shu
    and Tefnut are described as “when he was one and evolved into three” (CT 80). The Ennead itself is a
    metaphor of both physical relationship and dependency. Atum’s “giving birth” to his “children” is a
    way of explaining how the elements of nature come from a single physical source, just as children
    derive their substance from their parents. The Ennead’s generational scheme reflects the logical de-
    pendency of its parts: the creation of a void in the waters (Shu and Tefnut) produces a “bottom” and
    “top” (Geb and Nut, the children of Shu and Tefnut), and the void in turn makes possible the forces
    of life (Osiris and Isis, Seth and Nephthys, the children of Geb and Nut).
    Although it is explained in generational terms, the Heliopolitan view of the creation is there-
    fore less a “step-by-step” account than a kind of Egyptian “Big Bang” theory, in which all of creation
    happened at once, in the moment when Atum evolved into the world and time itself began. One
    Middle Kingdom text actually reflects this view of creation when it describes Shu as “the one
    whom Atum created on the day that he evolved” (CT 76).

    EXERCISE 12
    Transliterate and translate the following phrases and sentences.
    1. (Sin. B 173–74) — sšmw “situation”
    2. (Caminos, Lit. Frag., pl. 2, B2, 6–7) — n “in,” qbw “cool breeze,”
    rm “fish,” šw “sunlight”
    3. (Peas. B1, 351–52)
    4. (Sin. B 145) — jt.n.j “I took,” jmæm “tent”
    5. (ShS 84–86) — jw “island”; wæÿ-wr: see n. 10 above;
    gs(wj).fj “its two sides” (see § 5.7); nwy “waters”
    6. (ShS. 15–16) — mdw.k “you shall speak”
    7. (CG 583, 3) — wjn.sn “they don’t want to be”

    12 æãtj is a nisbe from æãt “the Akhet” (see Essay 2). In the New Kingdom this name is written , where æãtj
    has been reinterpreted as a dual (“Horus of the Two Akhets”).

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