#creation myth

[teal-sharky]

So, you know that whole mythos with Lilith as the original pre-Eve woman, who was actually the true equal to Adam, made of the same clay as him, and who was later replaced by Eve who was instead designed to be his subservient complement, crafted from his rib?

::Takes another fat rip of her vape pen::

Do you think Lilith had a girldick?

#trans #creation myth #biblical #girldick

[bywandandsword]

Current brainworm, none of the Celtic cultures' creation myths have survived, even though they almost certainly had one. The closest we have is the Lebor Gabala Erenn from Irish mythology, but it isn't a creation story, it records the various settlements of Ireland, ending in the Gaels. However, it is thought that there are reflections of an earlier creation myth in the LGE and in the Tain, and there are similar themes that validate that the Gaels at least viewed the creation of the landscape in this way from various other stories. Additionally, we can compare other Indo-European creation myths to figure out what elements the Gaelic creation myth almost certainly would have had. These include:

Before creation, there is a void of some kind

In that void, fire interacts with water/ice to create the first life

A primordial bovine, most likely a cow (bulls were more common in IE cultures that emphasized pastoralism over crops. The Romans had a she-wolf, because they had to be edge lords)

One primordial being or possibly a set of twins who are sustained by the milk of the cow

One of the twins/the primordial being is dismembered to create the physical world

So already we have the makings of a general creation story, and if you're familiar with Norse mythologies, you might recognize it. In fact, it's thought that the Norse creation myth has retained the most elements of the original IE myth

However, scholars point out that the primordial being that is killed is called *Yemo, meaning "twin", which means there was likely originally two first beings. In the one sacrificing the other, the act renders the brother doing the sacrificing as the First Priest, who creates the concept of death, but in doing so turns that death into the living world. The sacrificed brother is then typically rendered as the First King and Ruler of the Land of the Dead. By setting up this order for the world, the First Priest establishes that life cannot exist without death (whether it be harvesting crops or butchering livestock), and typically, these myths continue and establish the role of the priests in society, who's job it is to ensure the continuity of the original sacrifice and maintain the living world

Now, here's where we get into my speculation;

I think it's likely that the Irish creation myth involved a set of twins. Off the top of my head, I think that possible reflections of this can be found in the brothers Amergin and Donn and in the Donn Cuailnge and Finnbhennach from the Táin. With Amergin and Donn, Donn insults the goddess of the land and is drowned. In doing so, Donn becomes a god of the dead and all the souls of the dead have to gather at or pass through Tech Duinn. Amergin however, secures the support of these goddesses and is able to go on and give order to the Gaelic rule of Ireland by deciding who will rule what and serves as the Chief Ollam (bard) of Ireland. In the Táin, after the main Plot has gone down, the Donn Cuailnge and Finnbhennach fight and the the Donn Cuailnge ends up killing Finnbhennach. As the Donn Cuailnge passes through the landscape, pieces of Finnbhennach drop off his horns and form/name part of the landscape. I think it's also interesting how in both these stories, one of the duo is explicitly associated with the color white (Amergin is called "white knees") and the other one is dark, but the opposite one dies first in the stories

Also, if we look at myths like the creation of the Shannon and the Boyne rivers, where in the goddesses Sionnan and Boann, respectively, die in the rivers' creations, we further see that the death of one figure to create an element of the landscape is a relatively common one, so a creation story similar to the one I hypothesize the Irish had wouldn't have been outside of pagan Irish belief

Additionally, if we look at the duíle, kind of like the Irish elements/natural features, we see that the nine elements/features are each explicitly associated with body parts. Stone is associated with bones, the sea with blood, the face with the sun, ect. I think this could be a call back to that earlier creation myth

Off the top of my head, that's what I've been mulling over. Idk, I might be completely off the mark, but if anyone wants give their thoughts, I'd love to hear them. I'm certainly not an expert in Irish mythology and there may be some key factor that completely sinks this idea

#Sword speaks #Irish mythology #Irish pagan #Irish polytheist #Celtic pagan #Celtic polytheist #creation myth #idk man my brain has been like a dog with a bone with this for days and I'm curious what others might think

[witchofthesouls]

uhhh, sorry if im being annoying bc I've asked this already to someone else but this idea has been scratching me; Unicron who is actually a fallen Primus.

Stratches me, too.

Primus and Unicron began as a single entity that argued itself into a split, so it's not too far off.

Honestly, now I'm really curious about how their dynamic would be in the shattered glass!au, especially with the "Earth is Unicron" subplots in some universes.

It's even weirder when you think about water being a really scarce and hazardous resource on Cybertron because on Earth, it's the cradle of life, but Cybertronians have a different mechanism. So what if the abundance of water derived from Unicron himself? Like extra defense measures to keep Primus' creations away? What if the sea was a really broken down Dark Energon? Same as the crust and sediment? What is metal but a refined form of dirt?

That could fit nicely in TFP with its mythos narrative. Primus gave life to the Cybertronians; the metals and Energon nourished his creations. Just as Unicron done as well, if unknowingly, with the vast reach of water upon his slumbering self.

Imagine if Dark Engeron is super concentrated sea water, so it explains the negative effects on both humans and Cybertronians. Unicron's angry, divine saltiness will fuck up anyone.

#ask #mountielle #transformers #transformer prime #tfp #primus #unicron #my thoughts #creation myth #gods and goddesses #maccadam #no wonder the zombies were like that #they were Thirsty/Starving for a meal

[ancientorigins]

In a journey across cultures the mysteries of world mythologies and legends showcase shared wonders that make us ponder the fascinating similarities.

Whether it's the biblical 'Let there be light,' the primordial Pangu crafting the universe, or the surreal Dreamtime of Australian Aboriginal mythology, they all include common themes that transcend time and space, challenging the laws of physics and reality.

What was behind the creation of the first man and woman in myths like Adam and Eve, Fu Xi and Nu Wa, and Manu and Shatarupa? The unique link these first couples had with deities, capable of communicating in a world where the laws of science were more fluid, allowed for surreal occurrences like talking snakes and apples of knowledge.

The flood myths that transcend cultures, from Noah's Ark to Manu's tale in Hindu mythology. Tell of great resets and reboots that act as a cleansing force after human failures.

The fascinating world where cultures, despite limited contact, unveil astonishing similarities, spark wonder at the universal allure of angels, goblins, and ethereal beings.

#myth #Creation myth #Vedic #Hinduism #Flood myth #Epic of Gilgamesh #Genesis #ancient #history #ancient origins

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

"Right from the beginning the bible teaches that God has never had any trust or 'faith' in humanity. If he did, he would have created humans with knowledge and trusted us to make good decisions. Instead he put knowledge out of our reach and made it a crime to seek it. Why have faith in something that has obviously never had faith in you?"

Why do you worship a god who openly despises its own creations?

#christianity #religion #bible #bible study #adam and eve #adam & eve #creation myth #the fall of man #fall of man #the tree of knowledge of good and evil #the tree of knowledge #adam and eve myth #religion is a mental illness

[kenobicoffee]

Hey whatever you do don’t think about how the beginning of Heat Above is one of the best openers for any album ever. And don’t think about how that church organ is preying upon a spiritual connection I haven’t felt in a decade. And don’t think about how TBAGG is a reverse creation myth. And don’t think about how humanity has striven throughout history to make meaning through stories and art and we get to be alive to hear other humans working it out not through weeping and gnashing of teeth but through gentleness and an unflappable tenacity for joy. Don’t think about any of that okay have a nice day.

#gvf #greta van fleet #the battle at gardens gates #Jake GVF #Josh GVF #Sammy GVF #heat above #age of machine #creation myth #josh kiszka #danny wagner #Danny GVF #jake kiszka #danny lane #curly lane #gresties #Josh lane #TBAGG is way way way too good an album #all bangers #no misses #my post concert depression is getting to me and it’s not even for the album I saw 😂

[haggishlyhagging]

Naming has profound significance in the Old Mesopotamian belief system. The name reveals the essence of the bearer; it also carries magic power. The concept lives on through the millennia in myth and fairy tale. The person who can guess the name of another acquires power over him, as in the German fairy tale "Rumpelstilskin." A person newly endowed with power is renamed. Thus, the god Marduk, in the Babylonian creation myth, is given fifty names as tokens of his power. We will discuss later how this power of names and naming is used in the Book of Genesis. What is important to observe here is that the concept of creation has changed, at a certain period in history, from being merely the acting out of the mystic force of female fertility to being a conscious act of creation, often involving god-figures of both sexes. This element of consciousness, expressed in "the idea," "the concept," "the name" of that which will be created, may be the reflection of an altered human consciousness due to significant changes in society.

The time when these concepts first appear is the time when writing has been “invented” and with it history. Record-keeping and the elaboration of symbol systems demonstrate the power of abstraction. The name recorded enters history and becomes immortal. This must have appeared as magical to contemporaries. Writing, record-keeping, mathematical thinking, and the elaboration of various symbol systems altered people's perception of their relation to time and space. It should not surprise us to find that religious myths reflected these changes in consciousness.

From the point of view of this study, which focuses on the development and institutionalization of patriarchal gender symbols, we should notice that the symbolification of the capacity to create, as in the concept of naming, simplifies the move away from the Mother-Goddess as the sole principle of creativity.

-Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy

#gerda lerner #mesopotamia #naming #creation myth #patriarchal religion

[h0bg0blin-meat]

All the basics of Greek myth

The gods/godesses their roles,ther relationship etc etc

Okay. So first of all we all know about the 12 Olympians, i.e., Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Artemis, Apollo, Ares, Athena, Aphrodite, Hermes. Hephaestus and either Hestia or Dionysus, plus Hades.

Now before these Olympians there were the Titans, which included Kronos, Rhea, Oceanus, Coeus, Japetos, Crius, Hyperion, Theia, Themis, Tethys, Phoebe, and Mnemosyne, all of whom came from the Primordials, Ouranos and Gaia.

Along with them the other primordial gods included Khaos, Tartarus, Erebus, Eros, Nyx, Aether, Hemera, Pontus and Ourea.

Now this is an extremely brief explanation of these three generations of deities. I’mma get into a little more detail into their relations by whipping out Hesiod’s Theogony/the Greek Creation Myth (cuz his version is considered the standard creation myth for this pantheon till date), which sums about everything up pretty well actually so… Kudos to our fellar.

So according to this myth, in the very beginning, there was only chaos, from which we get the personified and deified version of it called Khaos. But soon after Gaia, Eros and Tartarus pop up, and then Khaos creates two more deities, namely Erebus and Nyx, who then, together, proceed to create Hemera and Aether, while Gaia creates Ouranos to partner up with, and they both, again together, whip out

The male titans, namely Kronos, Coeus, Japetus, Crius and Hyperion.

The female titans, namely Rhea, Themis, Tethys, Phoebe and Mnemosyne.

Three cyclopses, namely Brontes, Steropes and Arges.

Three Hekatonchieres (monstrous giants of immense strength and power, each having fifty heads and a hundred arms), namely Briareos, Kottos and Gyges.

Now all of these three sets of kids have one common thing, hating on Ouranos, for some reason that gets later uncovered. The reason is mostly him kidnapping his monstrous-looking kids and hiding them in secret places under the Earth (which, here, is Gaia).

Gaia got sick of this shit and produced a sickle out of adamant and asked her kids to teach Ouranos a lesson, but among these kids, only Kronos stood up to do it and so he did. Hid inside Gaia and when Ouranos came to lay with his wife, his lil kid popped up and castrated him, his two little thingies falling into the ocean, leading it to foam, and from that foam was born our beloved Aphrodite. Sensational. From his blood arose the Erinyes (chthonic goddesses of vengeance), the Giants and the Meliai (nymphs of the ash tree).

Now Kronos had full control over the cosmos from Ouranos, and was producing kids (i.e., Hestia, Poseidon, Demeter, Hera and Hades. Zeus wasn’t born yet) with Rhea. But his dad and Gaia had prophesized that one of his own kids would overthrow him, and from there we get the famous Kronos-swallowing-his-kids myth. And ofc, Zeus gets saved from the swallowing thingy with the help of his mom and grandparents, and then raised in seclusion in a cave below Mount Aigaion in the city of Lyktos of Crete. Also Kronos doesn’t know about this cuz Rhea wrapped up a huge stone in baby’s clothes and gave it to him saying it was the last kid, aka, Zeus.

(Chiron is also one of Kronos’s kids, and hence Zeus’s half-brother, paternally cuz Kronos once turned himself into a horse to mate with the Oceanid nymph, and one of the daughters of Oceanus and Tethys, Philyra, who mated with him in the usual human-nymph form, and hence we get him as a centaur.)

After Zeus grew up fully, he forced Kronos (Gaia did something to help with this, like give him some kinda poison secretly to make him puke his kids out-) to release his siblings. He then released the Cyclopses (who were still trapped with the Hekatonchieres btw), and then gave him his signature thunderbolt. This is when the great war called the Titanomachy happened between the Titans and Zeus and his siblings, over the control of the cosmos. This war went on for years, and in the 10th year, Zeus even released the Hekatoncheires, who also helped him overthrow the titans. Zeus threw his thunderbolt at the previous generation of gods, hence defeating them and throwing them into Tartarus, thus ending the war.

There was another threat to him tho, and it was Typhon, son of Gaia and Tartarus. But Zeus defeated him too and threw him into Tartarus as well.

Then my mans got elected as the king of gods (as he should), and had his first wife Metis. But after knowing that he had the same fate as Kronos, i.e., a son of Metis would overthrow him, he swallowed his wife (while she was pregnant with Athena, and hence later on we see Zeus HIMSELF giving birth to a fully-grown Athena from his mind) and that’s how he ended the cycle of succession. Smart move but I need justice for Metis >:<

Now for the new generation of Olympians, i.e., Artemis, Apollo, Ares, Hermes, Dionysus and Hephaestus (also let’s add Persephone too), here’s how it goes. (Athena and Aphrodite were already covered above)

Apollo and Artemis were twin kids of Zeus’s 6th wife, Leto, who was the daughter of Coeus and Phoebe.

Persephone was born from the union of Zeus and Demeter. (there are other versions to this myth too)

Dionysus was born from the union of Zeus and Semele (a mortal woman), but he was again stitched to Zeus’s thigh to save him from Hera, who was deadlocked in killing him (cuz ofc Zeus cheated on her with another woman), and later births Dio himself. (there are other versions to this myth as well. For example, another myth says he was born from the union of Zeus and Persephone.)

Hermes was born from the union of Zeus and Maia (Atlas’s* daughter)

Ares, Hebe and Eileithyia were born from Zeus and Hera.

(*Atlas was one of the kids of Japetos and Clymene, who’s an Oceanid, and hence one of the daughters of Oceanus and Tethys.)

Now I haven’t mention what these deities are the gods of, because even though they are known for maybe one of two things they govern over (like Athena for wisdom and war, or Apollo for sun and music), their designations are actually pretty broad, and this post is long enough so ykw I’mma ask you to check out theoi.com and the theogony section of Wikipedia for further info :)

Thanks for the ask I had fun writing this lmao. (Might’ve made errors or stuff so correct me in case yall spot any)

#greek mythology #greek gods #greek titans #theogony #hesiod #creation myth #greek myths #ancient greek mythology #greek goddesses #olympians

[nickysfacts]

The Mayans were obsessed with corn!🌽

🌽🌽🌽

#history #corn #maya #maize #mesoamerica #native american history #mayan mythology #mexico #creation myth #central america #mayan history #indigenous people #native americans #food history #princesscore #body modification #ancient history #mayan culture #head bonding #ancient maya #latin america #indigenous history #food #native american culture #mythology #nickys facts

[sinfullydivination]

Offerings to Lord Atum

The story of creation goes, that Atum, Father of the gods, had emerged from the primordial waters of Nu. He found himself sitting on the primordial mound of Benben.

“It’s lonely being here in this darkness all by myself,” he thought to himself. To create his children, he used his sweat/spit and semen. He created the first forms of life outside of himself. His children are Tefnut, goddess of mositure, and Shu, god of air.

His children quickly became bored of sitting on this mound with just their father, so they wandered through the primordial darkness, looking for any sign of life. They soon got lost, not knowing where to go.

Atum became lonely after his children had left. He became worried because his children had been gone for too long. So, he plucked out his eye and asked it to find his children. He sent his eye out into the primordial darkness, hoping to bring his children back home.

When his eye returned days, weeks, months later it had brought back his wonderful children. Atum started crying tears of joy, thrilled he had his family back. The tears that fell from his eye, landed on the Benben. The fertilization from his tears brought through another act of creation, it brought out the world from it.

Atum is the head of the Ennead creation mythos. He is the creator and destroyer. Once the lifecycle of this universe comes to pass, he will be the one to destroy it- leaving only himself and God Osiris, in the form of sepents, so he can create the universe once again.

#paganism #kemetic #kemetism #kemetic paganism #Atum #deity #deity work #deity worship #atum deity #sun god #sun god atum #setting sun #offerings #offering to pagan gods #ankh #maat #creation myth #egyptian mythology

[sunnynwanda]

Creation

Villain was bored when they created life. They didn't exactly have much to do apart from disturbing Hero's creations. They would explode a star here and there, create pitch-black holes and meteor showers, or turn some planets into nothing but gas and dust. Nothing major, just a few things to keep their hands busy. Hero didn't mind much, busy with their playground, not paying mind to whatever Villain was up to.

It was only natural that Villain was bored out of their mind. The two humans were supposed to entertain them. They did not expect them to start calling them God. Much less expected was the way they referred to Hero. Devil. Never in their wildest dreams did Villain imagine such a turn of events. A twist of fate, if you will.

Hero did not take it well - their perfect creation now infected with Villain's handiwork. The humans were twisted - deranged and unstable. As much as Hero tried to grant them wisdom and guide them into a harmonious existence with the universe around them - they still persisted.

Poisoned by the aberrant ideas planted in their minds by Villain's tenacious hand, humans were, by far, the most depraved creation in Hero's universe.

Masterlist

If anyone wants to buy me a Ko-fi

#hero and villain #villain #hero #villain x hero #religious themes #god and satan #creation myth #creative writing #writers on tumblr #writeblr #women writers #this is vastly different from my usual content #no idea where this came from #but i hope you don't mind it #no offense to anyone #requests open #sunnynwanda

[witchofthesouls]

Primus:*creates predacons*

Unicron: Lame. Watch this

Unicron:*creates fragging Ghidorah*

I raise you that Unicron was unconscious when Ghidorah came to be.

Much like the ancient tales of creation, Ghidorah sprang to life from the blood of an injured, comatose Unicron drifting in the void, splashing on a random asteroid.

Could also be from other fluids, too. Gas as well.

#ask #transformers #kaiju #unicron #prima #creation myth #ghidorah #maccadam #my thoughts #hey myth was absolutely WILD in terms of creation #imagine ghidorah came to be from the universe's deadiest fart

[ancientorigins]

The enigmatic story of Pangu, the mythical giant and first supreme being and creator of the universe, reveals how Pangu cracked the cosmic egg, shaping the heavens and the Earth as we know them today. From the balancing of Yin and Yang to the assistance of mythical beasts as the dragon and phoenix, Pangu's myth offers endless wonders to explore.

#creation myth #Chinese #big bang #cosmic egg #dragon #phoenix

[nothoughtsgayboy]

The Creation of Humanity

(the creation of humans, the Day of Fire, Prometheus' punishment)

The Gods were bored and needed something to do, something to provide them with entertainment. So Zeus set the Gods to work - having them each mold the creatures to populate the Earth with. They quickly busied themselves with their jobs, and soon all of the Earth's creatures were formed.

Next the creatures needed abilities - something to set them apart from others and give them a fighting chance of survival, after all, it wouldn't be very entertaining if they all died of within a couple hundred years. For this job, Prometheus was chosen. Prometheus is the Titan God of forethought, making him very suited for the job of ensuring species' survival. However, Prometheus' brother, Epimetheus (Titan God of afterthought), wanted a chance to prove himself and asked to do Prometheus' job, promising that he would let him inspect his work before they presented it to the rest of the Gods.

Prometheus begrudgingly agreed and Epimetheus began his work, taking great care with the abilities he gives to the creatures. Once he had finished his job he proudly showed his handiwork to his brother. Prometheus was pleasantly surprised, until he noticed a neglected figure that hadn't been given any abilities. He turned to his brother, asking him about the creature. Distraught at his mistake, Epimetheus admitted that he didn't have any abilities left to give to the creature - the 'human being'. There was no time to make amends and the creatures were presented to the rest of the Gods, who - delighted with their creations - populated the Earth with the various species.

It was immediately clear that humanity would not survive very long, their lack of abilities put their species at a huge disadvantage. Despite them being doomed to extinction, Prometheus felt a strong affinity towards human beings and realised that they needed a unique ability to survive as a species. And so he gave them one.

It came down like a lightning bolt, and suddenly the previously helpless humans were gifted Promethean intelligence.

Their newfound intelligence allowed humans to develop speech and spread survival techniques amongst themselves. The rest of the Gods naturally assumed that intelligence was humanity's ability. The Gods realised that due to their intelligence, human beings could fear the future.

And of course, the Gods were doing this for entertainment, so they made it so humans had to offer sacrifices to the Gods and ask them for the future to turn out the way they wanted. In order to give sacrifices they needed to have fire. Prometheus realised this quickly and convinced Zeus to allow humans to have fire in exchange for a portion of the human's sacrifices. Zeus declared that 'this is the Day of Fire,' adding that 'What is done today is final.'

Prometheus is given the task of separating the portions of the sacrifice for the Gods to decide which sections would be offered to the Gods. Prometheus wraps all of the best bits of meat in the cow's stomach, giving it the appearance of haggis. Next he covered the skeleton with fat and put the hide back on it. Zeus picks the skeleton.

When he realised he had been tricked Zeus was enraged. As punishment for Prometheus' deception, he took the fire away from the humans, wanting Prometheus to have to watch the humans he loves so dearly die out. Prometheus still wanted to help humanity to survive, so he broke into Hephaestus' workshop in a last ditch effort. He stole fire from the workshop, hiding it in the stalk of a fennel plant. Once he gave human beings fire, they celebrated and danced all night, overjoyed at the gift of fire. No matter what the Gods wanted to do, what was done that day was final.

Safe to say, Zeus is pissed. Prometheus is bound with chains forged by Hephaestus. He's dragged down from Mount Olympus and the chains binding him are driven into a rock. Everyday an eagle ate his liver. Overnight his liver regenerated and his body healed only for the eagle to come back again the next day.

And so he was stuck in his cruel punishment until 30,000 years later when Heracles is tasked with killing the eagle that has been tormenting Prometheus. He succeeds and Prometheus is left bound and naked, but at least the worst part of his punishment was over.

Years later, Prometheus negotiated with Zeus, offering him information on his and Thetis' future son in exchange for his freedom. At Mount Olympus Prometheus is made to wear a garland around his head, as a constant reminder of his chains.

His job was done - humanity was well and truly alive.

#helpol #hellenic pagan #hellenic polythiest #pagan #greek mythology #greek gods #creation myth #prometheus #zeus deity #zeus #greek myths #epimetheus #this took ages #sorry if there's any mistakes #I did proof read but I'm pretty tired rn #if there's any mistakes please lmk so I can amend it #hellenic paganism #paganism #paganblr #hellenic polytheism #hellenic gods #hellenic polytheist #hellenic deities #hellenic pantheon #hellenic polytheistic #hellenic worship #greek mythos

[whitewingedcrow]

"And Tanith descended through the storm as a bright and shining star, and all around him the roiling clouds calmed and parted, and for the first time the light of the heavens shone upon the waves below.”

Experiment with a sketchbook scribble, while working on some of the mythology of my story-world of Genesis.

#mythology #creation myth #fairy tale #genesis #bloodlines #gold #heaven and earth

[mask131]

Egyptian mythology: Off a chaotic start

A good way to understand the nature of Egyptian mythology is to take a look at its various creation myths.

Egyptian mythology was created by uniting, fusing and cumulating rites, beliefs, legends and theologies coming from different sub-realm, city-states and history eras, and trying to stitch them together into a cohesive whole. Terry Pratchett beautifully summed it up in his book “Pyramids”: the Egyptians never threw away a god, just in case he could be useful later, and so they piled on gods and myths and stories and rites, even though they contradicted each other. 

The creation myths of Egypt work in a similar way. Egypt didn’t have one, but several “religious centers”, specific cities with each their own pantheon of local gods, each their own set of legends and beliefs, each their own take on religion. If you think the myth-variations of the Greek city-states were complex, oh boy, get ready, because compared to the Egyptians, the Greeks are a piece of cake. Each of those major religious center had its own creation myth, that by default entered in conflict with each other, and yet co-existed in the people’s mind and religious practices. 

The most famous and widespread of those creation myths, the one people are most aware of today, is actually the creation myth of the city of Heliopolis (in the original Egyptian, “Iunu”). The Heliopolis theogony was based around a group of gods known as the Ennead (”pesedjet” in Egyptian), nine deities forming a family through whose genealogy the world was created. A reason this creation myth became so popular is because it is very similar to the way the Greek cosmogony work. According to this myth, in the beginning there was just the Nun, the primordial ocean, the endless dark and lifeless waters. From these waters a mound appeared, and on it appeared the primordial, creator-god Atum (later identified and fused with Ra). Atum, the All-Deity, then gave birth (either through masturbation or by sneezing/spitting) to the deities Shu and Tefnut, the air and th humidity, who mated together to give birth to Nut and Geb, the sky and the earth, who in turn had four children - Osiris, Isis, Seth and Nephthys. (A variation of the myth includes “Horus” as the fifth child, but that’s... a complicated business). So far so good.

But then, you have to confront and compare the Ennead of Heliopolis with another group of gods supposedly responsible for the creation of the world. The Ogdoad of Hermopolis (in Egyptian, “Khemenu”). According to the cosmogony of Hermopolis, before the world existed there were eight deities, four primordial couples each the manifestation of one of the pre-creation elements: Nun and Naunet (primordial waters), Amun and Amaunet (the primordial air or the hidden/secret power), Kuk and Kauket (primordial darkness), Huh and Hauhet (shapelessness or infinity). These eight abstract deities suddenly joined together, gathering their power and essence, and in a great explosion of energy they created the world. From this point forward the texts disagree and split into two traditions. Everybody agrees from one of the first created things the sun arose - but for one group the sun was hatched from an egg placed by the god Thot on a mound coming out of the waters ; while for another group the sun arose from a blooming lotus flower (which was a manifestation of the god Nefertem). 

These are however but two of the numerous cosmogonies of Egypt. Beyond these two stories of groups of gods creating the world, either through their family tree or a cosmic gang-bang, there are also several Egyptian cosmogonies which rather present one lonely creator-god who manifested or shaped the world one way or another. In Memphis for example (Inebu-hedj in Egyptian), it was thought that the world, the gods, the elements and every living being were created by the god Ptah, who conceived all of them in his mind/heart as ideas, and then made them exist by pronouncing their name out loud. This tradition is similar and yet opposing the one of Elephantine, where the primordial creator-god is called “Khnum” and is said to have shaped and modeled physicaly the world, the gods and every living things out of clay. Hopefully, the Egyptian themselves tried to link together and unite those conflicting theogonies into one more cohesive ensemble: for example the Memphis creation myth evolved to include the Ennead, by claiming that Ptah was the secret power behind the manifestation of Atum and the formation of his descendants (Ptah was notably identified with the mound that came out of the Nun before Atum appeared). Another “tie-in” cosmogony would be the one of Thebes (in Egyptian “Waset”): the city had taken as a patron-god the deity Amun, and as it rose into power as a new religious capital/religious center, it took “away” from the Ogdoad ensemble Amun, and claimed that he was creater, vaster and older than the other Ogdoad members. According to the Thebes belief, Amun was THE primordial power and creating force of the universe - while he was part of the Ogdoad, he had created it around him, AND he also was the one who created the Ennead. 

The list could go on and on, but these are the five most common and brought up creation myths when it comes to Ancient Egypt, and they perfectly show how, despite each legend contradicting the others, they still were worked on so that they could eventually be tied and linked together into a vaguely cohesive mythology (if you can close your eyes on minor and secondary unlogical details). 

#egyptian mythology #egyptian gods #the ennead #the ogdoad #ptah #amun #khnum #creation myth