Don't Know Much About Mythology - Kenneth C. Davis [37]
While the specific details of how this Creation actually takes place are obscure, Thoth was credited as having commanded the Creation, and somehow the eight gods he produced were then responsible for the creation of the sun. In a variant of this myth, a lotus blossom arose from the waters, and from this flower, the young sun god emerged, bringing light and life into the cosmos. After this Creation, six of the gods receded from view, and only Amun and Amaunet joined the other gods of Egypt and continued to play an active role in Egyptian life.
A third Creation story focuses on the making of humans—an aspect of the Creation that is less significant in other Egyptian Creation accounts. This story features the god Khnum, an ancient ram-headed creator god who originated in Elephantine, an island in the Nile just above the first cataract at Aswan. In a highly folkloric tale, Khnum made humans by molding people on a potter’s wheel, providing the first real link between gods and humans in Egyptian myth. The depiction of Khnum seated at the potter’s wheel became a popular motif in Egyptian art. Khnum was especially significant because he controlled the Nile’s floodwaters. The inundation of the fields, which produced the grain that allowed Egypt to prosper, was one of the most important aspects of Egyptian life, and Khnum was considered a great fertility god.
The most significant Creation story in ancient Egypt, however, was the one associated with Heliopolis, as Herodotus called it, for it was the City of the Sun (helio is Greek for “sun”). One of the most important locations in ancient Egypt, its ruins are near modern Cairo. Sometime around 3000 BCE, near the time of the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, a Creation account emerged in Heliopolis that became the dominant myth in Egyptian religion and history. This account is prominent in the Pyramid Texts, the collection of hieroglyphic writings found in some of the earliest tombs.
According to the Heliopolis myth, there was the great infinite ocean, described as a primeval being called Nu or Nun. At the beginning of time, the god Atum, “lord of the Heliopolis,” father and ruler of all the gods, emerged from these primeval waters. As the sun god, Atum simply came into being and stood on a raised mound—a symbolic representation of the land that rises out of the receding Nile floodwaters. In other words, the essence of Egypt—the sun and water—were merged into this one god. The mound became known as the benben, a pyramid-shaped elevation on which the sun god stood. In a temple in Heliopolis, there was a rock, possibly a meteorite, which was venerated as the benben stone and was believed to be the solidified semen of Atum. The benben stone, the primeval mound from which creation emerged, is considered the inspiration for both the pyramids and the obelisk.
A god of totality and complete power, Atum immediately began to create other gods. (In later times, Atum was linked with the other major Egyptian sun god, Re or Ra, as Re-Atum. See below.) This is where the story gets tricky, because there are a couple of variations. Clearly, his first act is to masturbate, and by doing so, Atum gives spontaneous birth to his children, the twins Shu and Tefnut. But in a later passage, Atum is said to “swallow his seed” and then “sneeze” and “spit up” these twins. Shu is the god of air, and Tefnut the lion-headed goddess of moisture. With their creation, there now exists the sun, water, and the atmosphere. The Creation goes on from there, until there is a collection of the most significant gods in Egypt—the nine deities known as the