Questions and Answers to history lesson 1 - Ryan

Egyptian Mythology

The Creation of Gods and Humans

Questions:

1.      What is cosmogony?

2.      What features do the various Egyptian creation myths have in common?

3.      According to the Theban creation myth, what force shattered the cosmos’s original quiet, state?

4.      In the Theban cosmogony, what are the two sacred groups of gods that Amun creates, and of which group is he himself a member?

5.      How does the ram-headed god Khnum fashion human beings?

6.      According to the Theban cosmogony, what was the model the first humans used for the cities they built?

Answers:

1.       A cosmogony is a story telling how the cosmos, and the things in it , came into being.

2.       First, they all picture a time before the gods existed, identified variously as chaos, a void or bottomless pit, a dark ocean, or some combination of these.  Sometimes people envisioned the precreation state as a living force and gave it a name; at Heliopolis for instance, they called it Nu (or Nun).  Typically, the cosmogonies also feature a primeval mound of earth, the Ta-tenen, on which a creator god stood and the first city rose.  Many modern experts believe that the pyramids the Egyptians built as tombs were supposed to be symbolic representations of this first hill (although other think the pyramids were meant to represent a sort of stairway to heaven).

3.      Amun’s powerful voice was a blast of sound that signaled the beginning of the first round of creation.

4.      Her creats the Ennead, made up of nine gods, and the Ogdoad, a group of eight gods.  Amun is a member of the Ogdoad. 

5.      He creates them from clay, which he molds on his potter’s wheel.  Then he breathes life into them, allowing them to move, think, talk and so forth.  The idea of humans being created from clay or dirt is a common theme  in the religious myths of many peoples.  For instance, in on e of the ancient Greek creation myths, the god Prometheus fashions humans form clay.  Similarly, in the Judeo-Christian Bible, God makes the first man, Adam, from dust.

6.      Their model was the sacred city of Thebes, constructed by Amun in the center of the primeval mound of creation.

History Lessons - Ryan

The Creation of Gods and Humans   by Don Nardo exerpt from Egyptian Mythology

How the Gods Came To Be

In the beginning, there was only chaos, which stretched, dark and silent, throughout all space and eternity.   Later, people in some parts of Egypt came to see this bottomless abyss containing a limitless ocean of black, lifeless water as a living being.  They called the nothingness Nu and worshipped him as a god.  Whatever one chooses to call this dismal and foreboding state of nonexistence, a time came, long ago, when a dramatic and wonderful event transformed nonexistence into existence.  This was the creation of Amun the First One, the King of the Gods, the maker of all things.  No other god was needed to make him.  Indeed, because he had no father and mother, Amun somehow created himself, in an invisible, secret way that no human being has ever known or will ever discover. 

            As Amun mysteriously sprang into being, the deathly stillness of the cosmos was shattered by his magnificent piercing voice.  This might blast set in motion all the rest of creation.  In some parts of Egypt people believed that in this early stage of his existence Amun to the form of a gigantic goose, the Great Honker.  He certainly went on to assume many other forms, as his will and needs dictated.

            The first of the forms Amun took was that of one part of the Ogdoad, the group of eight gods that later became sacred to the priests at Hermopolis.  These priests claimed that the eight earliest gods (Nu, Naunet, Hey Hauhet, Kek, Kauket, Amun and Amaunet), who had the heads of frogs and serpents, swam through the dark waters of chaos.  By contrast, the priest of Thebes said that first the mighty Amun created the other seven and then joined them as the eighth member of the Ogdoad.

            Next, said the Theban prients, Amun took the form of the first dry land.  On this so-called primeval mound he proceeded to create the Ennead, the group of nine gods that later became sacred to the priests at Heliopolis and Memphis.  These included Atum, Shu, Tefnut, Geb, Nut, Osiris, Seth, Isis and Nephthys.  At this time, Amun also created the ram-headed god Khnum and all the other gods, spirits, and demons that inhabit the sky, earth and Underworld.  In addition, in the center of the primeval mound Amun fashioned the first city – sacred Thebes – where at first many of the gods made their home.

            The Rise of Human, Cities, Animals and Plants

After these stenuous acts of creation, Amun rose into the sky and assumed the shape and features of the life-giving sun (in which form he is often called Amun-Ra).  As he looked down from above, a new phase of creation began, namely that of the earth and the humans that inhabit it.  To complete this task, Amun chose the ram-headed god Khnum, whom the Egyptians, came to call, along with Amun, one of the two Lords of Destiny.  The destiny Khnum controlled was that of the human race.  He proceeded, with Amun’s blessing, to model the first humans on his divine potter’s wheel.

            Khnum began by fashioning the bones from special clay.  Over this inner frame he molded skin, veins carrying blood, and various organs, including those for digestion, breathing and having children.  He gave the bodies of the first humans all the elements and details familiar in human bodies today.  But though the physical forms were complete, they did not yet possess the sparks of life, including movement and thought.  So Khnum breathed into his creations, passing them some of his own life force and thereby animating them. 

            Immediately it became clear that these new creatures Khnum had crated would need someplace to live.  With the aid of Amun on high, Khnum rolled back the dark waters surrounding the primeval nound, thus exposing more dry land.  And on this new land he helped the first people to establish new cities, most of them modeled on the plan of sacred Thebes.  Khnum also populated the new land, which became known as Egypt, with all manner of living beasts, from birds, to fish, to crocodiles, to beetles; and he made tress, crops, and other plants grown n abundance on the face of the earth.  In time, as the humans had their own children and multiplied, other more distant lands became populated.  But Egypt remained the center of the world shaped by Amun and the gods he himself had created.