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.