Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
common thread in that the creation schemes proceeded in stages.
Those stories from the cities of Heliopolis, Hermopolis and Memphis
are the most important. Heliopolis lay north of Cairo on the conflu-
ence of a major divide of the Nile as it begins to widen into its delta,
and its population was held in the grip of a Sun cult. At the beginning,
Nun, the god of the primordial waters and father of the gods, caused a
mound of dry land to emerge from the primordial chaotic water. On the
land stood Atum, who created himself, and then the twins, Telfnut the
goddess of moisture, and Shu the god of air, who became the parents of
Geb the god of the Earth and his sister Nut the goddess of the Sky.
When Shu discovered that the siblings had secretlymarried, he became
angry and with great force separated them. With the assistance of two
ram-headed gods, Shu raised Nut into the sky, and subjugated Geb
beneath his feet, where he lay with his limbs bent - these symbolised
the mountainous undulations of the Earth's crust. Atum was later
considered to be the god of the setting Sun, and Ra, one of the most
important of all Egyptian gods, to be the god of the risen Sun.
From Hermopolis, a city south of Cairo on the western bank of
the Nile now called Matarea, came two creation stories. The first
starts, like that of Heliopolis, with the emergence of land from chaotic
waters. But it then tells of the appearance of an egg that hatched and
yielded the Sun whose rise into the heavens was followed by the
creation of all livingmatter. The second tradition saw the replacement
of the egg with a lotus bud that floated on the surface of the waters.
Horus the Sun god emerged from the opened petals of the lotus, and his
rays radiated throughout the world. The story fromMemphis, which is
just southwest of Cairo on the left bank of the Nile, is rather different,
and simpler than those fromHeliopolis and Hermopolis. Creation was
effected by the creator god Ptah (Figure
1.1
) who in his heart thought
up the concept, and having spoken of it brought the Earth into being.
CHALDEAN AND BABYLONIAN BELIEFS
Chaldea was the ancient name for the area of what is now southern
Iraq, an area enclosed by the great rivers Tigris and Euphrates
